The first three
parts :
- Evaluation and Vision of the Future
- Proposals and Projects
- Report on the Participatory Process Used
for the Evaluation and Future of the Alliance
- The second
stage of the Alliance :
|
|
THE SECOND STAGE OF THE ALLIANCE
By Pierre Calame pic@fph.fr
First Contribution to a Collective Thinking Process
B/ Present Assets and Weaknesses of the Alliance
As It Faces the Changing Challenges of the World
2. Weaknesses
a) Compartmentalization among the Allies and among
the initiatives remains. The distance among the Allies and the scattered
range of their interests has favored communication among themselves.
The call for dialogue is often not heeded, or hardly, if only because
of lack of time. Despite its name, the Alliance all too often appears
as a simple juxtaposition of people, movements, and initiatives
united by the same diagnosis, the same intuitions, and the same
aspiration, but without, for all that, forming a really living social
fabric. PeopleÕs different priorities and pressures are too different
for common action to be easy. The example of the Workshops of the
Socio-Economy of Solidarity Workgroup, which has achieved real interconnection
and cross-cutting research, shows that decompartmentalization is
no simple matter. It requires energetic action, methods, and the
corresponding human and financial means.
b) Due to a lack of time, human resources, and
money, communication among the Allies, in the past year, has relied
too much on the Internet and on the Web site. In this intermediate
period, we had to interrupt the magazine Caravan. Those who received
it free of cost did not wish to contribute to its financing, as
shown by the failure of the subscription campaign. We also temporarily
interrupted the ÒWhatÕs New?Ó which served to inform the Allies
regularly on what was in progress. The FPH, through which all this
information is processed, remains central in its circulation. After
a period, when e-mail first started and appeared to be a tool adapted
to our needs, its fantastic success has now turned it into a weakness.
All those who have access to e-mail are flooded with messages. Under
these conditions, it is difficult to highlight the information specific
to the evolution of the Alliance if it is not organized and summarized.
As for the Web site, it is a good solution to the need of organizing
information but it underscores the digital divide between those
who have an easy and inexpensive access to the Internet and those
who do not have those same means. Moreover, it is not the proper
means to circulate information regularly. From the moment the FPH
stopped supporting the circulation of newsletters, the Alliance
has tended to come apart.
c) This finding leads us to two others: the operational
costs of the ÒmaintenanceÓ of the Alliance and the passive position
of many of the Allies with regard to this. The maintenance of a
system of structured and multilingual information including reference
information, such as the Proposal Papers, experiences, information
that has to be updated such as the AlliesÕ addresses, news, and
discussion forums implies incompressible operational and maintenance
costs. These can be reduced if all the Allies play an active role
in the construction and structuring of the information. But we cannot
deny that they have become accustomed to the fact that the FPH covers
these costs.
d) The determination with which the FPH began in
2000-2001 to set up new Socioprofessional Networks, to demand the
completion of the Proposal Papers, and to prepare the World Assembly
met with some incomprehension among many Allies. This strategy had
been publicly clarified as early as 1996. But that was not enough.
Probably the central position of the FPH in the Alliance led to
some confusion. Similarly, there was a lot of misunderstanding regarding
the connection between the Proposal Papers and the debates at the
World Citizens Assembly. The preparation of the World Assembly created
a Òdeadline effectÓ for the production of the Proposal Papers. The
objective of the Assembly was not to discuss these Papers but to
elaborate a much broader cross-cultural and interprofessional dialogue.
Here again, the written explanations were not enough. Many Allies
would have preferred that the World Citizens Assembly be a sort
of General Assembly for the Allies and that the AssemblyÕs discussions
be based on the Proposal Papers. We therefore have to cope with
the bitterness felt by some and think of a way of debating strategies
in the future.
e) Probably due to the compartmentalization and
the novelty, the Proposal Papers and the cross-summarization of
the Papers to determine the common priorities for the twenty-first
century are yet to be owned by the whole of the Allies. On the one
hand, very few have the time and the capacity to absorb all the
material to produce their own summary. Of the other, not everyone
is prepared to adopt and to own a summary commissioned by the Foundation
(for the Proposal Papers), or that I produced myself (as for the
summary of the World Citizens Assembly). We still havenÕt found
the means to move from the stage of a collectively shared diagnosis
to the stage of shared proposals. Even when there is an organized
system for the collective elaboration of the summaries, as in the
case of the Socio-Economy of Solidarity Workgroup of the Alliance,
ownership by everyone of the findings is not that simple. Collective
ownership remains a major challenge of the second stage.
f) The thematic approach is the easiest. So far,
the geocultural approach, through Local or Regional groups, with
the remarkable exception of the Sao Paulo group, has not been conclusive.
We were not able, for example, to make the appropriate connections
between the African Caravan and the Allies of the different countries
that it traveled through. Nor did we maintain the promising links
born of the European Continental Assembly.
g) Is the Alliance only a lot of nice rhetoric?
Is it capable of turning into concrete action for change? What is
the relationship between global thinking and local action? During
the first stage of the Alliance, the focus was on starting from
everyoneÕs experiences and innovationsÑhence from the actionÑand
in pooling these to determine broader perspectives. But the absence
of institutionalization of the Alliance hampered the visibility
of everyoneÕs commitments on a local level, making it impossible
to put forth a common rhetoric for the Alliance. Many Allies suffered
from this, and now that the Proposal Papers has been drawn up, the
challenge before us is that of our capacity to translate these proposals
into strategies for change and into local action.
h) The idea of setting up a different way of working
than the ways traditionally used by organizations, unions, or political
movements is probably more commonly shared today than it was three
years ago. The fact remains that the question of the governance
of the Alliance is raised.
i) Similarly, the question of the position of the
FPH in the Alliance is raised. The FPH has shown its determination
not to ÒdropÓ the Alliance. It acknowledges a moral responsibility
to a process that it contributed extensively to start up and to
develop. In the next few months, it will state its orientations
and priorities with regard to the Alliance. It is its duty to do
so. But if the Allies do not come up with a consistent perspective
for the second stage, it will have to define its strategy on its
own. The AlliesÕ perspective has yet to emerge.
![](../../../images/decors/top.gif)
|