The 2nd Stage of the Alliance has just started

FPH-Alliance relationship

The FPH Board 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 Alliance Web site is currently being revamped in depth with
Foundation backing, and is moving toward a more autonomous and
decentralized management of its different components.

In the course of 2006, an Internet-based technical platform, financed
by the FPH and developed by the Alliance Communication Team will be
gradually operational and will allow the Alliance to share with other
citizens’ alliances an arena in which to meet, to work, and to share
resources. Detailed information on the objectives and the implementation
of this technical platform for citizens’ alliances will be communicated
to you on a regular basis.

The Constituent Charter

The Alliance Communication Team, which was in charge of facilitating
the consultation on the project for a Constituent Charter proposed by
the FPH, established a new version of the Constituent Charter that takes
into account the thoughts and contributions of the 300-or-so persons who
participated in the consultation. This new version, henceforth
available on the Alliance Web site, is presented in two parts. The
first part contains the Charter proper, which expresses the rights and
duties of the Allies. The second part contains a draft of
specifications for the second stage. It is more specifically concerned
with the working procedures and the common calendar. It gathers
proposals from the first version and proposals by the consultation
participants. This breakdown into two parts takes into account the
decision of the FPH and therefore makes conditional a number of
procedures and deadlines, which the Allies will be able to rediscuss, to
appropriate, to modify, to throw out, etc.

About the Mediation and Support Group (MSG) guarantor of the
constituent Charter, it seems important to underscore that its future
members will not be the representatives, or spokespersons of such or
such a region of the world or geocultural area. In the spirit of the
Charter and without claiming to foretell the future, the MSG’s
intervention in the management of possible conflicts should be extremely
exceptional. We should remember that the MSG will be constituted by the
FPH on the basis of the call for candidates that was made in the
framework of the consultation conducted between May and October 2005,
and according to the legitimacy criteria mentioned in the Charter. Once
it is constituted, this first group will be renewed at the latest at the
end of the second stage of the Alliance, according to a calendar and
rules that remain to be specified by the whole of the Allies.

The specifications proposed in supplement to the Charter include in
particular the possible constitution of the different groups and
follow-up committees proposed 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. As a reminder, the original Charter project
called for the constitution of the following groups: an editorial group
to write up the Alliance Annals, a group to follow up and improve the
tools and methods for experience sharing, a group of Alliance Web site
users, one for the methodology for the working procedures, one to
discuss the common calendar, one to facilitate the implementation of the
strategy for 2006-2007. To facilitate contacts, the names of the persons
who initially stated that they wished to become involved in these
different groups will be circulated to you soon.

Second stage of the Alliance and public discussion among the Allies

Any Ally wishing to contribute publicly to the collective thinking on
the future of the Alliance is invited to do so on the "alliance" forum,
which is described at http://www.forums.alliance21.org/in....

* All the prospective work accomplished within the Alliance these past
few years is a resource for the present considerations.

Sincerely,
Alliance Communication Team