Charles Léopold Mayer Foundation

THE OUTLINE OF AN 
AGENDA FOR THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY
Proposal Resulting from the Work of the World Citizens Assembly 
Lille, December 2-10, 2001
Pierre Calame

I / The World Citizens Assembly Produced the Outline of an Agenda for the Twenty-first Century

1.1) Convergences between the work of the Assembly and that of the Alliance are strong enough to warrant the designation of a Common Agenda

Following the World Assembly, we can assert that the main lines of a Common Agenda for the Twenty-first Century were determined. This assertion is based on two findings:

- The twenty "Socioprofessional" Workshops, each including participants of a same socioprofessional sphere, presented comparable priorities, much more similar than could have been imagined.

- The seventeen "Thematic" Workshops organized according to the common priorities identified by the Socioprofessional Workshops produced strategies that cut across all the Workshops.

The Assembly participants had not been selected at random: all of them, within their sphere and in their country, showed concern for the future, and consideration and commitment to the common good. But these selection criteria, clearly stated from the start, are not enough to explain such convergence of concerns.

Another conclusive element is that the Agenda determined by the World Assembly and the one determined by the Proposal Papers drawn up within the framework of the Alliance have many things in common. This is remarkable for two reasons. First, because the geographical and professional diversity of the participants in the World Assembly is much greater than the diversity of the Allies and the authors of the Proposal Papers. Then, because the work of the Assembly was not based on the Proposal Papers, but on the concerns of each of the participants; it is therefore indisputable that the Proposal Papers did not influence in any determining way the Assembly's Agenda. On the other hand, this finding makes it possible, to use the Alliance Proposal Papers as material for further elaboration of the strategies that were merely outlined in Lille.

The facilitation method implemented during the Assembly aimed to identify common concerns rather than to open contradictory debates or to elaborate detailed strategies: at this stage of the construction of a global community, the challenge of democracy is to draw up a Common Agenda, not to stage divergences.

1.2) Dialogue among the various components of the global society is possible, wished for, and productive despite the difficulties it encounters

A first major result of Lille has to do with the urgency, the desire, the interest, and the difficulties of dialogue. In spite of a heavy schedule that left little room for individual exchanges, dialogue in Lille was permanent and gracious. The pleasure of getting to know people from other spheres and regions, in their likenesses and differences, was constantly manifest. The feeling that "the whole world" was there was tangible. After the September 11 events and the ensuing temptation to resort to simplistic, one-sided truths and to be comfortable with ignoring and rejecting those who are different, everyone felt that it was urgent to engage in an authentic dialogue. This did not make the dialogue any easier. The specific interpretation difficulties were no more than the reflection of the deeper difficulty of grasping the words of others without knowing the context and the experience in which such words were rooted. 

As for the attitudes, the rhetoric, and the proposals, the most perceptive cleavage was finally the one that separated participants from the former "capitalist" world and those from the former "Communist" world. It was as if the former idealized forms of socialization, in particular of the economy, which were vividly rejected by the latter in a sort of ideological bout.

The Socioprofessional Workshops provided especially rich teachings. They first showed the great diversity of situations and points of view within a same social or professional sphere, making it impossible to come up with monolithic statements such as "the military think that..." or " farmers think that....." On the other hand, "mixed" workshops such as the one that gathered the jurists and the military showed that convergences in analysis and concerns were by far greater than the divergences.

The Socioprofessional Workshops further showed the difficulty of every socioprofessional sphere to go beyond its own sectoral concerns and to acknowledge that their own problems were not necessarily the most urgent ones. But, in the end, all the Socioprofessional Networks played the game and expressed themselves, as they were invited to, on the set of challenges of our societies are facing: the desire for dialogue and sharing was stronger than the tendency to remain within a corporatist fold.

The classic production of oppositions might also have been expected: unions versus Business Leaders, community activists versus local elected officials, or North versus South and Asia versus West. This did not happen. The fact that the participants had been invited in their personal capacity even though most of them were leaders of social movements, the concern for seeking convergences, every socioprofessional sphere's statement of the orientations for the necessary changes regardless of the others' formulations, all of this contributed to a peaceful dialogue—which may even have been disturbing for some participants or observers who were more inclined to expect confrontation—and this can be seen as the sign of an authentic dialogue.

1.3) The Agenda for the Twenty-first Century is simple: a "common direction" for the world is progressively taking shape

The convergence of the concerns, and even of the proposals, of the different Socioprofessional Workshops suggests that the Agenda for the Twenty-first Century is simpler than could have been imagined, that it is already present, in some form or another, in people's minds. It constitutes a "common direction" for the world that is universally accessible because it is based on simple, shared findings on globalization:

- the irreversible interdependence of human societies;

- the need to reconcile the unity of humankind and the planet on the one hand, and the diversity of cultures, opinions, and conditions on the other;

- the incompatibility of the present development model and systems of thought with the preservation of the vital balances of the biosphere;

- a frantic merchandization of goods, services, knowledge, and human relations, and an exclusive monetarization of development, which leads into a dead end;

- the crisis of values and references ensuing from these evolutions;

- the loss of credibility and relevance of traditional public institutions;

- the concentration of power and wealth, which makes poverty a scandal and undermines the checks and balances that are indispensable for a healthy democracy;

- the chronic lagging of governance, that is, of the political and social regulation systems, behind the new realities and the new social, economic, and environmental challenges.

If the "Agenda for the Twenty-first Century" is rarely expressed, it is not because it is complex, out of reach, or the result of sophisticated thinking; it is rather because it breaks with traditional systems of thought (in particular those that today are the basis of science, education, the economy, and politics), because it involves a limitation of everyone's freedom, and because it counters the states' will for power.

This is why it is so important to have found that such an Agenda is already carried by the people themselves, and that it is revealed as soon as they enter into dialogue. It involves, all at the same time, a "new border," the constitution of a democratic global community, and the acceptance of "new limits." This new border is not a vague idealistic dream; it is a concrete requirement for our survival.

