Civil Society vs Bretton Woods II

Social Watch and partner organizations press for a democratic restructuring of the global financial system in the wake of the recent financial crisis

Over the last few months there has been the bursting of the sub-prime mortgage bubble in the United States and the collapse of multinational investment banks and insurance companies like Lehman Brothers and AIG has triggered a free fall in all of the world´s most important stock markets, prompting bail out packages offered by the US and European governments to these ailing institutions and spurring calls to re-regulate credit markets and the global banking system in general. In this context, the G-20 will be meeting on November 15 in Washington for an ad-hoc summit, in order to come up with solutions to ameliorate this economic meltdown.

Worried by the possibility that the G-20 nations will try to enact an exclusionary, undemocratic “quick fix” to the crisis, civil society organizations working on globalization related issues led by Social Watch, the Halifax Initiative, the Bretton Woods Project, and Center of Concern, among other groups, drafted a joint “Statement on the Proposed `Global Summit´ to Reform the International Financial System”, that has been signed on to by over 2710 organizations and individuals from Canada to China and officially presented to policy makers and the press on October 29th, the day before the UN high-level task force on the global financial crisis, led by Nobel Prize winner Joseph Stieglitz, was convened.

According to this Statement, any restructuring of the world financial institutions should take place under the auspices of the UN, and should be “inclusive and participatory of all governments of the world; includes representatives from civil society, citizens´ groups, social movements, and other stakeholders; has a clear timeline and process for regional consultations, particularly with those most affected by the crisis; is comprehensive in scope, tackling the full array of issues and institutions; and is transparent, with proposals and draft outcome documents made publicly available”.

As a follow up to this Statement, Social Watch and its partner organizations took the lead once again in the circulation of another joint declaration expressing civil society’s concerns on not just the way in which the decisions regarding the transformation of the world financial infrastructure will be made, but also about the substantive changes that should be enacted as part of this process.

This new open letter calls for a revamping of the rules and institutions that make up the global financial system, taking into account principles such as economic democracy, ecological sustainability, human rights, gender and ethnic equality, self-determination, and solidarity. In addition, this declaration urges governments to end free market fundamentalism; curb the power of the IMF, World Bank and WTO; and create an effective regulatory system with democratic checks and balances that take in to consideration the economic needs of the world’s most vulnerable populations. This new Statement was endorsed by over 400 groups and individuals and was released publicly on November 13, on the eve of the G-20 meeting in Washington.

This initiative is just the beginning of what looks to be an important struggle by Social Watch and related civil society organizations to ensure that any reform of the global financial system goes beyond mere “window dressing” and points the way towards the creation of a truly just and sustainable world economy. For example, Jubilee South and hundreds of other groups have called for a “global action day” on November 15, to put pressure on the G-20 leaders as they meet behind closed doors to reshape the international financial infrastructure, and civil society organizations attending the Doha conference on Financing for Development later this month such as Social Watch will push governments to not back down on their development aid promises as a consequence of the crisis. These actions and others by global civil society will be crucial in making sure that ordinary citizens do not remain passive victims of the financial crisis but become active participants in any process to transform our world economy for the better.

For the full text of the Statements by civil society on the possible reforms to the global financial system, go to http://www.choike.org/bw2/.

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