Actions for a new global agenda

Uruguayan president José Mujica.

Civil society organizations and networks from around the world met in Montevideo to discuss the current multiple global crises and our collective responses to it. The meeting was opened by Uruguayan president José Mujica and included a debate about development alternatives with three ministers. Concrete action points to curtail the power of corporations over the international agenda were sugested. Read a summary of the findings and recommendations of the “Strategy Meeting” on Monitoring and Accountability.

The civil society organizations and networks listed below met in Montevideo last February to discuss the current multiple global crises and our collective responses to it. The meeting took place in the training facilities of the Spanish Cooperation Agency in Uruguay and the discussions were not recorded, to enable a candid exchange of opinions. These notes are intended to register major conclusions but they do not constitute a common statement of all participants. A summary of the findings and recommendations of the “Strategy Meeting” on Monitoring and Accountability in an Agenda for Change that was held in Montevideo on February 2014.

Context

Around the world people are increasingly taking the streets demanding economic justice, rights, democracy and solidarity. At the same time, the multilateral institutions are discussing new development agendas in which monitoring and accountability mechanisms should be reinforced if good intentions are to be put into practice.

Civil society is facing a number of challenges in continuing to play a meaningful role in holding governments accountable for their human rights obligations and their international commitments. The economic crisis has diminished the funds available for many civil society organizations and donors pressure for big consortia risks displacing many voices. New “partnerships” are being created in multilateral fora where big corporations play a privileged role and there is little transparency and no real accountability. The global goal-setting processes such as the Rio+20 follow-up, the post-MDG framework, Beijing+20 and ICPD+20 are not traditional intergovernmental negotiations any more but gradually become complex “multi-stakeholders” processes where access and voice do not follow clear established procedures.

Civil society coalitions continue to face the challenge of bringing inclusive and meaningful consultation to diverse communities, with minimal resources and to defend their autonomy vis-a-vis powerful forces that seek to silence alternative voices or to co-opt them. The most marginalized communities are often the most disconnected from global monitoring and goal-setting processes.

The responses to these challenges have been as diverse as civil society itself. Our networks and organizations have worked in parallel with the UN system, to bring the voices of regional, national and local communities to international fora. Civil society networks and NGOs have provided alternative goals and indicators. They have argued for the inclusion of missing voices--of women, of the poor, of rural communities, of ethnic and religious minorities, of LGBTQ peoples, of Indigenous peoples. In North Africa and the Middle East, popular uprisings have bypassed formal global processes altogether—redefining their priorities and, in some cases, remaking their nations.

Three parallel global discussions within the United Nations are due to conclude in 2015: the climate negotiations, the setting and financing of Sustainable Development Goals and the design of an agenda for the UN Development System which some expect to come out with a new set of development goals.

The current Millennium Development Goals were conceived and implemented within the framework of development cooperation. When the Millennium Declaration was drafted most of the problems it addresses (poverty, inequalities, conflicts) were located in the Global South and the solutions (aid, trade, technology transfer, debt relief) were to come from the Global North.

Since then inequalities have increased both in advanced economies and developing countries and, as demonstrated by Social Watch and other analysis of the trends, progress in social indicators has slowed down. The vulnerable people, many of them in the Global South, pay the consequences of climate change and financial stability even when they had no responsibility in creating them. Big corporations, among them many directly responsible for this situation, are becoming key actors in “new global partnerships” expected to help solve them. Private foundations created from the profits of those corporations and accountable only to their boards play a growing role in shaping development and human rights agendas.

The signs of progress are also sites of challenge: the data revolution heralded by new technology innovations holds both the promise of cheaper and better data, but also the potential for political manipulation, commercial control and co-option and intrusive state surveillance; gender equality is increasingly accepted as a universal normative goal, yet it is also fast becoming an instrumental tool in increasing economic growth with less concern for the impact of that growth on the well-being of women.

The Montevideo meeting brought together leaders of key international social and economic justice networks to strategise about our common struggles for economic and gender justice and our common efforts to monitor and hold governments accountable.