1.4) The Agenda was built in several stages

The Assembly took place in three stages, each corresponding to a type of workshop: a "socioprofessional" stage, with the constitution of workshops per social or professional sphere; a "thematic" stage; and a "geographical" stage.

The Common Agenda is the result of the first two stages. To determine the common concerns transparently and to show the links among these concerns, we systematically used a "mapping" method that had been designed to work for the needs of the Alliance.

How could we, indeed, highlight the links among the different challenges of the contemporary world? How could we determine, from a multitude of proposals, a few common guidelines that would be able to federate them? This was a classic problem of governance: it was necessary to set up specialized bodies to deal with sectoral problems while not losing sight of the overall picture.

Right from the start, the Alliance had stated the "simultaneous" nature of the strategies for change and the need to put ethical, technical, social, economic, political, and ecological issues together. But it nonetheless had to organize the collective work into geographical, socioprofessional, and thematic "workshops." These produced more than 1,500 proposals, which it was then necessary to summarize. The mapped presentation of the proposals made it possible to visualize the diversity of the proposals, to reveal the diversity of the points of view on a same subject, then to determine the common guidelines.

The same method was used at the World Assembly and provided the basic material of the present summary. The sequence was the following:

0.	Every participant in the Socioprofessional Workshops expressed their own proposals for change.
1.	The grouping of these proposals within every workshop made it possible to establish "Socioprofessional Workshop mappings," that is, the workshop's proposals distributed according to the different sectors of human activity.
2.	This made it possible to deduce the "reversed" socioprofessional mappings that showed the proposals of the different Socioprofessional Workshops in a same sector and highlighted the common centers of interest and convergences.
3.	Analysis of these convergences made it possible to deduce seventeen common guidelines. Each gave birth to a "Thematic Workshop," characterized at the start by its thematic mapping, showing which workshops produced the proposals grouped around the guideline.
4.	Finally, every Thematic Workshop in turn drew up proposals grouped around a few main strategic lines. Each of these lines was the subject of a thematic strategy mapping.

The following analysis is based on the analysis of the "reversed" socioprofessional mappings (Ch. II), then on the analysis of the thematic mappings (Ch. III), finally on the analysis of the thematic strategy mappings (Ch. IV). The summary is built on these bases (Ch. V).

This method is laborious because it involves redundancies. On the other hand, its merits are transparency and fidelity to the progress of the Assembly itself.

II / Comparing the Work of the Different Socioprofessional Workshops Reveals a Common Hierarchy of Concerns (Analysis of the "Reversed" Socioprofessional Mappings)

The first day, the twenty Socioprofessional Workshops were each asked to express the priorities of change. Two rules were proposed. First, each participant assigned their own priorities of change to one the four "thematic cores": "representations," "economy and society," "governance," and " relations between humankind and the rest of the biosphere." Then the participants' proposals were grouped together in order to limit the number of proposals of every workshop to three or four per thematic core.

Once this work was accomplished, the organizing team ventilated the proposals into five sectors within every thematic core. Then mappings for each sector were worked out. They made it possible to visualize the proposals of the twenty workshops for a given sector. This gave a picture of the sectors by order of importance. 

2.1) The three sectors brought up by all the Socioprofessional Networks were: ethics, the relationship between humankind and the biosphere, and global governance.

	a) statement of common values

The essential values that were determined by the World Assembly are the same as those that were determined by the work of the Alliance: responsibility is the central value, followed by respect of dignity, tolerance, and opening to others, by solidarity and the capacity to cooperate, and by the appreciation of being rather than of having. The importance granted to values, in particular to responsibility, explains the consensus that came out of the Assembly in favor of the Charter of Human Responsibilities.

The subsequent work of the Assembly clearly showed that these values were at the heart of most strategies for change, whether they were dealing with reforming the systems of production, promoting new ways of teaching and doing research, setting up a more transparent and more participatory democracy, instituting new forms of partnership, preserving the ecosystems, or creating the conditions for peace.

The proposals also showed that ethics is not only seen as an individual issue. There is a continuity between the individual and collective dimensions, between desire and legal obligation. "Give meaning to individual and collective life," "refuse privatization of the living world," "define the responsibilities of scientists," "promote the social responsibility of companies and governments," "set out another vision of the economy, which is ethical, responsible and socially responsible," "have honest governments": in all these formulations we move from individual conditions to the transmission of values by society, then to the foundations of the social contract, then to ways of assessing behavior, and finally to rules for control and rules of law. This continuity became especially visible in reference to governance: its legitimacy can only be drawn from an ethical core and this ethical core must be common to all. To be fully legitimate, governing leaders themselves have to exercise these virtues individually. The world can only function if individual desire, social prestige, and systems of obligations are mutually reinforced. This is why the strategies for change are found at every level simultaneously. It is neither possible to wait for each person's free endorsement of each of these values before undertaking changes in the other fields, nor to simply impose compliance with these values through a system of rules "from the top," which would come down to imposing a totalitarian order.

It is also easy to understand in what way the values thus set out respond to the challenges of the contemporary world, such as: the social prestige linked to enrichment, which encourages corruption; the freedom to undertake or to do research, whatever the consequences for others; domination and concentration of power, which come with the negation of differences; individualism and the consumption society, which prevail over former values of solidarity.

	b) Management of the relations between humankind and the rest of the biosphere

The second sector elected by the Socioprofessional Workshops had to do with the ecosystems. This general sector can be connected with what was said in more detail on energy (eleven workshops), water (nine workshops), soil (seven workshops), air (six workshops). Such attention obviously reflects awareness of the potentially irreversible deterioration of the biosphere. There is a shared awareness of the twofold interdependence: among human beings; between humankind and the biosphere. 

