A view from the United Nations
November-December 2004
A Call To Action 2005: Global Civil Society mobilizes to demand an end to poverty and the fulfilment of the Millennium Development Goals
By Vicente García-Delgado, CIVICUS UN Representative (New York)
Civil society activists around the world will have their hands full in 2005. Deeply concerned by the slow rate of progress (and in some world regions, actual regress) toward the eradication of poverty and the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals, global civil society networks and large humanitarian and development NGOs are self-organizing in joint efforts to effectively impact key international events in 2005.
Ever since the horrific September 11 terrorist attacks against the US in 2001, menacing dark clouds over our common future have been gathering strength across the globe. Initially, it seemed that the world would come together (recall the famous Le Monde editorial on 12 September 2001: “Today we are all Americans”) to fight the scourge of global terrorism and global injustice in a multilateral setting that would focus both on “hard” or “traditional” military security as well as “soft” or “new” non-military security, such as the fight against extreme poverty and social and environmental degradation in large regions of the planet. (See: “Lasting security for all: shifting from state security to security of the people,” A view from the UN, March-April, 2004.)
Alas, such coming together was not to be. While the war on Afghanistan to fight the repressive and terrorism-supporting Taliban regime received general international support as a necessary evil and a first step toward world security, the United States administration of George W. Bush, for reasons that are becoming increasingly clear, misguidedly shifted its focus from the real terrorists to Iraq, a country that, as has been amply demonstrated, bore no connection to 9/11. After belittling, offending and even threating the United Nations with irrelevancy, George W. Bush´s “with us or against us” global policy of supremacy has immersed the entire world in the consequences of a senseless and bloody unilateral war that has created (and continues to create) sharp divisions between the US and its friends and allies; strengthened international terrorism; vastly increased hatred against the US in the Islamic world; seriously damaged the respect, credibility and moral authority of the US; increased threats to civic liberties world-wide, and diverted scarce financial resources away from the war against poverty and injustice.
Sadly, US politicians remain attached to an extremely US-centered view of the world. Thomas Carothers, Senior Associate and Director of the Democracy and Rule of Law Project at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, has recently pointed out that “a striking feature of the first presidential debate” (between President George W. Bush and Senator John F. Kerry on 29 September 2004) “ was the one-dimensional quality of the world that the candidates discussed.
The map of the world was one that only contains points related to the war on terrorism, Iraq, and nuclear non-proliferation, that is to say it was a map about immediate security threats to the United States and nothing more. It was a narrow set of issues argued over in the limited terms of strength, decisiveness, and fear. Missing from the map were most parts of the world—Asia didn’t appear at all except as North Korea, Europe was there only in relation to Iraq, the Middle East was merely as a screen for the projection of an American anti-terrorist liberty doctrine, Africa was present only as genocide in Darfur, Latin America and South Asia, including both Pakistan and India, were missing altogether. Not a word was said about the international economy, with critical issues of trade, energy, and development entirely untouched. It is remarkable how the war on terrorism has reduced America’s public conception of its own global role and turned attention away from the multitude of crucial issues that will have enormous consequences for well-being in the years to come.”
Confronted with admittedly bleak prospects for a change of course toward common sense, multilateral global strategies in the United States, global civil society, far from surrendering to the seemingly unstoppable forces of unilateralism, is giving out reassuring signs of renewed vitality, making up with large doses of creativity and determination what it lacks in official support and financial resources.”
This renewed vitality was patently apparent at a recent (20-21 Sept) Johannesburg gathering of some seventy civil society organizations from a wide range of sectors and locations from both the global south and north spread in five continents. Representatives from global trade unions, Christian networks, international development organizations, global sector campaigns in health and Aid, Africa-, Asia-, and Latin America-region social movements and some national campaigns came together to discuss joint initiatives for 2005 during the two-day planning meeting co-hosted by CIVICUS and OXFAM INTERNATIONAL in order “to achieve a breakthrough in the fight against poverty” under the banner “A Call to Action 2005.”
With an eye on the Millennium+5 Summit, the G8 Summit and other major intergovernmental and civil society events planned for 2005, the meeting successfully agreed to form a loose alliance geared toward the the facilitation and coordination of various civil society actions and campaigns directed collectively to impact key 2005 moments toward the full eradication of poverty and the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals.
Far from supplanting existing civil society programs of action and campaigns, the newly formed alliance, under the name “Global Call to Action Against Poverty,” aims to facilitate and coordinate diverse actions of current and future adherent CSOs who might wish to join at a later date, and thereby to encourage and support national groups to carry out their own advocacy agendas by connecting the local to the global and viceversa.
The “Global Call to Action Against Poverty” alliance is not therefore a membership organization. Any non-profit organization willing to to support the alliance´s core principles and joint actions is invited and encouraged to join with current participants.
For someone like me, who has been involved with global civil society for scarcely four years, the remarkable ability of diverse CSOs to self-organize for a shared purpose comes as a truly refreshing experience. This ability to come together in diversity, reach a consensus and move into action in the space of two days is unmatched in the goverment sector and even in the business sector, and is one of civil society´s greatest advantages. It reminds me of “the little engine that could.” And it gives me renewed hope that we all can, after all, move the world.
For more information on the “Global Call to Action Against Poverty,” please write to or contact, CIVICUS: World Alliance For Citizen Participation
Kumi Naidoo
Please send your comments to kumi@civicus.org
Below you will find all previous columns:
• TOO CLOSE FOR COMFORT: Should civil society and the Global Compact live under the same UN roof?
• The UN Global Compact: A big red herring disguised in UN blue?
• Happening now: A global revolution of consciousness
• Lasting security for all: Shifting from state security to security of the people
• The UN – Permanently relevant or temporarily relevant?
• The UN: It's our world?
• Letting the United Nations be all that it can