The Uruguayan experience: There are many alternatives

Uruguayan president José Mujica addressed our inaugural session and warned against a culture where “only losers talk about ethics in conduct”.

“Productivity and ingenuity have created formidable tools” he added, and yet “frightening concentration of wealth is creating what I call a 'leftover humanity', left behind at the side of the road”.

President Mujica described the forces of squandering and wastefulness and the magnitude of the problems of climate change and unrestricted financial speculation with commodities. “The measures that would be needed -he explained- would have to be taken, based on scientific evidence, by some world governance body, as no country can cope with these problems alone, even less so the small countries”.

“We need to mitigate as much as we can” he added, but a “long, tough, political and collective struggle” will be needed to “address the deep causes.”

The meeting participants had an opportunity to learn further from the Uruguayan experience in open dialogue with three ministers. In a moment where inequalities are increasing all around the world, Uruguay has managed, over the last decade, to dramatically reduce both poverty and inequalities, while at the same time transitioning towards 100% electricity generation from renewable sources before 2020.

“Criminality does not correlate with poverty but with inequities” explained Interior minister Eduardo Bonomi. Social Development minister Daniel Olesker described the difference between reducing “recent poverty” which resulted from the financial and economic crisis of 2002 with “deep structural poverty passed from generation to generation.” The availability and improvement of universal health and education services, made possible by economic growth and progressive taxation, addressed the first one, but extreme poverty required a “very well focalized family by family approach”.

Labour minister, doctor José Bayardi described the measures applied to address the crisis: Instead of the “austerity” recommended by multilateral financial institutions, Uruguay implemented emergency cash transfers, active State participation in the economy to promote growth, collective bargaining that resulted in salary increases, enforcement of labour rights among rural and domestic workers. These measures boosted economic growth and, instead of repelling investors, coincided with a peak of foreign greenfield investment. Decent jobs is the only sustainable solution to poverty and to reduce inequalities. In that regard, Uruguay has found that North-South trade tends to reaffirm “center-periphery relations” while value-added products that promote development find better opportunities in South-South relations.

Inspired by this evidence that there are, indeed, viable alternatives to the classical neoliberal formulas, participants from over 20 countries in five continents discussed during the next two days the current state of the conversations on the Rio +20 follow-up and the post-2015 development framework.

Shaping the Future

In plenary and in small groups we discussed the opportunities and challenges of on-going and emerging global processes such as Post-2015, G20, Rio+20, Climate negotiations, Trade-related negotiations (WTO/TPP/investment agreements), new Human Rights mechanisms and the role of civil society, multi-stakeholders processes and public-private “partnerships” in them.

The groups identified the key fora discussing gender justice, climate, poverty and inequalities and, in particular, the “partnerships” being proposed and the changes that they introduce.

From regional to global

Many of the participants in the meeting shared their experiences of monitoring and advocating at regional level. Meaningful exchange of experiences happens more at regional level than at global forums, both between governments and between civil society actors. Further civil society advocates find that regional forums are more likely to address global concerns that seem too far away for national governments of non G-20 countries to tackle meaningfully.

Several meeting participants took part in regional consultations organized by NGLS and highlighted their value. They commended the NGLS report on “Advancing Regional Recommendations on the Post-2015 Development Agenda”, which accurately reflects the contributions of grassroots groups and civil society actors active at national and regional level.

Monitoring and Accountability. Top down or bottom up?

In plenary and in small groups, we discussed the different global mechanisms that hold our governments accountable to different and sometimes contradictory commitment and legal obligations. Among them, we highlighted:

- Binding obligations of the trade and investment regimes, where corporations are allowed to sue governments through supranational arbitration panels,

- The Human Rights framework,

- The MDG framework,

- The World Bank's concept of “social accountability”

- The proposed “data revolution”?