The proposals of the different workshops related to the ecosystems go, as for values, from individual awareness to the setting up of legal systems. statements ranged from "the whole word is one thing" (Business Leaders) and "live and share a spirituality in harmony with nature" (Interreligious Socioprofessional Network) to "consider as crimes against humankind the irreversible deterioration of the environment, the only objective of which is market economy" (Women). In between, we had: "develop a socially responsible awareness" (The Military and Jurists), "incorporate an environmental education program in every career path" (Teachers and Academics), "require reports made by independent companies" (Shareholders and Financiers), "change the management of the biosphere" (Scientists). 

The question of the relationship to the biosphere always included a twofold dimension: on the one hand, a new attitude ("nature should not be considered as a resource but as a part of ourselves," stated the Inhabitants) and on the other, new forms of protection and equity in the access to resources: "enforce the law, and ensure equity in the access to and the consumption of resources," stated the Political Leaders; "reform access to maritime resources to make them favorable to traditional fishing," stated the Fishworkers; "oppose the merchandization of procreation," stated the Academics. These are therefore the two dimensions, protection and equity, which refer to the two values of responsibility and solidarity, on which to build individual and collective responses, ranging from attitudes to management systems, then from management systems to rules of law.

c) Setting up a democratic global governance

The third elected sector had to do with global governance. Neither the regulations established at the scale of states nor the reinforcement of relations among states were judged to be enough to face the challenges, and this is probably why this topic was judged to be a priority. 

The proposals of the different workshops were complementary. A lot of them were enhanced and further elaborated during the Thematic Workshops and we will thus return to them, but the contributions of the Socioprofessional Workshops already provided the outlines of a vast program. Two formulations, which came from very different socioprofessional spheres, defined its general contours. "A world order enabling a reliable, responsible, participatory, democratic, plural, and tolerant governance, with social justice," stated the Inhabitants. "A democratic, equitable global governance, respectful of plurality, at the scale of globalization and responding to the common challenges," stated the International Civil Servants. This practically identical formulation provided by very different spheres is quite striking.

There was no proposal to return to sovereign states: the magnitude of interdependencies makes this an unrealistic hypothesis. The global community can only move forward. Unilateralism, such as that currently exercised by the USA, is also a dead end. Nonetheless, the proposals do not suggest the formation of a supranational centralized power. Rather, they suggest combining of a set of systems that are more likely to guarantee pluralism, efficiency, and the freedom of all peoples. Given that the central challenge is to reconcile unity and diversity, the Thematic Workshops would underscore the articulation between the different levels of governance. At the stage of the Socioprofessional Workshops, the concerns that emerged were the definition of a "common good" (Business Leaders) and the elaboration of a new "global contract" (Scientists), which implies "refocusing global governance on ethical values." (Youth). Hence, it is necessary to reform the present multilateral institutions in the direction of more democracy (Political Leaders), a broader view (consideration of the effects of the WTO on agriculture and fishing, said the Fishworkers), a more equitable status for the poor countries (Business Leaders, The Military and Jurists) and a better-assumed responsibility of the rich countries (Local Elected Officials). 

This global governance cannot be of an exclusively public nature. "It is based on participation and active dialogue among the different social forces," stated the Inhabitants. It is necessary to "have companies participate in global governance," stressed the Political Leaders. "NGOs must participate in national and international political decisions," stated the NGOs. And, significantly, the Local Elected Officials recommended both a "global economic governance" and the creation of a "network of cities and territories," to be able to be actors in these global regulations. Private entities were invited to "develop forms of assessment that take social data into account" (Shareholders and Financiers).

2.2) Three other sectors were very frequently mentioned: citizenship, education, and forms of production and plurality of economic models

a) The citizenship mentioned by the seventeen workshops associated, at every level, responsibility with exercising rights

Citizenship, in the proposals, appears as the corollary of responsibility: to be a citizen is less to benefit from rights than to be put in a position to play a role, exercise a responsibility, in the management of the community. The idea of citizenship therefore appears above all as the possibility and the duty to participate in decisions and to be organized collectively to be able to do so. This is the meaning of the English term "empowerment": to be in the capacity of exercising a responsibility. 

Citizenship, thus understood, is therefore indivisible: it is in no way limited to the exercise of political rights within a representative democracy. It is the fruit of learning, which of course is offered at school but also in all professional and social situations. The Teachers Socioprofessional Network insisted on the fact that to succeed in educating people to be citizens it is necessary to begin with "developing a form of participatory management of teaching at the level of the school, the curricula, and educational policies," and with "designing an education that forms citizens who have a critical perspective rather than technicians of knowledge." The Military deemed that it was necessary to "promote a democratic and transparent governance, including in the army." Local Elected Officials and Inhabitants agreed that it was necessary to search for the means and instruments "for a real participation of inhabitants in the conception and elaboration of public policies." Business Leaders stressed the need to "promote an active participation" and, to do so, to learn to "listen, dialogue, negotiate, decide." Health Workers estimated that it was necessary to "give citizens a decision-making right in health policies." 

The rhetoric on participatory democracy became, in the nineties, a true figure of style, a necessary conclusion of all international conferences. This shows that in the twenty-first century, the challenges of society will not be met without new forms of partnership between the different social actors. This will only be possible with deep transformations at the level of the citizens themselves and at the level of the different institutions; as well as with new instruments and new forms of organization.

b) Education is a privileged means for promoting a change of attitude

The importance granted to education obviously ensues from the importance granted in the Agenda for the Twenty-first Century to the changes of attitude, and to the evolution of ethical priorities and of the forms of management. Education is commanded to play a transformation role but, in order to play it, education systems must first be reformed and this is what makes the whole exercise difficult. Once again, in the proposals on education by the different Socioprofessional Networks, we find the twofold dimension previously found with regard to the biosphere: on the one hand, a change of the content, and on the other equity of access.

A change of the content: "an education to being, preparing for the challenges of the twenty-first century," to take up the expression of the International Civil Servants and Public Institutions.

