Neo-Civil Society

Who is doing the most good for the world? The US? The UN? Not really.

The interconnected group of highly-motivated, citizen-manned, specialized International NGOs? Yes.

"After decades of undemocratic and ineffective global governance on key global issues -- ranging from development and environment to human rights, trade, and security -- now is the time to privilege and highlight the visions and views of civil society leaders around the world," said James Riker of the University of Maryland, USA.

Playing an important role in this new vision for a better global society should be the estimated 40,000 international NGOs who comprise today's civil society, he said.

NGOs have increased in numbers and have begun to fill essential gaps in global leadership on key issues, he added, citing successes including the international campaign to ban landmines and the Kyoto Protocol to curb global warming.

Riker said that civil society also played a watchdog role by mobilising to oppose secret negotiations over proposed rules governing foreign direct investment through the Multilateral Agreement on Investment.

They also undertook advocacy campaigns that compelled global institutions to act on debt relief and acknowledge serious problems in their backing for dams.

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The people who have run the United Nations for the last 60 years have done wonderful things, he said, adding, "look at the U.N. children's agency UNICEF and the vaccination of millions of children."

But the fact remains that the present United Nations "simply does not have the power to take globally effective steps to deal with global warming, save rainforests, protect oceans, keep the peace, generate disarmament, end poverty, prevent terrorism, stop genocide, control pandemics, provide aid when natural disasters occur, and address the many other serious global problems we face," he said.

Phyllis Bennis of the Washington-based think tank Institute for Policy Studies said there is "a big challenge ahead within the anti-globalisation and peace movements around the world".

And that challenge, she told IPS, is to educate people about why "the United Nations is not simply an inevitable 'tool of U.S. foreign policy' like the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Trade Organisation (WTO), even if it often gets used in that way."

She emphasised that "we have to reclaim the United Nations, not destroy it."

Nigel Martin, president of the Montreal International Forum, which organised this week's talks here, said that NGOs increasingly are mobilising their resources to campaign for a better global society, as evidenced at the WSF meetings in Brazil and India.

He also singled out the rising interest of youth in political, social and economic issues. "We had to turn down over 100 youth volunteers worldwide who wanted to participate in our seminar," Martin said.

"They came with extraordinary understanding of the issues we were going to discuss. The demand was overwhelming. We plan to tap this source and this energy for the future," he added.

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