- Private-Public Partnerships and the difficulties to monitor them

Both at national and supra-national level, access to information is key to make monitoring and accountability possible. Yet, while we were able to analyse several successful experiences around access to information and budget monitoring (such as in India and the Philippines), we also found out that the secrecy demands of big corporations are succeeding at making access to information and accountability more difficult, including by forcing restrictive changes in the information policies of multilateral development organizations. 

Setting Priorities: New frontiers in monitoring and accountability for human rights, gender justice and sustainability

We noted with concern how the Global Partnership for Development described in Goal 8 of the MDGs is being changed in the language being used to multiple “partnerships” with big corporations. Goal 8 clearly described the responsibility of developed countries to contribute with aid, fairer trade rules, technologies, and a solution to the external debt problems. The adverse impact of developed countries’ policies and deregulation, such as financial liberalization, on developing countries also underscore the centrality of the Goal 8 partnership.

These promises were not dated and are far from being fulfilled. Now this Partnership is transformed into multiple "partnerships" and they are not any more between rich and poor nations but between governments, multilateral agencies and large multinational corporations.

Last September, the Civil Society Reflection Group on Global Development Perspectives found those multi-stakeholder partnerships problematic as instruments for sustainability as they raise more problems than they solve. The The papers can be found at: www.reflectiongroup.org. For example:

• Growing influence of the corporate sector in political discourse and agenda-setting: Partnership initiatives allow corporations and their interest groups undue and unsupervised influence over agenda setting and political decision-making by governments.
• Undermining accountable and transparent multilateralism: The proliferation of partnerships contributes to the continued institutional weakening of the UN system and hinders comprehensive development strategies.
• Weakening democratic public institutions: If partnerships create the equivalence of equal rights among stakeholders, they undermine the political and legal position occupied legitimately by accountable public bodies (governments and parliaments). Given the inequality amongst participating actors, conflicts of interest emerge.
• Unstable financing – a threat to the sufficient provision of public goods: The funding of the Post-2015 Agenda risks becoming increasingly privatized, dependent on voluntary and unpredictable channels of financing through benevolent individuals or private philanthropic foundations. The financial resources committed in the existing partnership initiatives have not been shown to effectively increase available resources.
• Lack of monitoring and accountability mechanisms: No instruments are in place to guarantee that partnerships will be open, transparent, and accountable

The post-2015 process might introduce the legitimization of these “partnerships” by the back door, promoting without proper scrutiny the eruption of corporations in global decision-making, implementation and monitoring. These "partnerships" dilute and weaken the responsibility of States, which are no longer in the center of the action, and they reinforce power asymmetries. Corporations have already acquired through bilateral investment agreements the right to sue states in supranational tribunals (and not through the constitutional justice system) and are now candidates to receive official development assistance and sit in the forums where rules are negotiated, at the expense of national (and popular) sovereignty, democracy and human rights.

While we actively engage in making governments accountable for their promises, we also firmly believe that States have a unique and leading responsibility in making development happen. If we erode that role and empower corporations instead we are eroding our own possibilities as citizens, since corporations are only accountable to shareholders.

In sum, we identified following five key advocacy strategies.

1. Joint civil society action around Post-2015 has to focus on goals and commitments for the countries of the North, the necessary changes of the consumption and production patterns in these countries, and the structural framework conditions shaped by these countries, particularly in the global financial, investment and trade systems.

2. Any kind of "MDG plus Agenda" for the poor countries in the global South would reproduce the old development narrative and falls short of the required structural transformation.

3. In understanding diversity as our strength we need to make special efforts to make sure that the voices of the poor and the vulnerable are heard, as well as of grassroots organizations and of those based in the South. A single global civil society campaign does not sound like a good idea and there are major problems associated with large “consortia” not based on common principles and objectives but on the pressure of donors. In a moment when the voice of corporations in multilateral debates is gaining predominant attention through different channels, establishing or empowering multi-stakeholder partnerships is not helpful to enhance the visibility and effectiveness of non-profits working for the common good.