Indeed, education must above all promote attitudes and not to be limited to the accumulation of technical knowledge. "Develop children's creativeness" (Inhabitants), "educate in ethical values encouraging tolerance and opening to others" (Religious Leaders and Philosophers); "a balanced system based on cultural exchanges, values with a universal vision, training of responsible and competent individuals" (Youth); "multiply schools of peace," (The Military); "educate for sustainability and peace" (Inhabitants); "educate for citizenship and responsibility," (Inhabitants); "Education to citizenship," (NGOs).
It must also, through its curricula and forms of organization, prepare for a more global approach: "integrated knowledge in cross-disciplinary work" (Teachers); "educational organization enabling a balance between formal and informal relations and radication in the context" (Youth); "education that is respectful of history and of the environment," (Local Elected Officials).

Next to the change of content, equality of access. "School for all" and "education throughout life" remain vivid concerns, mentioned in slightly different forms by many workshops: "promote a socially responsible education for all" (The Military and Jurists); "a free, non-religious education for all" (Inhabitants); "reinforce the systems of access by girls and women to education" (Women); "access to education at all times of life" (Unionists), and so on.

c) A plural economy and sustainable forms of production

The proposals relative to the system of production were not studied in depth by the Socioprofessional Workshops, but they are nevertheless revealing of the reactions that are coming to light everywhere with regard to a market economy dominated internationally by large companies characterized by: the merchandization of the world; the hegemony of the world system vis-à-vis local economies; the absence of international control, and finally the irresponsibility of companies with regard to the final impact of their action.

This points to three lines of change:

- the need to re-found the sphere of public action in light of the definition of the common good: "free resources and vital goods," stated the Inhabitants; "oppose the merchandization of education," "move from a consumerist approach to teaching for a collective construction of knowledge," stated the Inhabitants; 

- the affirmation and exercise of responsibility by producers and consumers: "change the behavior of consumers and companies" (NGOs); "make banks responsible for the financial consequences of their actions." (Shareholders and Financiers);

- subsidiarity and plurality in the economic system: recognize the legitimacy of a local approach, founded on local needs and capacities. International trade and the market economy should be a complement to, not a substitution for the local approach. This supposes: that this "economic subsidiarity," through an analogy with political subsidiarity, not be made impossible by international trade agreements; that the access to financial resources not be reserved for the most powerful; finally, that diversity in the forms of economy and production be promoted for the same reason as for all other forms of diversity, environmental and cultural. "Develop and reinforce local economies," (Inhabitants); "allow access to economic initiatives," (Business Leaders); "develop a social approach to the economy" (Jurists and The Military); "access of women to financial resources," (Women); "diversify agricultural models," (Farmers) and "limit the exploitation of the seas by industrial fishing," (Fishworkers); "respond to the epidemiological needs expressed by the population," (Health Workers); "an equitable and socially responsible economy" (Local Elected Officials): these are some concrete illustrations of the idea of subsidiarity and plurality.

2.3) The third level of the Agenda provides a set of concerns derived from the main priorities

- The fight against poverty

- Organization of trade flows in conformity with the objectives of equity, solidarity, subsidiarity, and plurality

- A democratized science, privileging suitability to local needs and the preservation of the biosphere

- statement of a new social contract to serve as the foundation for the cohesion of societies

- Extension and implementation of rights.

These topics would be developed in the Thematic Workshops.

III / Comparison of the Proposals of the Socioprofessional Networks and the Work of the Alliance Makes it Possible to Determine Seven Strategies for Change (Analysis of the Thematic Mappings)

The most difficult methodological challenge of the Assembly, as a prefiguration of a Parliament of the Planet, was not to fix the agenda of the thematic discussions in advance, but to deduce it from the work of the Socioprofessional Workshops. This is why the organizing team only had a few hours, once the different "socioprofessional mappings" were established, to determine the centers of common interest that were each to be the object of a Thematic Workshop. 

To ensure the socioprofessional plurality of the thematic discussions, the participants of every Socioprofessional Workshop were redistributed among the different Thematic Workshops. By breaking a natural logic according to which everyone would have gone on to discuss the topics on which they were most competent, the Assembly certainly lost in terms of depth. On the other hand, it gained in terms of relevance by resisting the juxtaposition of specialized approaches.

Analysis of the "socioprofessional mappings" reinforced the polarization of the Agenda for the Twenty-first Century around a number of topics. For example, everything that dealt with the preservation of the biosphere, energy, water, soil, air, and the ecosystems was broken down mainly into two sets of strategies: those aiming to develop new systems of agricultural and industrial production; those aiming to generate, at different scales, in particular at the global scale, new forms of relations between societies and their environment, new forms of solidarity, and new regulations. As for the management of financial exchanges or flows, it fell under the governance theme.

Seventeen working themes were identified on the basis of this analysis of the socioprofessional mappings. They were as follows.

3.1) The first chapter was dedicated to the emergence of a common ethical core. It comprised three themes:

- theme 1: an ethics of responsibility;

- theme 2: reconciling unity and diversity; reconciling globalization with the preservation of cultural identity, respect of autonomy, and diversity;

- theme 3: promoting tolerance and respect among cultures.

The very statement of the themes clearly illustrates what had been previously revealed by the Socioprofessional Workshops: the values that emerge are related both to individual attitudes - a sense of responsibility, respect of others - and to the rules of life in society, therefore to governance - in particular the translation of responsibility into law and concrete methods for the conciliation of interdependence and autonomy, and of unity and diversity.

3.2) The second chapter was dedicated to the development and circulation of information, of knowledge and of attitudes responding to the present challenges of societies. It also comprised three themes:

- theme 4: science and technology at the service of sustainable development;

- theme 5: education for all, preparing people and societies to meet the challenges of the twenty-first century;

- theme 6: free media, at the service of understanding of the world, democratic checks and balances, and socially responsible action.

In the three cases, the point is to reorient the existing institutions and systems that have been constituted throughout the centuries and have been marked these past decades by a twofold mechanism of standardization and subordination to a market rationale. Today, they are participating in the elaboration and circulation of a single model of thought. The challenge is to turn them, instead, into transformation tools that make it possible to recognize, bring out, and transmit approaches that are better adapted to the challenges of the twenty-first century.

