Greetings

Dear [fullname,fallback=Colleague],

Welcome to the September edition of the Building Global Democracy programme newsletter. You are receiving this mailing as someone who is known by one or more of the BGD programme conveners to have interests in this area. We hope that you will find these occasional short updates helpful in your research and/or activism on global issues.

About us
Latest news
Forthcoming events
Featured initiative
Publications
Resources

The Building Global Democracy programme brings together academics, activists and officials from around the world to advance knowledge and practice for greater public participation and control in global affairs. BGD explores how expanded 'rule by and for the people' can be achieved in respect of global issues such as climate change, financial crises, health concerns, internet links, migration flows, security problems, and trade. The premise is that more democratic governance can encourage more effective and more legitimate governance of vital global challenges.

The thematic projects that make up the BGD programme cover issues such as: rethinking democracy for a global age; citizen learning for global democracy; including the excluded in global policymaking; resource redistribution for global democracy; and intercultural constructions of global democracy.

The BGD programme is facilitated and coordinated through a convening group of ten persons based in ten world regions, with diverse academic backgrounds and political outlooks. Our administrative office is located in the Centre for the Study of Globalisation and Regionalisation at the University of Warwick in Britain. Core funding is provided through a generous grant from the Ford Foundation.

More details about BGD can be obtained on our website, www.buildingglobaldemocracy.org or from info@buildingglobaldemocracy.org.

Cairo Discussants Confirmed

As part of the Building Global Democracy Programme, a workshop dealing with the issue of Concepualising Global Democracy is being held in Cairo, 6-8 December. Further to the participation of ten authors, all of the discussants have now confirmed their participation in the workshop. Coming from both official and civil society backgrounds, these discussants will offer innovative and vital contibutions to the ongoing debates surrounding global democracy.

BGD in New Delhi

The Building Global Democracy Programme is now beginning to make plans for our third project which is to be held in New Delhi on 1-3 September 2010. The participants will be announced on the website in due course. This workshop will tackle the issue of Citzen Learning for Global Democracy.

BGD welcomes new Programme Officer

After the departure of Satu Raitala in August, the Building Global Democracy Programme welcomes Laura Downey to the post. Laura has just completed an MA in Caribbean Literature and World Literary Studies and comes to the programme full of enthusiasm for the potential of the programme and her role in its success. Please feel free to contact Laura with any thoughts on the programme or suggestions for the newsletter.

U.S. House Committee on Financial Services holds a hearing on World Bank transparency reforms, 10 September 2009

Alnoor Ebrahim, author in the BGD pilot project, recently drew on his work for the Civil Society and Accountable Global Governance project in testimony to the Committee on Financial Services of the US House of Representatives. His remarks in hearings on 'The World Bank's Disclosure Policy Review and the Role of Democratic Participatory Processes in Achieving Successful Development Outcomes' are available in webcast. Listen now.

Workshop on 'Conceptualising Global Democracy'

6-8 December 09

Ground-breaking thinkers from 10 world regions, various academic disciplines and diverse political views will come together with civil society actors and officials from across the planet in this BGD workshop to debate the meaning of 'global democracy'.

The workshop arrangements are progressing well, with the vast majority of participants confirmed. It is hoped that the workshop will make major headway into the theorisation and conceptualisation of global democracy, highlighting issues to be confronted and positing potential tangible actions for the development of global democracy.

The academic authors include Eva Erman (Stockholm University, Stockholm), Sitiveni Halapua (East-West Center, Honolulu), Boris Kagarlitsky (Institute for Globalization and Social Movements, Moscow), Regina Karega (Kenyatta University, Nairobi), Edgardo Lander (Central University of Venezuela, Caracas), Ma Ben (Tsinghua University, Beijing, Political Science), Patricia Mohammed (University of the West Indies, St. Augustine), Nadia Mostafa (Cairo University, Cairo), Ramjee Singh (Gandhi Peace Foundation, New Delhi), Melissa Williams (University of Toronto, Toronto)

Civil society and official participants include a wide variety of backgrounds and opinions, all of which are central to the project of Conceptualising Global Democracy.

What are your thoughts on the Cairo workshop?