4. The UN needs to define and create the function of “lobbyist” for private interests, similar to how different parliaments around the world define lobbysts, different from the role of NGOs that are required to defend the public good. While lobbysts can make meaningful contributions to the debate, strict conflict of interest policies need to be put in place and enforced, to guarantee the integrity of the decision-making processes.

5. Monitoring and accountability mechanisms need to be strengthened and the role of civil society in them encouraged. “Clicktivism” and “crowdsourcing” cannot be a substitute for organized civil society actors. Internet-based questionnaires can be a publicity gimmick but their use as “evidence” is completely unscientific and potentially manipulative.

Further specific action points
(as identified by the working groups)

On accountability and civil society monitoring

-Monitoring and reporting has been for civil society a way to engage and to organize and not just a mechanism to gather evidence and that dimension needs to be strengthened;

-Civil society should support efforts to upgrade national data collection capacity where it is inadequate and insist on gender, age, regional and ethnical disaggregation of the indicators;

-Need meaningful information access provisions and transparency in public disclosure policies, both by governments and multilateral bodies (need for timeliness, improved access, etc.)

-Need to build capacity and motivate people to use/access data and information (for example Transparency Brazil, Right to Information Act India);

-Governments should convene public hearings as a regular practice and not just when required by loan conditionalities;

-Civil society should expand the use of new technologies as tools to hold government accountable and engage communities (ex. Monitoring of Kenya elections, Harrasmap in Canada); build alliances beyond our constituencies to help build our capacities;

-Civil society should promote a framework convention on global corporate accountability (based on Maastricht Principles, Guiding Principles on extraterritorial state obligations and on the Guiding Principles on Human Rights and Extreme Poverty;

-We need a CS global campaign network on corporate accountability (current campaigns are sector, corporate or region specific (ex. corporate impunity, working group on corporate accountability of ESCR), Social Watch could facilitate an initial working group towards such network;

-CS monitoring needs to be resourced and recognized as a valuable activity on its own right, preferably conducted independently from service delivery;

-CS needs to monitor corporate influence on donors;

-CS to work with researchers on the development of new indexes (ex. corporate power index, inequality index) modeled after the Basic Capabilities Index and Gender Equity Index developed by Social Watch;

On multilateral advocacy

-We need to create autonomous intellectual reflection spaces for civil society (ex. a space to critique the data revolution);

-NGOs need to develop and promote minimum standards to measure a meaningful or valid consultation process;

-Experienced NGOs can help others to develop criteria to help CS evaluate which multilateral processes to engage in (ex. will there be binding or non binding outcome?, is this time limited or ongoing mechanism?, what is the difference of what comes out of one process or the other?);

-NGLS could provide a calendar of upcoming opportunities for engagement;

-Need to integrate a communication strategy to address structural obstacles (to amplify not reduce the agenda, to engage people in a grounded and accessible manner, to engage the press);

On regional processes

-Emphasise regional level as a stepping stone to global and to make sense to national and local levels;

-Better organize regional and inter-regional spaces and strategies (ex. expand CS access to Arab League; ex. create a CS Forum at the Arab-Latin America inter-regional meetings; ex. build CS partnership with African Union to better monitor their decisions, possibly African Union ECOSOC;

-Engage in NGLS regional “political partnerships” process between CS and states;

-Need more regional access to information conventions (ex. similar to Aarhus Convention);

-Support Alliance of Countries Affected by Multinational Corporations led by Ecuador;

On the United Nations

-Track the use of non.budget funds in the UN by promoting among parliamentarians that they request detailed reports on the use of their countries' extra-budgetary contributions to UN;

-Press for implementation of UN instruments on corruption;

-Need legal instrument to hold partnerships accountable (including a mandatory conflict of interest policy for the UN);

-Advocate for better institutions at global level (High Level Political Forum) based on HR UPR to hold accountable governments but also non state actors and BWIs;

-Use HR process to hold UN, member states, and non-state actors accountable;

 

List of Participants

Abdulnabi Alekry, Bahrain Human Rights Society
Abdulnabi is founder and Coordinator of the Bahrain Committee for Human Rights since 2001. He was in exile from 1982 to 2001. Founder, Member of Board, and currently President of Bahrain Transparency Society. Coordinator of Arab NGOs Network for Development (ANND) in Bahrain and a member of its Coordinating committee. Editor or Co-editor of the country report of the Social Watch annual report; Contributor of Bahrain report on MDGs; Contributor of alternative report to the major UN mechanisms on human rights. Abdulnabi has a BA in Engineering and diplomas in human rights and statistics.