3.3) The third chapter was dedicated to the emergence of alternatives in the area of production of goods and services, at the service of the whole of society and the preservation of the biosphere. It comprised two themes:

- theme 7, "alternative systems of production and consumption in view of our limited resources and fragile environment," stresses the technical systems of production and trade;

- theme 9, "solidarity and economic alternatives from the local to the global level," stresses economic subsidiarity - that is, the legitimacy of local control over production and trade - and promotion, on the international scale, of an economy that is more human, more socially responsible, and more rooted in societies.

All the other themes, that is, nine out of seventeen, more than half, dealt with the different aspects of governance from the local to the global level. It is remarkable to observe that the strategic lines resulting from the work of the Alliance placed just as much importance on governance issues.

Thus we can safely say that the Agenda for the Twenty-first Century boils down to one sentence: pre-eminence of the ethical and the political over the technical and the economic, of the end over the means, after a twentieth century in which, progressively, the means for progress, science, and the market, became ends in themselves. Putting science and the market in the right place, subordinating the means to the ends and instrumental reason to wisdom, recognizing that the art of solving problems is worthless if the problems are not properly identified, putting harmony among men and with nature before the simple accumulation of material goods: such were all different ways of expressing this pre-eminence of the ethical and the political.

But the diversity of the questions and the proposals relative to governance also show the complexity of the subject. Pre-eminence of the political does not only mean pre-eminence of the democratic expression of citizens' will. It also and especially means the development of methods, techniques, concepts, and institutions adapted to the realities of a complex society, capable of reconciling local autonomy and global coherence, and unity and diversity. This elaboration of an ideology, principles, and practices and the emergence of a consensus on them will be, beyond question, one of the main affairs of the twenty-first century.

The nine themes resulting from the Socioprofessional Workshops concerning governance can themselves be broken down into four chapters, numbered from four to seven, identical to those ensuing from the work of the Alliance.

3.4) The fourth chapter was dedicated to the establishment, at every level, from the local to the global, of a governance that is legitimate, democratic, and efficient. It comprised three themes:

- theme 8, "a local development taking full account of the initiatives and cultures of all," stresses the central position of the local approach in governance, especially in a globalized system. It associates political, economic, and cultural subsidiarity;

- theme 13, "transparency, responsibility, and participation at every level of governance," starts from the observation that democracy is certainly learned at a local level but makes no sense unless citizens and the different social actors assume their responsibilities at every level and unless transparency, respect of the rules, the accountability of those in government, and partnership and checks and balances also exist at the other levels, all the way through to the global level;

- theme 15, "reforming the state," recognizes the central role of a "solidarity building" state, provided that it is reformed and given its proper place in cooperation with the other levels of governance, from the local to the global.

3.5) The fifth chapter was dedicated to the international organization of social actors and to the construction, on the basis of a clear distribution of roles, of partnerships among actors and with public authorities. It comprised two themes:

- theme 11, "organizing dialogue among the different sectors of society for the construction of the peace," reflects the significant number of Socioprofessional Workshops that underscored the construction of peace. Peace is global, it does not differentiate the individual and the community or domestic violence and war. "Peace covers all aspects of social life, it is not just the absence of conflict," specified The Military and Jurists Workshop. Hence, peace keeping is not the exclusive business of states. It involves, as a lot of other aspects of governance, the commitment of every actor, at every level;

- the importance of theme 14, "private-public, delimitation, role sharing, regulations, and partnerships," had already turned up in the proposals of the Socioprofessional Workshops on Global Governance. It includes two dimensions: a new delimitation, therefore new foundations, of the "public good," which must not be submitted to privatization and merchandization, in the name of equity and in the name of preservation; a partnership approach, the major function of governance being to organize social relationships for the production of this public good.

3.6) The sixth chapter was dedicated to the balance of governance mechanisms for the benefit of the weakest social groups or countries so they may participate in the world, truly exercise their rights, and be full-fledged citizens.

It comprises two themes, which are the two sides of this exigency: on the one hand, the capacity of people and social groups to demand, conquer and exercise their rights; on the other, the organization of different forms of solidarity, in particular international ones, without which the expression of rights would remain merely theoretical. Rights, responsibilities, and different forms of solidarity are the three tips of a triangle, each being dependent on the other two;

- theme 10, "promoting political, economic, cultural, and social rights at the service of dignity," includes proposals resulting from fifteen Socioprofessional Workshops. It has two main features: it places the accent on the equality of rights - young people's, women's, those of the poorest populations; it broadens the concept of right to the right, for instance, of farmers to use their own resources, to the right of consumers to know what they eat;

- theme 16, "globalization, solidarity, access to resources; new North-South relations," places the accent on the redistribution of financial resources (repayment of the debt, access to credit), on the need of a global contract to meet the major challenges, and on the effective participation of the poorest countries in global governance.

3.7) The seventh chapter was dedicated to the establishment, in the light of the new challenges humankind is facing, in particular those regarding the protection and the management of the biosphere, of new public regulations designed to oppose the exclusive domination of market relationships. It comprises two themes:

- theme 12, "governance and the environment, the institutional, political, and legal means for the management of the relations between societies and their environment," cuts across the concerns related to the relations with the biosphere and those related to governance. The evolution of attitudes and mentalities is not enough. Public action is needed to transform education, to set up the means for management, to watch over the application of rules, to define the administration of, access to, and sharing of resources, to build information systems, to design forms of learning, and to delimit and manage the public sector,;

- theme 17, "global governance: world economy, multinational companies, and new regulations" highlights the existing discrepancy between the internationalization of the economic actors and political regulations, the majority of which are national.

IV/ Contribution of the Thematic Workshops (Analysis of Thematic Strategy Mappings): the Interdependence of Strategies

Each Thematic Workshop, with participants coming from all social and professional sectors, was in charge of discussing in depth one of the seventeen priority themes identified during the first stage. Thus, in principle, each participant was the spokesman of the reflections of their own socioprofessional sphere on the theme of their workshop. Each workshop was also in charge of grouping its proposals around a few main strategy lines, thereby generating thematic strategy mappings.

