North America

The Alliance has clearly not shown great development in North America. Nonetheless, a number of Allies are facilitating a variety of activities in the region, among others, in the United States. We have backed two initiatives from Canada: the facilitation of a network of labor unions on a world level, presented by Alternatives (from Montreal) and a study on civil society and governance proposed by the Club of Athens (also based in Montreal). In the United States, we have backed initiatives presented by Rob Wheeler, based in Minnesota and in New York, who has facilitated an electronic forum of public debate on the World People’s Parliament (since November 2002) and is an active contributor to peace actions in a number of organizations.

We have maintained contacts with former partners such as Mark Ritchie, Director of the IATP (Institute on Agriculture and Trade Policies), and have made new partners such as Mark Rand, facilitator of a network of American foundations on world trade and globalization, whom we met in the framework of foundation support for the World Social Forum (Funders Network on Trade and Globalization http://www.fntg.org). Mark Rand and a few other persons from these foundations would like to set up stronger relations with European foundations and we have undertaken a few joint projects, in particular the preparation of the conferences for the yearly meeting of the European Foundation Center, which took place in Lisbon in June 2003.

It seems difficult to constitute a geocultural group of the Allies in the United States and in Canada. Former and new partners, however, remain particularly active. Our understanding is that in the present political and cultural context of the United States, this is no simple task.