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The role of the global civil society and local communities for peace, an economy of justice and international democracy

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Excerpts from the Final Document of the
3rd Assembly of the UN of the Peoples

Held in Perugia, Italy
September 23 - 25, 1999

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Without an active and thriving civil society, without its collaboration and a close relationship with institutions, no local or global project to improve the quality of life or to preserve the planet will ever be successful. Therefore, every "realistic" vision of the future must include:

  • projects and plans for strengthening the civil society and local communities;
  • the recognition of the role that civil society organisations perform and can carry out for peace, for an economy with justice and for democracy;
  • the growth of cooperation between civil society and institutions at all levels, from the local to the global one, spreading a culture of reciprocity;
  • respect for the autonomy of the civil society and its non-subordination to the political or economic system;

     

  • 1.the growth of cooperation between the civil societies of different countries, reinforcing the international dimension of their activity and the role of a global civil society. In the era of interdependence and globalisation, the main concrete "resources" of a global civil society are: 1. the sharing of universal human values such as life, equal dignity of all persons and peoples, freedom, solidarity, peace, human development, political and economic democracy;
    2. the capacity to understand the signs of the times and act in order to make the international law on human rights - civil, political, economic, social, cultural, to peace, to development, to the environment - prevail over the old international law of armed sovereign states;
    3. the will and the capacity to build cooperation networks between groups and communities across all borders,
    4. the capacity to plan and act even in the most difficult situations;
    5. the capacity to inform and educate;
    6. the capacity to stimulate and collaborate with the institutions, starting from the local level.
  • The power of the organisations of the global civil society does not lie in money or in weapons but in the will to "do" and not only to "talk" or "demand". To do: with competence, capacity to analyze, plan and mobilize. To do in difficult places: working for the prevention of conflicts and in promoting the growth of civil society where democracy is still weak. To do immediately: by offering, for example, aid to victims of a tragedy, but also searching for the causes, intervening on the sources of problems.
    Civil society's strength lies in the capacity to coherently unite denouncing, proposal and direct action. If one of these components is missing (study and understanding, control, denouncing, proposal, direct action, personal behaviour), civil society's actions risk losing credibility and effectiveness. The international situation is rapidly worsening and there is the need to oppose the current attempts to establish a hierarchical world order, founded upon the sovereignty of armed national states, national self-interest, the "law of strength" and the practice of war, upon the exploitation of the natural and human resources of the poorer countries, violence and the destruction of the environment, upon the control of information and communication, financial speculation damaging the real economy and human development. This imposes great responsibilities upon civil societies all over the world which no woman or man can ignore.

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    Further information about the conference is available from
    Universita degli Studi di Perugia

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