By examining these "mappings," one can detect many points of intersection among the different themes. This indicates that future changes are interrelated: ethics shows the way for education, science, the media, economy, and governance; the media are not only expected to ensure cultural plurality, but also to promote production and consumer alternatives or to control government officials; a sustainable management of relations between humankind and the biosphere involves ethical, educational, scientific, and governance aspects at various levels, etc. 

These mappings also revealed the limitations of the approach implemented at the Assembly. The strategic lines identified by the workshops are often only indirectly related to the theme of the workshop. Furthermore, their own proposals were heterogeneous and did not always really contribute to a deeper understanding of the theme. Such limitations were due to the very nature of the Assembly. Thematic Workshops were defined by their heading and not by their content: each Workshop could therefore freely interpret its theme. Discussions in Thematic Workshops were more improvised than those that took place in Socioprofessional Networks, since workshop themes were not planned beforehand. Participants from different social and professional backgrounds were scattered throughout different Thematic Workshops. This offered a great advantage: it gave rise to dialogue among these sectors. It also encouraged certain participants to discuss themes that did not correspond to their priority centers of interest. Everyone accepted the rules of the game and showed a great deal of good will, but of course each person wanted to talk about their own main preoccupations.

These observations on the limits of our approach do not diminish the relevance of the proposals generated in the framework of the Thematic Workshops: in the end, the proposals submitted by the Thematic Workshops reflect what the participants had in mind and wished to share with other people; thus, the combination of these concerns can help us enhance and define the Agenda more precisely.

The following text studies the Thematic Workshops classified in seven chapters, as in the previous chapter, and highlights the points of intersection revealed by an analysis of the thematic strategy mappings.

4.1 - Chapter 1: The emergence of a common ethical core (Themes 1, 2 and 3)

Themes 2 ("harmonizing unity and diversity") and 3 ("promoting tolerance and respect among cultures") dealt concretely with very similar issues. Thus, the proposals of the first three workshops revolved around two main lines: responsibility and respect of diversity.

Responsibility applies to all sectors of human activity. As a matter of fact, the participants in the Workshop entitled "ethics of responsibility" classified their proposals according to the four thematic workgroups that had been defined by the Alliance: responsibility in the relations between humankind and the biosphere (environmental ethics); responsibility in governance; responsibility in economy and society; responsibility in asserting, spreading, and implementing common values. 

To respect diversity you need to devote particular attention to cross-cultural dialogue. Initiating a relationship with others, carrying out a cross-cultural dialogue are part of everyone's responsibility. But discovering others and establishing a harmonious coexistence with different cultures imply specific efforts: at the level of education and of the media, given that people cannot understand other cultures if these cultures do not receive a fair public presentation; at the level of governance, given that one must create institutional and political regulatory procedures that allow cultural diversity to become an advantage for the community and not a threat to its cohesion. 

4.2 - Chapter 2: Developing and circulating information, knowledge and attitudes (Themes 4, 5 and 6)

The discussions on science (Workshop 4), education (Workshop 5) and the media (Workshop 6) were systematically divided into three main ideas. Science must: become rooted in local contexts; be a public good; stress a global approach to relations with the biosphere. Education must be: a common good accessible to all; a means of understanding the complexity and the relations between different aspects of the world, between the living world and things; a place where ethical values are transmitted. The media must: resist the current process of concentration of power and open up to alternative approaches; enhance their local roots; play a major role in building the checks and balances that are necessary to democracy.

A comparison between the three themes reveals a few constants.

First constant: the relevance of the local dimension, of local approaches to science and education, as well as to the media. Since relations -- between societies and their environment, between ethics and the economy, between the economy and governance -- are essential, one cannot merely juxtapose knowledge, teachings, and information. These aspects must be interrelated, and adapted to concrete situations and specific contexts. Building local approaches, with the help of the media, does not mean denying globalization. Such approaches are necessary if we want globalization to be a unified construction, based on solidarity -- and not a blind process.

Second constant: an assertion of the notion of public good. "The world is not a commodity." This holds particularly true for science, education, and information. By invading these realms, the market is trespassing the limits of its competence and legitimacy.

Third constant: ethics is not a "separate" question, reserved for private reflections. The issue of objectives -- for what purpose and for whom is research conducted, are teachings delivered, is information transmitted -- is more important that the issue of means and resources. Responsibility concerns simultaneously the action -- the researcher's, the teacher's, the journalist's -- and the message: the message has no meaning if the person who transmits it does not incarnate it. 

Fourth constant: the responsibility of all actors is expressed by their will and ability to resist merchandization, by their independence from the concentration of power, and their lucidity in relation to monolithic thinking.

4.3 - Chapter 3: The emergence of alternative approaches in the production and consumption of goods and services (Themes 7 and 9)

Workshop 7 ("systems of production") identified two main lines: the promotion of sustainable agricultural and food-processing systems; the promotion of industrial ecology, that is, a new approach to relations between industrial activities.

Workshop 9 ("solidarity and economic alternatives") stressed the promotion, on an international scale, of "economy in solidarity" experiences which are still often local and marginal.

A comparison of the different themes discussed in these two workshops reveals a few constants.

First constant: the emergence of a counter-model that promotes local coherence. The current prevailing idea in our societies is that a specialization of activities and realms is necessary to ensure development and economic progress and that science should become a commodity to ensure scientific progress. This idea is showing its limits and its perverse effects. Natural resources can only be managed through a local and integrated approach that considers human activities in their environment. The ecosystems that we know today are not natural ecosystems. They include human activities. Therefore, the twenty-first century will rely on ways of thinking and forms of organization closer to those of the pre-industrial period -- when the maintenance of the local social and economical system was a necessity for survival. On the contrary, during the industrial period, societies have reasoned as if natural resources were infinite or replaceable. Thus, by recalling the value of "traditional wisdom, knowledge, and methods" we are not indulging in a nostalgic evocation of the past, we are stating that in those days, people faced problems of a similar nature as those of the twenty-first century and that it would be criminal to ignore their contributions.

