The Alliance for a Responsible and United World has been growing and becoming stronger, and we are entering a new moment in its process of collective organization. With the support of the Charles Léopold Mayer Foundation for the Progress of Humankind (FPH) we have been impelling a consultation process dedicated to strengthening the coordination and orientation mechanisms of the Alliance. This process has been rich and complex. Starting from some initial ideas that came out of the December 1997 meetings, Martí Olivella took responsibility for preparing an organization proposal and submitting it to increasingly broader consultations. The Fifth Draft of this proposal was sent to all the Allies at the end of July 1998 and Ricardo Gómez took responsibility for receiving all the proposals and comments. You will find, attached to this letter, a summary of the results of this last round of consultations (the complete document will be sent to those who took part in it and is available at the Web site of the Alliance (www.alliance21.org); we can also send it by mail it to anyone who requests it).

In a few words, this consultation process has taught us that although there is great interest in advancing and strengthening the organization of the Alliance, the structure proposed in the Fifth Draft is not suitable. In view of this, it is preferable, for the time being, just to constitute a committee, neither very big nor very small, which is to help in the orientation and facilitation of the collective dynamics of the Alliance and prepare the way for the organization of the Assembly 2001.

An International Orientation Committee for the Alliance

We are therefore inviting all the Allies to make headway in this process by helping the formation of an International Orientation Committee for the Alliance. It will be formed in the coming months. This committee will have the responsibility of orienting the Alliance's process of entry into the new millennium, preparing the ground for the organization of the Assembly 2001, strengthening the work and the collective thinking, and consolidating the process of self-organization that we have been impelling. This is a process in construction, in which this is an important stage, but it is also a transitory, and necessarily imperfect stage.

The International Orientation Committee will comprise Allies from different regions of the world who are willing to take on, for the next three years, the commitment, the challenges, and the necessary tasks to coordinate and to orient the advances of the Alliance, and who will accept the confidence granted them by the other Allies in entrusting them with this responsibility. Needless to say the participation of everyone is not only welcome but necessary for the success of this collective adventure.

The tasks of the International Orientation Committee¹

1. To impel the Alliance's self-organization process, facilitating the creation of new Committees as the need arises, counting on the Allies' offer to collaborate.

2. To guide the dialogue and the organization of the Assembly 2001 (starting from the consultation on the "Earth Citizens Assembly"), seeking and orienting the people and committees that are to take responsibility for their coordination and facilitation.

3. To elaborate a plan and a budget for the self-organization of the Alliance and for the Assembly 2001, to obtain the initial funds and to set the process in motion.

4. To begin the process for creating an international Foundation in charge of collecting and negotiating the funds for the preparation and achievement of the different stages of the Assembly 2001.

5. Investigate and implement additional forms and sources of funding for Alliance activities.

6. To establish self-evaluation and periodic renewal mechanisms as individual and collective commitments are completed. "Active transparency" (to publicize permanently the convocations to meetings, the discussions, the results, the consultations, etc.) and "democracy of service" (to appraise people according to their capacity of concrete service and not to their acquired prestige) will be the guidelines of the Committee.

Constitution of the team

Nearly 100 Allies from different regions of the world said that they would be willing to participate in the activities and organization structures of the Alliance. We are now inviting the Allies to begin a process for the collective selection of 15 people to make up the International Orientation Committee of the Alliance, by means of the following procedure: a final list of Allies offering to be part of the International Orientation Committee is going to be submitted to all the Allies, who will give their vote of confidence to five people to make up the Committee, keeping in mind the criteria of diversity, balance, and an overall view of the Alliance. The International Orientation Committee will meet for the first time around April 1999 to define its work plan and priorities.²

We hope that you share our enthusiasm with this ongoing, advancing process, and that together we will continue to add our grain of sand, or our drop of water, in the construction of the Alliance for a Responsible and United World.

Martí Olivella & Joan Ramón Gordo (Barcelona)
Ricardo Gómez (Ottawa)

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