Anita Nayar, United National Non-Governmental Liaison Service (NGLS), New York
Anita has served as Chief of NGLS since April 2013. She has worked nationally and internationally on issues including womens human rights, economic globalization, development, and climate justice. Most recently she served as Executive Committee Member of the South-based feminist network, Development Alternatives with Women for a New Era (DAWN). Prior to this she engaged in academic research on the social and ecological consequences of the commercialization of indigenous medicine in India. In the 1990s she coordinated the Women's Caucus in six major UN Conferences.

Ana Zeballos, Social Watch, Uruguay
Ana is a Social Worker and she studied at the University of the Republic of Uruguay (UDELAR). She has been working at Social Watch since 2001, as networker and projects manager.

Barbara Adams, Global Policy Forum, New York
Barbara is economist, international social justice and gender equality advocate and Senior Policy Advisor and Board member of the Global Policy Forum in New York. She also serves on the programme committees of Social Watch and of the American Friends Service Committee. She has also undertaken development work in Latin America and served on the board of the Canadian Council for International Cooperation. Formerly, she was the Chief of Strategic Partnerships and Communications at UNIFEM (2003- 2008) and headed the UNHQ office of the UN-Non-Governmental Liaison Service. She has worked with women's organizations on advancing gender equality in the macroeconomic and development effectiveness policy arenas.

Carlos Revilla Herrero, UNITAS, Bolivia
Carlos works as Coordinator of the Urban Program in the National Union of Institutions for Work in Social Action (UNITAS). This program works by combining Popular Education and Strategic Human Rights Litigation. UNITAS is a national platform of 26 NGOs which develops different programs to strengthen urban-popular, indigenous and peasant organizations, fostering reflection and discussion to actively promote their participation in analysis and public proposals, while at the same time promoting new development paradigms in the national context and public debate surrounding development and human rights issues at the national, regional and global levels. UNITAS has been a member of the national coalition of Social Watch since 1997 and, along with CEDLA, has been the Social Watch focal point in Bolivia since 2009.

Cecilia Fernández, International Council for Adult Education (ICAE), Instituto del Tercer Mundo (ITeM), Montevideo.
Cecilia is a social worker, feminist, committed to the popular education movement and the women's movement. She was professor at the Department of Social Work in the Uruguayan state univeristy and at the Catholic University. Currently she is Deputy Secretary General of ICAE, head of the Training Program on advocacy of ICAE. She is also member of the Gender and Education Office (GEO) of ICAE. She represents ICAE at the International Council of the World Social Forum and is the president of the board of ITeM.

Celita Eccher, International Council on Adult Education (ICAE), Montevideo.
Celita is a feminist popular educator and the Secretary General of the International Council for Adult Education (ICAE). She studied social work at the University of the Republic of Uruguay and was also a professor at the Department of Social Work of the School of Social Sciences. Her other learning spaces were the Rural Craftwomen's Cooperatives in Uruguay and the women's movement. She was the General Coordinator of the Popular Education Network of Women from Latin America and the Caribbean (REPEM) and regional coordinator of DAWN. She has represented REPEM and then ICAE at the International Council of the World Social Forum since its very beginning.

Chee Yoke Ling, Third World Network (TWN), Beijing.
Chee Yoke Ling is an international lawyer and Director of Programmes of Third World Network (TWN). Her areas of expertise include the environmental, social and economic impacts of globalisation, especially in countries of the South. Since 1993 she has worked closely with key negotiators from the global South, scientists and NGOs on a range of issues at the UN.