Second constant: the development of this counter-model implies combined actions of very different natures, because the current model has shaped prevailing ways of thinking and institutions -- and these patterns resist change. Educational and public awareness campaigns, legal regulations to increase the responsibility of actors in relation to the impacts of their behavior, tax regulations to reduce the consumption of resources, the promotion of new production and consumer models are mutually necessary. "Counter-model" does not mean "counter-society," as if "pure" people could isolate themselves from a society considered as "corrupt" or "non sustainable." The question is to gradually transform society, starting from a lucid approach to its challenges.

Third constant: the search for new links between local and global levels. These links should provide a framework allowing the principle of active subsidiarity (which originated in the political field) to extend into the economic field. The search for stronger coherence at a local level does not mean that you remain confined to that level, but that you are looking for a new relation between the local and global level. And this involves, first of all, that experiences and actors should be networked.

4.4 - Chapter 4: A legitimate, democratic and efficient governance from the local to the global level (Themes 8, 13 and 15)

The participants in Workshop 8 ("a local development promoting initiatives by all people") stated the four conditions of a true partnership between public authorities and other social actors: social actors should organize independently to remain exempt from clientele dependency; they should have access to proper information and training; political leaders should adopt new attitudes; appropriate methods should be developed to foster the generalization of the co-production of public policies. Participants also underscored that these new approaches ought to allow people to define and to conduct more global, more integrated policies. Participatory democracy and the definition of integrated policies are two indispensable steps towards a legitimate and efficient governance. None of these two aspects is sufficient alone.

However the participants in Workshop 8 did not wish to limit their discussions to the issue of a local approach: they stated that partnerships with social actors should necessarily imply new forms of coordination between local, national, and international forms of coordination. Local experiences must be exchanged, social actors must organize on an international level.

The participants in Workshop 15 ("reforming the state") adopted the same attitude and refused to be restricted by the formal wording of their theme. They defined three strategic lines: "decentralization and reinforcing local powers"; "the state as a builder of solidarity"; "world citizenship." They consider that the state retains, in the twenty-first century, a major role in redistributing wealth, in financing and organizing basic public services, and in struggling against poverty and discrimination. But this is just one level among other levels of governance, and cannot be separated from what is happening "at the bottom" (at the local level) and "at the top" (at the regional and global level).

The participants in Workshop 13 were commissioned to discuss the "promotion of responsibility and participation at all levels of governance." In fact, they focused on themes very close to those discussed by the Workshops stated above: the organization of society and the evolution of public institutions are inseparable; the strengthening of society's capacity to intervene and control, and the exercise of citizenship take place simultaneously at every level. This Workshop highlighted two themes: the role of the media, with a proposal to set up a World Alliance of Alternative Media, and the struggle against corruption. This struggle also needs an integrated action, from the local to the global level, in order to control financial transactions, the financing of political parties, and to allow public authorities to take legal action against the corrupters and the corrupted on an international scale.

Thus, these three workshops can be classified together. Their common central issue is the relation between the local and the global level .

4.5 - Chapter 5: The international organization of social actors and partnerships (Themes 11 and 14)

The importance of organizing social actors was already acknowledged in other workshops.

Workshop 11 focused more specifically on the dialogue between social actors to build peace. It emphasized four dimensions. First of all, peace must be made desirable. It must, as this Workshop puts it, "become a dynamic and impassioned adventure" in a world that promotes competition and confrontation. As the participants noted, the image of the hero currently conveyed by the media is the warrior rather than the peace-builder. Furthermore, a partnership requires cooperation and implies a different, non-confrontational cultural attitude. Cooperative attitudes and non-violent management of conflicts and differences should be promoted, in particular through education. Public institutions, whether local or global, must be open to partnerships. Last but not least, social actors must organize to be able to become full-fledged partners at different levels: "Reinforce social movements as agents of non-violent social change," noted the Workshop. 

Workshop 14 was more specifically devoted to the "definition and sharing of roles between the private and public sectors." First, according to the participants, a new sharing of their respective functions does not entail that one seeks to blur public responsibilities and prerogatives. "Master, regulate, share" are the key words. A partnership approach does not seek to diminish political responsibilities, it merely proposes to put them to a different use, by organizing cooperation among various actors rather than imposing administrative forms of management of the public good. This approach unfolds through two stages: first by opposing the privatization of common goods; then, by learning to manage these goods in a cooperative way.

4.6 - Chapter 6: Governance protects the rights and interests of the weaker citizens (Themes 10 and 16)

Workshop 10, dedicated to the issue of rights, distinguished political, economic, and cultural rights. It is not enough, its participants recall, to acquire political rights, one must also have the means to exercise these rights and this does not just involve a direct, face to face, relationship between isolated individuals and public authorities. Thus, this Workshop also insisted on the importance of exchange networks, on the building of international solidarity forums, and on the active participation of citizens in defining policies. These "rights" can be connected to the concept of "citizenship" as it appeared in the Socioprofessional Workshops.

In addition, economic rights were discussed both at individual and collective levels. An explicit connection was established between the right for each person to a minimum basic income and the economic rights of the population as a whole. Both of these rights are flouted by those who demand that certain countries pay back a debt that has essentially enabled their leaders to become richer. 

Finally, cultural rights raise the question of the concrete conditions of peaceful coexistence within multicultural societies.

Workshop 16 discussed the globalization of different forms of solidarity and of the access to resources. It made a distinction between two types of resources: natural resources and knowledge. "Natural resources" are limited. It is necessary to harmonize social justice in the access to these resources and expertise in their management. On the other hand, useful competencies and skills can be multiplied and shared. They need to be dealt with through a mutual-sharing process. Thus we have the confirmation of a crucial idea: each category of goods should entail its own production and management process. A common feature of natural resources and knowledge resources is that they should not be submitted to market laws. 

