Paris, September20th, 2001

Dear Madam, dear Sir,

You play a decisive role in building the Alliance and co-ordinating the Workshop:

As you know, the Alliance will reach a high point with the World Citizens Assembly at Lille from 2 to 10 December 2001 to which I am delighted to invite you. The practical procedures for your travel and accommodation appear in appendix 1.

The objectives of the Assembly

The Assembly has four objectives:

1)	Bring about, by its very existence, an acceleration and convergence of all the Alliance's geocultural, collegial and topical movements. The Assembly has been used as the basis for harmonising the calendars and methods of the workshops, colleges and local according to the general calendar for 2000-2001. By doing this and thanks to the efficiency of all the co-ordinators, the participants at Lille will have at their disposal proposal booklets from all over the world, from different milieus and dealing with a large number of subjects.
2)	Use the geographic, social and professional diversity of its participants to symbolise the construction of world civil society now in progress. The Assembly provides an arena for dialogue in which milieus and different worlds, which usually ignore each other's existences, start to discover and compare their views and proposals. Contrary to a media oriented approach based on setting the scene for confrontations and disagreements, the World Assembly organises a process via which elements of convergence can be brought to the fore. By doing this, the World Assembly contributes towards inventing new forms of world governance. 
3)	Debate a draft charter for a responsible, plural and united world. Each socio-professional group has formulated considerations on the responsibilities and ethical principles they should adhere to faced with the challenges of the 21st century. Continuing the works that have been carried out over the past years, the Assembly will focus on drawing up a common charter, a draft of a third pillar, beside the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the United Nations Charter, required for establishing international principles.
4)	Identify the major directions of a strategy for change in the 21st century. A great many proposals will be submitted to the participants, who will each contribute their own vision. The Assembly is not intended to approve a common text on strategy, but to identify the major direction of strategies, possible points of convergence and the major issues on which debate and consideration must continue. 

Why resource persons?

As you know, this meeting is not essentially an Assembly of allies but the opportunity to debate the proposals formulated in the framework of the Alliance before a much larger and diversified public.

We have spent much time thinking with other people about how we can solve a contradiction between two needs: on the one hand, the participants have to consider the diversity of world society while, on the other, we have to incorporate in the Assembly all the work carried out in the Alliance over the last seven years.

The contradiction has been solved in the following way:

-	by associating all the co-ordinators of the workshops, colleges and geocultural groups in identifying and choosing the Assembly participants;
-	by inviting all these co-ordinators to the Assembly, with the status of resource person for those unable to obtain the status of participant due to the quotas set per world region and per college (most of the co-ordinators are European or Latin American and are either academics or members of NGOs).

The role of the resource persons 

Naturally, the resource persons will participate in the Assembly and undertake, as will the participants, to be present from 2 to 10 December 2001. Furthermore, they will fulfil a major role of "contact-makers" before, during and after the Assembly:

-	before the Assembly by making contact with the participants interested in their college or workshop. To this end we will send you the first list of participants concerned by your workshop, college or continent and the additional list before the end of October. This will enable you to contact them directly;
-	during the Assembly by introducing the sessions with the presentation of the proposals booklets and charters, by ensuring contacts with the media (supply of content, interviews, making contacts with the participants), by being privileged providers of information to the participants, and by contributing to the summaries. As you know, the scenario proceeds in three steps: workshops mostly focusing on the collegial approach (3 and 4 December 2001); workshops mostly focusing on the topical approach  (5, 7 and 8 December 2001); and workshops mostly focusing on the geocultural approach (9 December). The college co-ordinators will be particularly active in the workshops of the first step, those of the workshops in the second step and the organisers of the Continental Assemblies with the third step.
-	after the Assembly by incorporating the contributions of Lille in the proposals booklets.

Lastly, you can play a crucial role immediately in preparing the media coverage of the Assembly by informing us of the names of journalists to whom press kits should be sent in your name and by making contact with journalists yourself to inform them of the holding of the Assembly and by following the events either at the Assembly itself or remotely. 

A person in the organisation team has been given the specific task of keeping you continuously informed of the progress of the Assembly's preparation, of answering your questions and helping you to make the necessary contacts. 

Kind Regards,

Pierre Calame

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Enclosed: -Information sheet; Visa Letter