If you have any thoughts, comments or questions about the upcoming workshop in Cairo, let us know! We will publish them on our website, with answers and responses from the convening group where appropriate. Send your thoughts to: info@buildingglobaldemocracy.org

Among the objectives of the BGD programme is to raise awareness of efforts throughout the world to bring greater democracy to the governance of global concerns. To this end each BGD newsletter highlights an academic and/or practitioner initiative in this area. This time we look at the Arab NGO Network for Development and the Programa Democracia y Transformacion Global. Please feel free to send suggestions of other features for future newsletters.

The Arab NGO Network for Development (ANND)

The Arab NGO Network for Development (ANND) is a regional network working in 12 Arab countries with 7 national networks and 23 non-governmental organizations. ANND’s mission focuses on promoting human rights, democracy, and sustainable development in the Arab region. Its main objectives focus on empowering civil society organizations (CSOs) to engage in playing a more effective role in monitoring and formulating public policies at the national, regional and global levels. ANND’s strategy focuses on enhancing and strengthening the role of CSOs in rights-based advocacy related to social and economic policy making, through opening channels of influence in policy making processes. In addition, ANND works towards enhancing the availability of indigenous resource material addressing social and economic policies and rights. ANND's many ongoing engagements with global affairs include participation in the Social Watch network, application of the Universal Periodic Review of the United Nations Human Rights Council, and inputs to UN discussions of the current global financial and economic crisis.

Read the full ANND newsletter contribution.

Programa Democracia y Transformacion Global

In June 2003, in the midst of intense global changes, the Programme for Democracy and Global Transformation was created at the San Marcos University (Lima, Peru). Since then the programme has offered a transdisciplinary space for the analysis of power, democratization and social movements in the contemporary globalizing world.

During its six year existence, the PDTG has developed into an autonomous centre for research, capacity-building and alternative communication, combining academic reflection and direct work with social organisations. We aim to contribute to the struggles for autonomy, diversity, democracy, ecological and social justice within Perú, the Americas and the world. As such we are collaborating with the women’s and feminist movement, the movement of indigenous and farmer communities, alternative cultural spaces, alternative media and the LGTB movement in Peru.

The programme is part of various transnational networks of critical reflection and the promotion of a radicalization of democracy, such as the Network Institute for Global Democratization, Enlazando Alternativas, and the Interuniversitarian Research Consortium on the Americas: Social Movements and Politico-Cultural Transformation in the 21st Century.

To learn more visit www.democraciaglobal.org

The Building Global Democracy Programme builds links with other institutions which also seek to develop notions of global democracy, identifying publications which may be of interest to our readership.

Global Civil Society 2009 explores the framing, strategies and impacts of various actors in global civil society on poverty and its eradication. Leading scholars and practitioners from around the world have contributed, including Indian academics and activists on issues such as local livelihoods, discourses of poverty, diaspora and global civil society forums for the poor. It is available for sale from Sage and selected chapters from Global Civil Society 2009 can be downloaded from CSGG’s website.

The One World Trust has recently issued publications: (a) on parliamentary oversight of the G20, which deals with the challenges of democratic control over informal global governance; (b) on the independence and accountability of the International Criminal Court; and (c) on the state of NGO self-regulation, as a tool for enhancing citizens’ voice and participation in policy formation, including on global matters.

Torbjörn Tännsjö, Global Democracy: The Case for a World Government (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press/Columbia University Press, 2008). 'If we want to obviate war, ascertain global justice and create a sustainable environment, we must establish a world government. Global democracy is not only possible, it is argued, it is also, pace Kant and Rawls, desirable in its own right.' The royalties from the sales of the book are donated to Oxfam. Torbjörn Tännsjö is Kristian Claëson Professor of Practical Philosophy at Stockholm University. http://www.philosophy.su.se/personal/tannsjo.htm

The results of the BGD pilot project will be published in book form as Global Citizenship in Action? Civil Society and Accountable Global Governance by Cambridge University Press in early 2010. Several chapters have been published in draft form as working papers of the Centre for the Study of Globalisation and Regionalisation at Warwick University, the Global Policy Forum Europe, and the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.

The BGD website includes a Links area with connections to other projects concerned with building global democracy and a Library area with access to online publications on subjects related to building global democracy. Please send your suggested additions for these catalogues to info@buildingglobaldemocracy.org.

Website: www.buildingglobaldemocracy.org | Email: info@buildingglobaldemocracy.org | Tel: +44 (0)24 7657 2532
Unsubscribe