The globalization of different forms of solidarity and the protection of the weaker social groups and countries require combining three types of action on an international scale: first, actors should organize; second, justice should be considered as a duty (in particular, injustices should be repaired); third, regulations that are more favorable to the weaker actors and countries should be set up. It is not by withdrawing into protectionism, but by developing fair regulations and by building checks and balances that we can put an end to the current aberrations of globalization.

4.7 - Chapter 7: Establishing new public regulations to counter the exclusive domination of mercantile relations (Themes 12 and 17)

Workshop 12 was commissioned to discuss the institutional, political, and legal ways of managing relations between societies and their environment. Here, once more, participants did not wish to remain confined to a theme that they considered too narrow. They too asserted a concept that appears indeed as a common priority: a democratic and efficient organization of the global community. An environmental approach can only be implemented if it is associated with a social approach: "Associate to any environmental preoccupation two aspects: development and the struggle against poverty" is a heading found by this workshop. It further specified that one must avoid "exploiting man under the pretext of protecting the environment." 

This Workshop also pointed out the present contradiction between the principles of environmental protection and the refusal by rich countries to reduce their consumption, the uncontrolled actions of multinational companies, and the energy cost of the world circulation of products. "Environmental" measures separated from an overall strategy have no chance of succeeding.

This overall strategy will emerge only if the global civil society organizes to set new evaluation methods, to create supervisory and evaluation networks, new legal rules, such as a clause relating to conscientious objection for scientists or the possibility for nonprofit organizations to take legal action.

Once again, education is put forward to develop awareness, to teach people their rights and responsibilities, to train competent managers, to assert the ethical, indeed even spiritual dimension of environmental governance, to promote a new conception of relations between humankind and nature.

The heading of Workshop 17 ("governance, world economy, multinational companies, and new regulations") explicitly evokes the global aspect of governance. This Workshop also avoided remaining limited by is formal title. It considered that to control globalization and the activities of multinational companies, two major inseparable conditions are prerequisite: on the one hand, a change in mentalities and the promotion of responsible behavior by fostering codes of conduct, by encouraging exemplary behavior, by creating new ways of measuring and evaluating the social and environmental impact of economic activity; on the other hand, a reform of international institutions: the democratization of international financial institutions; the creation of systems to control economic actors and financial flows; new fiscal instruments to promote alternatives and economic policies or responsible enterprises.

And thus we are back to Workshop 1: personal transformations and the evolution of international institutions are inseparable.

V/ A Tentative Summary: The Agenda for the Twenty-first Century

Chapter after chapter, we have discovered that, however we approach these questions, each issue is related to other issues. The refusal by most Thematic Workshops to be limited by their themes could have been interpreted at first sight as a misunderstanding or an inadequate definition of the theme itself. But on closer analysis, chapter after chapter, this refusal has a deeper reason; each theme is necessarily related to the other ones. This constant interlacing is indeed a sign of the simultaneous, systemic nature of the changes to come.

At the core of the Agenda, a first statement: World society, in the twenty-first century, will have to operate a global reorientation in terms of its organization, its knowledge, its forms of production and its ways of life, and it will have to do so democratically.

To operate this reorientation in a democratic way does not mean that, tomorrow, there will be a world government. But such changes suppose that people are deeply committed to the new orientations and agree with the reasons why they are adopted and the way they are implemented.

At the heart of this change we find a common ethical core, which closely combines values such as responsibility, respect for diversity, and solidarity. This ethical core should be extensively shared, discussed, and personified by the leaders who are to become the link between individual convictions and collective constraints, from the local to the global level; it should be the basis of a new social contract between each social and professional realm and the rest of society. All human activities, economic, social, and political, beginning with education and the media, are called upon to contribute to defining, to establishing, to spreading, and to implementing this ethical core.

Confronted with a movement of merchandization and privatization, confronted with an international scene that is dominated by inter-state relations, it is essential and urgent to organize a global public forum. The last fifty years have been marked by such a swift and powerful development of science, technology, and the economy, that the traditional value systems, ways of thinking, and regulations, which are slower to change, have become obsolete. The twenty-first century reasserts the primacy of ethics and politics, of the ends over the means. The priority is to resist, then to rebuild. But to carry out this process, we must rebuild the legitimacy of governance, rebuild democracy, lend a new efficiency to the public management of complex issues -- by implementing integrated and non sectorial policies -- and we must encourage the community to organize forms of solidarity and redistribute resources and power for the benefit of the weaker citizens.

But there will be no world political organization as long as a global community has not established itself. To break the current vicious circle whereby there is no community because there are no political institutions, and no legitimate political institutions because there is no community, society must take the initiative to constitute and institute itself. It will be an unprecedented adventure in which the organization of society will precede the organization of its political institutions.

In this "self-instituting" movement, the organization of social sectors from the local to the global level, a decisive factor is the organization of "socioprofessional communities" in each sector, with people and organizations who are conscious of their responsibilities. This organization structures the relation of the local level to the global level and sets up the conditions for a new citizenship. We must simultaneously build socioprofessional communities and strengthen their capacity to develop partnerships with other communities and with public institutions.

Building a global community does not mean that you deny the meaning and the relevance of the local level. On the contrary, education, science, economic organization, politics, managing the ecosystems -- everything shows the primacy of coherence at a local level. 

This means that a new way of thinking relations between the local and the global spheres is crucial to help create new models. Hence the central character of the concept of active subsidiarity in the political, the economic and the cultural fields. Subsidiarity asserts that people have the right and the duty to organize forms of coherence at a local level. By saying that subsidiarity is active, we imply that these forms of coherence integrate at all times the global dimension.

Finally, in this process the Assembly and the Alliance present two faces: they are a way of building the agenda, of highlighting a global project and of designing an implementation strategy; they are also the first step of its practical execution. They are a self-instituting action initiated by society. They demonstrate at last that policies can be elaboration through a bottom-up approach. Thus they illustrate another way of building politics.