An Outline of Specifications for the Development of Working Procedures and a Calendar

Foreword

The Foundation Board of the FPH decided to stop providing, as of 2006, significant financial support for the revival or development the Alliance’s collective activity (circulation of news, facilitation and moderation of multilingual e-forums, organization of meetings, etc.). This does not in any way preclude such development from being pursued, but it implies that the Allies will have to be more autonomous for their initiatives than in the past. For its second stage, it is up to the Alliance to give itself a fund-raising procedure for its linkage, to pursue the development of its working procedures (which include, so far: the Web site, the data base including documents and Experience Reports, the Alliance Directory, and many tutorials for the collaborative working tools), and to draw up a common calendar. The following is a draft of proposals to meet these challenges based on the results of the consultation on the project for a Constituent Charter organized between May and October 2005. These specifications include in particular the possible constitution of the different groups and follow-up committees included in the project for a Constituent Charter initially launched by the FPH. Many people expressed, in the consultation, their wish to belong to one or another of these groups and committees. This does not formally determine their actual future participation in these groups: the change in the relationship between the FPH and the Alliance has also changed the context in which Allies may want to make a decision as to their involvement in the collective activity of the Alliance.

Working Procedures

The procedures that follow or that will be implemented in the future exist or will exist once there are persons or organizations willing to finance them, design them, implement them, and maintain them technologically.

The financing, conception, implementation, and maintenance of these procedures are at the core of the Allies’ work program in its second stage.

The value of these procedures is determined only by the effective measure of the Allies’ shared commitments. For reasons of economy and convenience, they rely largely on computer technology, the Internet, and the Word Wide Web. Nevertheless, the Allies have reaffirmed their wish to maintain face-to-face relations not exclusively mediated through the Internet.

Building, Saving, and Passing on the Memory of a Plural History

The Alliance is a collective human adventure built over the years at the service of common objectives. It is determined to pursue to following objectives, which distinguish it from ordinary networks and discussion forums, and which define it as a process in the emergence of collective intelligence:
 to last over the years;
 to develop its capacity to learn from its successes and its failures;
 to record the conditions for the elaboration of collective proposals;
 to maintain a clear vision of everyone’s initiatives.
The path traveled since 1994, the history of the Alliance, is presented on its Web site.

>> www.alliance21.org/2003/rubrique237.html

Every year, a group of volunteer Allies, as diverse as possible in its geographical, cultural, social, or professional rooting, will take on the responsibility of producing a reasoned and easily readable summary of the year gone by in the form of Alliance Annals.

Ordering the Connections, the Information, the Experience Sharing, and the Debates

To do this, Allies have the following elements at their disposal:

 The Web site, both their display window for the public and their primary workplace. Put up in 1996, it has been redesigned several times to make it easier to read and use. It is currently being revamped with FPH backing and is moving toward reinforced autonomy in the management of its different components. It is a structured Web site, which is essential for unity, to which information is nonetheless added through decentralized means, which is essential for safeguarding the autonomy of initiatives and the pluralism of opinions. Every Ally can therefore add information to the Web site on his or her own responsibility as to the accuracy and the quality of such information. Downloading and publishing the information, experiences, and proposals contained in the Alliance Web site is not subject to copyright on condition that such information is not published partially, that its source is clearly stated, that the principle of good faith as defined in the Charter is complied with, and that the information is not taken out of its context.

Allies who wish to may join a committee of Alliance Web site users.

>> http://www.alliance21.org/2003

 The Alliance Directory, the public part of which is displayed on the Web site. All the Allies currently listed in the Directory were included on the basis of their endorsement of the 1993 Platform for a Responsible and United World. They are invited to confirm their wish to remain in the Directory on the basis of the new Constituent Charter.

>> www.alliance21.org/2003/article765.hml

 The Alliance Experience Bank. If locally, Allies can organize freely to circulate these experiences and considerations, on a world scale, such circulation is only possible through the technological possibilities of the Internet. The starting format for Experience Reports and Document Abstracts was defined through its use. Improvements in the format and technology will be introduced after discussion among Allies who have practiced experience sharing.
A group of volunteer Allies is to be constituted to work on the follow-up and the improvement of the tools and methods for experience sharing.

Enhancing the Working Methods on a Continuous Basis

The working methods are part of the common heritage of the Alliance and apply to all the aspects of collective-intelligence building. They range from the organization of meetings to the facilitation of multilingual e-forums, from the compilation of experiences to the development of proposals.
Their constant enhancement and their circulation are part of the Allies’ shared responsibilities.

For better visibility, a section of the Web site, managed by a group of volunteer Allies, could be devoted to an educational presentation of the tools and methods.

Common Calendar for the 2004-2010 Stage

General Calendar or Agenda for the Second Stage

The establishment of a common calendar is, for any alliance, as basic as it is a paradox. Basic, because in the absence of a central authority, it is through the common calendar, the priorities that it proposes, and the deadlines that it fixes that everyone’s different initiatives can be made consistent with one another. A paradox, because the same absence of authority makes it difficult to establish and implement a common calendar.
The reference calendar for the 2004-2010 stage remains to be drawn up. It has as its starting point the Charter of Human Responsibilities and the Agenda for the Twenty-first Century, two of the fundamental texts produced during the first stage. This reference calendar is only a starting point, a shared projection. It will only be achieved insofar as effective initiatives are born, with their specific human, material, and financial means, to translate it into acts.

A group of volunteer Allies could organize a discussion and draw up the common calendar starting from the Alliance objectives as determined in the Constituent Charter.

Development of Biennial Strategies

Beyond the Allies’ decentralized initiatives, it is in the interest of the Alliance to have a common strategic framework, to be renewed every other year. One proposal resulting from the consultation is the following. A public Alliance e-debate can be organized every other year for a period of three months. Allies who wish to, will state their own view on the priorities for the period to follow. A facilitation team made up of volunteers, as diverse as possible as to their geocultural or socioprofessional background, will make the commitment to study the whole of the proposals, then, with the methodology developed within the Alliance, will determine from the whole of the proposals a few strategic lines, which will be proposed to all the Allies as priorities for the two years to follow.

The value of this common strategic framework, just as for the general calendar, depends on the interest it generates among the whole of the Allies and on every Ally’s willingness to contribute to implementing it. One of the challenges involved in organizing the activity according to specific time periods is to achieve consistency between the cycles and deadlines of the Alliance with, on the one hand, the diversity of local paces and on the other hand, with the calendar of political, economic, and social events that will be federating the construction of the planet. This twofold consistency will guarantee both respect of diversity within the Alliance and openness to other alliances, which is one of the objectives of this second stage.

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