Gustave Assah, Social Watch Benin.
Gustave ASSAH is currently Coordinator of Social Watch Benin. He is continental chair of the Civic Commission for Africa (Pan African TICAD Civil Society Advocacy Network for Aid Effectiveness). He is a national Coach for UEMOA and AfDB for Benin. Former National Director of building capacities project of Civil Society Organizations and the Media in Benin (UNDP-Benin). Member of West and Central Africa NGOs Network (REPAOC). He holds a DEA Diplome d'Etudes Approfondies and a Master in Human Resources Manager Program Evaluation specializing in Interactive methodologies.

Hubert Schillinger, FES, Berlin.
Hubert is Coordinator of the Dialogue on Globalization program at Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung (FES) headquarters in Berlin. Previous to his current position, he was FES country director in Namibia, South Africa and Morocco, FES project leader in Senegal and held different positions at the FES head office.

Iara Pietricovsky, INESC, Brazil.
Iara graduated in Social Science in 1977, specializing in Anthropology and Master degree in Political Science at the University of Brasilia. In 1987, she joined INESC, Institute for Socioeconomic Studies. Iara has represented INESC and the Brazilian movements in several networks and fora, such as, WTO and UN. As INESC deputy is an active member of Rebrip (Brazilian Network for Peoples Integration), Rede Brasil (Brazil’s Network on International Finance Institutions); FBOMS (Brazilian NGOs and Social Movements Forum on Environment and Sustainable Development), Social Watch Network, World Social Forum, ALACP (Latin American Articulation: Culture and Politics. Actress and drama teacher.

Jagadananda, President, National Social Watch, India.
Jagadananda has been a founding member of the Indian National Social Watch Coalition.
He is currently a Mentor at the Centre for Youth and Social Development (CYSD), a grass roots organisation working on participatory governance and sustainable rural livelihoods in backward regions.
Until recently, Jagadananda was the State Information Commissioner, with the responsibility to advance Right to Information Agenda in the state of Odisha.

Janet Carandang, Social Watch-Philippines, Philippines.
Janet is secretariat coordinator of the National Social Watch coalition in the Philippines. She coordinates the Alternative Budget Initiative (ABI), a budget advocacy campaign of Social Watch Philippines composed of more than a 100 organizations, that proposes additional allocation for education, health, agriculture, environment, social protection and persons with disability concerns, engages the macroeconomic assumption and proposes sources of financing. Janet also coordinates the setting-up of a People's Public Finance Institute (PPFI) which will be the center where citizens can share and learn about different aspects of public finance and the importance of citizens' participation in public finance processes.

Jens Martens, Global Policy Forum, Bonn.
Jens is director of Global Policy Forum in New York and Bonn. He has been director of Global Policy Forum Europe since its foundation in late 2004 (www.globalpolicy.org).
Since 2011 he has coordinated the international Civil Society Reflection Group on Global Development Perspectives (www.reflectiongroup.org).
From 2003 to 2009 he was a member (and from 2006 to 2009 Co-Chair) of the Coordinating Committee of Social Watch.
He is also a member of the Advisory Board of the Development and Peace Foundation.

Kate McInturff, Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA), Canada.
Kate is a Research Associate at CCPA. Kate is an ongoing contributor to the Alternative Federal Budget and leads CCPA's initiative on gender equality and public policy: Making Women Count. Kate is the past Executive Director of FAFIA and currently sits on the Coordinating Committee of Social Watch. Kate received her doctoral degree from the University of British Columbia in 2000.

Martin Kirk, The Rules, USA.
Martin is the Global Campaigns Director of The Rules. He joined The Rules from Oxfam in June 2012, where he had been Head of UK Campaigns. Before Oxfam, Martin was Head of Global Advocacy for Save the Children. A history graduate, Martin has worked extensively across private, public and NGO sector on government relations and engaging the public on global issues.

