Rio+20 Portal

(Report of the Brazilian Civil Society’s Facilitator Committee for Rio +20).

Between the 15th and the 23rd of June of this year, will occur the People’s Summit for Social and Environmental Justice in Rio +20 at Flamengo, in Rio de Janeiro. The global civil society, organizations, collectives and social movements will occupy the landfill to propose a new way of living on the planet, in solidarity against the commodification of nature and in defense of the commons.

The People’s Summit will take place alongside the UN Conference on Sustainable Development, Rio +20. The official meeting marks the twentieth anniversary of the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (Rio 92 or Eco 92). In these two decades, the lack of action to overcome social and environmental injustice has frustrated expectations and discredited UN. The planned agenda for the official Rio +20, the so-called “green economy” and global governance, is considered by the organizers of the Summit as unsatisfactory to deal with the global crisis, caused by the models of capitalist production and consumption.

To meet the challenges of the systemic crisis, the People’s Summit will not only be a great event. It is part of a historical process of accumulation and convergence of local, regional and global struggles, that have anti-capitalist, classist, anti-racist, anti-patriarchal and anti-homophobic political frames.

We want to transform Rio +20 in a moment of opportunity to address the serious problems that humanity is facing and demonstrate the political power of organized people. ”Come reinvent the world” is our call and our invitation for the participation of the organizations and social movements in Brazil and in the world. The call for the global summit will be held during the Thematic Social Forum (www.fstematico2012.org.br) on the 28th of January in Porto Alegre (RS). This year’s Forum is, moreover, preparatory for the Summit.

The Civil Society’s Facilitator Committee for Rio +20 (CFSC) is preparing the design of the Peoples’ Summit and the territory we will occupy in Flamengo. The space will be organized into self-organized discussion groups, a People’s Permanent Assembly and a showcase space for organizations and social movements, to allow them to practice and dialogue with society on their experiences and projects. The actions of the Summit will all be interconnected. A working group on methodology was created to detail the implementation of that design.

The idea is that the People’s Permanent Assembly – the main political forum of the Summit, is organized around three axes and discuss the structural causes of the current crisis of civilization, without fragmenting it into specific crises – energy, financial, environmental, food. Thus, we expect to raise new paradigms and alternatives built by people and point out the political agenda for the next period. The working group on methodology will work on proposing the best way to organize these debates and to assert new paradigms.

The first two days of the Summit (15th and 16th of June) will be guided by activities organized by local social movements, which are in constant struggle to resist the impacts of major projects. Starting from that moment, a free access space will be set up, where organizations and global civil society movements will be able to exhibit experiences and projects that demonstrate how a sustainable and fraternal society is possible, unlike the current paradigm that we live in.

Therefore, the territory of the People’s Summit will be free from corporate presence and based on solidarity economy, agriculture, in digital cultures, actions of indigenous and quilombolas communities. This meeting of citizenship, which will also feature cultural attractions, will be opened until the end of the Summit, on the 23rd.

Methodology of People’s Summit

The methodology and program were defined during the last meeting of the Articulation Group of the People’s Summit, which brings together organizations and social movements at national and international level.

The People’s Summit is not one isolated event but a part of a process built through well-articulated struggles and resistance movements. It is on this understanding that the organizational structure of the Summit stands.

The guiding principle is that all activities should converge towards the People’s Assembly which has three axes: 1) Denunciation of structural causes and new forms of expanded capital accumulation; 2) Solutions and new paradigms, 3) Agenda, campaigns and mobilization that well articulates the process of anti-capitalist mobilizations after Rio+20

Program of People’s Summit