UBUNTU - World Forum of Civil Society Networks

Increasingly concerned by developments affecting international multilateral democratic governance, the signatories, at the initiative of the World Forum of Civil Society Networks - UBUNTU, wish to report public opinion on the following considerations and demands:

The year 2005 saw a series of grave setbacks to hopes that international multilateral policies might be brought to bear to help resolve the serious, steadily growing problems that face humanity.
Neither the UN Summit of Heads of State and Government in September, nor the WTO meeting in December produced the commitments, proposals or resources necessary to meet these challenges.
None of the hopes generated by the UN Millennium Summits (where the Millennium Development Goals were initiated), on Financing for Development in Monterrey and Sustainable Development in Johannesburg, have been brought to fruition, even minimally, at the supposedly crucial meetings which took place in 2005.
1. Firstly, the UN's capacity and ability to work for development was "hijacked" and "transferred" to the "market", mainly through the World Trade Organisation. However, its failed ministerial conference in Hong Kong only salvaged in "extremis" the existence of the own WTO and, in any case, it most benefited again the interests of the richest.
2. Secondly, proposed UN reforms concerning such issues as peace, security, disarmament and human rights, with the honourable exception of the Peacebuilding Commission in 2005, failed to yet materialise.
However, faced by such a lamentable situation, the one thing we must not do is to weaken the UN's capacities and possibilities even further. The UN will be and do what the Member States finally decide it should be and do. However, there does not appear to be much agreement on this point either; on the contrary, spanners are being put in the works.
1. Of the UN budget approved for the 2006-2007 period, only the proportional amount for the first half of 2006 has been effectively made available. In a form of blackmail practised by certain States (particularly, and as usual recently, the USA) budget funds will only be released if certain reforms are put into effect. Strangely enough, though, these conditions have more to do with management and administration reforms than, for example, with the new Human Rights Council, the Security Council or the relationship with civil society.
2. Moreover, the Follow-up to the Monterrey Summit, which should take place in 2007 and is crucial for many issues concerning financing for development, has been adjourned sine die until 2008 or 2009.
It is clear that none of the great developments we were confidently led to expect from WTO negotiations has come to fruition, and that, instead of democratising, strengthening and giving greater powers to the UN, the organisation has been economically and politically hijacked.

The Polycentric World Social Forum of Bamako and Caracas clearly shows the extreme urgency of the need for radical changes in multilateral international policies that allow work towards meeting the needs of the majority of the world's population. In this framework, and facing this situation, the signatories call on the world's citizens to join us in demanding that the UN Member States must work to make the UN more democratic, more multilateral and more responsible, and to provide the organisation with the powers and resources it needs to resolve the grave problems facing humanity as a whole.

Federico Mayor
Fundación para una Cultura de Paz

Mario Soares
Fundaçao Mario Soares

Susan George
Writer

José Saramago
Nobel Prize in Literature Laureate

Noam Chomsky
Writer

Willy Thys
World Confederation of Labour

William R. Pace
World Federalist Movement - Institute for Global Policy

Fatma Alloo
DAWN - Development Alternatives with Women for a New Era

Roberto Savio
Inter Press Service

François Houtard
Centre Tricontinental ,CETRI

Chico Whitaker
Justiça e Paz - Brazil

Alexander Likhotal
Green Cross International

Mohammed Fayek
Arab Organisation for Human Rights

Lois Barber
EarthAction

Ricardo Díez Hochleitner
President Emeritus Club of Rome

Kin Chi Lau
ARENA Asian Regional Exchange for New Alternatives

Marino Busdachin
Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organisation

Sara Longwe
FEMNET - The African Women's Development and Communications

Richard A. Falk
Princeton University, Professor of International Law Emeritus

Paul Ortega
Pax Romana - IMICA

Carlos Tünnerman
Instituto Latinoamericano de Educación para el Desarrollo ILAEDES

Angel Strapazzon
MOCASE - Via Campesina

Rocío Valdeavellano
Jubilee South

Ricardo Verástegui Lopez
Jubilee South

Juan Federer
Center of War/Peace Studies

Donald Charumbira
World Assembly of Youth

Arcadi Oliveres
Justice and Peace, Europe

Jorge Nieto Montesinos
Centro Internacional para la Cultura Democrática

Agustí Colomines
Centre Unesco de Catalunya

Josep Ferrer Llop
Universitat Politčcnica de Catalunya

Gurutz Jáuregui
Universidad del País Vasco

Ferran Requejo
Universitat Pompeu Fabra

Josep Xercavins
UBUNTU Forum Ad Hoc Secretariat