Martina Kabisama, SAHRINGON, Tanzania.
Martina works as a national co-ordinator of Southern Africa Human Rights NGO Network (SAHRINGON)-Tanzania Chapter. She has served as a Sub Regional Co-ordinator and Africa Regional Vice President for Oikosnet-Africa and served as a Vice Chairperson of East Africa and Horn of Africa Fellowship of Christian Councils from 2003-2006. She holds a Masters Degree in Education, International Management and Policy from the University of Birmingham –UK. She is also a human rights and gender activist with over 20 years' experience, and an international trainer on nonviolence approaches to conflict management.

Mirza Alas, RTM, Costa Rica.
She has an undergraduate degree from College of the Atlantic in the United States (focusing on development studies and anthropology) and a joint Masters degree in public health from University of Sheffield, United Kingdom and University of Copenhagen, Denmark in 2013. Mirza has recently joined Third World Network as a researcher and is currently working on health policy and sustainable development issues.

Nicole Bidegain, DAWN, Montevideo.
Uruguayan sociologist, member of the Executive Committee of DAWN. Nicole works on advocacy and training at the global level and develops analysis especially in the area of the Political Economy of Globalization (PEG). Previously she worked in various regional and global networks such as the Latin American and Caribbean Youth for Sexual and Reproductive Rights, Social Watch, the International Council for Adult Education and the Center for Interdisciplinary Studies for Development in Uruguay (CIEDUR). Author and contributor to several publications on the topics of gender and trade, education, care economy, gender impacts in waste management and gender mainstreaming in public policies. Nicole is currently finishing a Masters in Contemporary Latin American Studies in Madrid.

Roberto Bissio, International Secretariat of Social Watch.
Roberto is coordinator of the Social Watch network and Executive Director of the Third World Institute (Instituto del Tercer Mundo, ITeM) in Montevideo, Uruguay. Roberto has written on development issues since 1973 as a journalist and columnist and he is the main author of the reference books Third World Guide and World Guide.

Simon Stocker, EUROSTEP, Brussels.
Simon Stocker is the director of Eurostep, a network of non-governmental organisations focusing on EU-financed development co-operation.

Tanya Dawkins, Global-Local Links Project, Miami.
Tanya is the executive director of the Global-Local Links Project where her work focuses on engaging one of the most pressing issues of our time ‐ what it means to build citizen and community power in an age of intensifying globalization(s). She is dedicated to developing a new generation of globally minded, community-centric tools, networks, law and policy that “put people and communities at the center of the global economy.” This work includes the development of the Global Community Rights Framework Initiative. Tanya has an MBA from Barry University and has completed post graduate studies in international human rights law at Oxford University. She currently serves as co-chair Social Watch International and has been active in Social Watch-US since 2005.

Timo Lappalainen, KEPA, Finland.
Timo is responsible for the executive management to assist the Board of Kepa's political and strategic management. He is in charge of Kepa's external relations, representation, lobbying, and member relations, and he is the main communication link between the Board and the Secretariat. Kepa is the umbrella organisation for Finnish civil society organisations (CSOs) who work with development cooperation or are otherwise interested in global affairs. At the moment Kepa has roughly 300 member organisations, ranging from small voluntary-based organisations to major national organisations.

Wolfgang Obenland, Global Policy Forum, Bonn.
Wolfgang is a founding member of and program coordinator at the Global Policy Forum Europe and a member of the European Steering Committee of the Tax Justice Network.

Xavier Godinot, ATD-Fourth World, Paris.
Xavier works at the headquarters of the International Movement ATD Fourth World, where he was director of its Research Institute for twelve years. He coordinates anti-poverty projects in Southern and Northen countries, with families living in rubbish dumps, under bridges and in slums. He has edited several books about poverty in the North and the South.

Ziad Abdel Samad, Arab NGO Network for Development, Lebanon.
Ziad is the Executive Director of the Arab NGO Network for Development (ANND), based in Beirut, since 1999. ANND brings together 30 NGOs and nine national networks from 11 Arab countries active in the protection of social and economic rights.
Ziad is a civil engineer.