The Continental Assemblies are an essential step in the program of the meetings organized in 2000 and 2001. They incorporate the contributions from the Alliance's different workshops and are a step in preparing the World Assembly in December 2001. Each assembly will bring together regional participants as well as representatives from other continents so as to reinforce their intercultural and international dimension. These meetings will all take place around the solstice of June 2001 and be linked with each other by the Internet.

An African Caravan left Cape Town in June 2000 and continues its path across the continent, exposing the main challenges facing Africa and strengthening the bonds between its different regions. As it travels, it organizes workshops, regional meetings with civil society and the media, cultural activities, etc. It seeks to explore the following subjects: political renewal, social movements, youth and education, health, economics, decentralization and regional integration, culture, values and the arts.

These activities are being used as the basis for drawing up an African Charter for Peace and Solidarity. This will constitute one of the contributions from Africa to the World Assembly. The Caravan will end with a Continental Assembly attended by about a hundred people at Arusha (Tanzania) from 20^th to 26^th June 2001.

Contact: kigali@alliance21.org

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For their participation in the 2000-2001 Assembly, the Americans have decided on an iterative process that is both thematic and geographic, putting emphasis on the relationship between unity and diversity and on intercultural dialogue. Four meetings will be held from February to June 2001 in the different regions of the two continents:

• in February 2001, the Andean region will meet at Cochabamba (Bolivia) and work on social movements and intercultural relations;

• in April 2001, the North American region will meet in Canada to examine the continental integration process;

• in April or May 2001, the South American region will organize a meeting on the subject of integration;

• in May 2001, Central America and the Caribbean countries will meet in Mexico to consider the issues of social movements, forms of sustainable production and intercultural relations.

These four initiatives will meet together at the Continental Assembly scheduled from 18^th to 22^nd June at Quito (Ecuador) to consider four issues: identity, diversity, dignity, unity.

Contact: cepsi@ecuanex.net.ec

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In Asia, 2 complementary movements will result in continental assemblies in June 2001.

• The first movement places emphasis on human conscience, spirituality and culture as the basis for seeking solutions and alternatives related to major economic, political, ecological and cultural problems. It will set up a series of regional workshops (Bangkok, Manila, Bangalore and Wellington) and a continental meeting at Bangkok or Bangalore from 19^th to 22^nd June 2001. A joint Asia-Pacific Declaration will be discussed during the Assembly of June 2001 and then presented at the World Assembly in December.
   
  Contact: sidd@vsnl.com

• The Alliance South Asian coordinating group has set up an initiative called "Youth beyond frontiers: building partnerships to meet challenges". From August 2000 to April 2001, a series of regional meetings and activities (Pakistan, India, Nepal, Philippines, Thailand, and Sri Lanka) will be organized around five subjects: faith and fanaticism; the family and human relationships; gender relationships; the power of the young; and life skills and lifestyles. This preparation phase will end with a continental Caravan that will take the path to the Asian Youth Assembly, set to meet in India from 7^th to 10^th June 2001, attended by about 80 participants from fifteen countries, and end with a March for Peace.
   
  Contact: sarfaraz@del2.vsnl.net.in

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The continental movement is a contribution to the European constituent process in both its form and its subjects. It is based on an experimental method of participatory citizens' debates (planning cells) and focuses on 4 major European issues: democratic governance for Europe; work and social organization; the European rural world and sustainability; and migrations and multicultural citizenship. The European Continental Assembly will gather 200 participants at Peles (Romania) from 17^th to 21^st June 2001.

Contact: manola@fph.fr or betty@fph.fr

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A regional meeting in Lebanon (at Beirut and Khyam) will be held in parallel with the Continental Assemblies, thus associating the Arab world with the Assemblies of June 2001.

Contact: zmajed@hotmail.com

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