The Assembly was organized by the Charles Léopold Mayer Foundation for the Progress of Humankind (FPH), on the initiative of the Alliance for a Responsible, Plural, and United World. Participants in the Assembly were to reflect the geocultural, social, and professional diversity of global society. A process to choose the participants was defined as early as September 2000 and was implemented from March to October 2001. The objective was reached: through the diversity of its participants, the Assembly foreshadowed a Global Parliament. Most of the participants were not familiar with the Alliance dynamics. A dialogue with the participants previous to the Assembly allowed them to prepare for the event.
Nearly one hundred resource persons, Alliance workshop and socioprofessional-network facilitators in particular, took part in the Assembly. They secured the link with the thinking that had taken place within the Alliance.
This document is an excerpt of the Assembly scenario that was defined in November 2000; it served as a basis for the entire preparation process of the Assembly, in particular for choosing the participants.

Process Used to Choose the Participants

For four hundred participants to reflect a changing world in all of its diversity, individual and collective criteria had to be defined so that each participant would be a true representative of his or her region or socioprofessional sphere and for there to be a fair balance between regions and socioprofessional spheres.
As shown by the list of participants, these objectives were reached. Allies played a determining role in the identification of potential participants. More than sixty networks played a part in identifying participants in the regions of the world where the Alliance had little or no representation.