Rio+20 Portal

Also available in Français, Español, Português

GLOBAL CALL

(Automatic translation with Google Translator)

1. GENERAL PRINCIPLES

Whereas the Rio +20 is a key event on the agenda of organizations and social movements, part of a historic process occurred in the last 20 years – which includes the ECO92, the social mobilization during the course of the United Nations, the fight against the treaties free trade promoted by the WTO and FTAA, and more recently the Conference of the Peoples of Cochabamba, among other times – that neither begins nor ends in itself;

Whereas the area of ​​global civil society should be autonomous, pluralistic, democratic, respectful of diversity, the different forms of action and converge on common positions and concrete proposals to strengthen the involvement of social organizations. Those affected by the current model should have a voice and time and be protagonists of this process;

We affirm that Rio +20 should:

- reject the marketization of life and nature, the false solutions and the old and new technologies that deepen inequalities or hurt the precautionary principle

- Report the weakening and retreat in the field of socio-environmental policies in Brazil and worldwide.

- Defend the commons and visualize existing initiatives and put into practice by communities, traditional populations, farmers / peasants , the family and also by organized urban communities such as agro ecology, agro forestry, social economy, permaculture, social technologies, among others, and pressing for these to be supported by public policies.

- As part of the economic debate, should work to build parameters for a new paradigm that think the economy in terms of life based on ethical decisions and actions.

- Make an assessment of the gaps, effectiveness and adherence to treaties and conventions signed during the last twenty years, as well as rescue the accumulation produced by social organizations in this period, pressuring governments to these guidelines will be accepted in the official process.

- Promote the expansion of awareness of different social groups through campaigns and other forms of popular education, raising awareness and involving the public in this process. For this, different languages ​​and communication tools should be used, such as community radio, social networks, as well as alternative media and the mainstream media.

Rio +20 should also serve as a moment of reflection for social movements and organizations so they can assess how to incorporate in their internal dynamics of the view of sustainability.

Rio +20 should mobilize millions of people in Brazil and the world through thousands of connected activities before and during the event. Finally, the event must leave a legacy for the city of Rio de Janeiro and to the world, being in itself an example of the change we want to see on the planet.

2. COMMON GOAL

The civil society organizations and social movements and popular around the world seeking to change the timing of the UN Conference on Sustainable Development (UNCSD) on an opportunity to address the serious problems facing humanity and the planet will build together the process that will culminate in the demonstration of the strengthening of political society in the realization, between May and June 2012, the event called] Peoples [Meeting / Summit\) Rio +20 for social and environmental justice, independent and parallel to the UNCSD.

3. PROPOSAL PROCESS

For a collective construction of a methodology for the process toward People [Meeting / Summit] Rio +20, we affirm the following assumptions:

a) Guiding Principles

- We take as a starting point worsening in recent decades, the environmental situation around the globe and the parallel growth of poverty and social inequalities – local, regional and international – aggravated by the latest crisis of the capitalist economy;

- We set out, also, the need to address the issue of environmental and social justice, as well as social and environmental sustainability in an integrated manner. It takes place the enforcement of rights at the center of the global agenda;

- We demand the experiences of international courts and conferences, summits and social forums of people who, after Eco-92, built spaces for discussion and joint global;

- We seek to highlight the multitude of environmentally and socially relevant experiences that accumulate to build counter-hegemonic solutions.

- We focus on the official UN process and, where possible, influence it.

- Together with our process around the Rio +20, joint campaigns and able to deploy this new paradigm in action visible to many millions of people.

- We will seek, in short, to assert its presence in all fields of an alternative paradigm of society, strengthening his political power and seeking multiple convergences.

- The space of the Summit / Meeting of the peoples shall also serve to affirm, visualize and put in practice, the experiences of production and consumption and transformation of society towards this new paradigm in the course of the Rio +20.

b) The organization of the process

To organize a new framework for discussion ahead autonomous international institutions, capitalist corporations and national powers, we seek to form a plural framework , highlighting the diversity and turn it into a popular force, we tried to overcome the fragmentation and atomization of the struggles, encouraging convergence and common agendas.

We want to incorporate into our process strength, energy and initiative of thousands of organizations and movements around the world. For this, the starting point is your actual experience, both in its autonomous activity as in its ability to converge with other subjects. On the other hand, our process is faced with the need to question and to help overcome the fragmentation that marks today’s civil society, seeking to build coalitions to address common challenges and launch actions.

c) Strategic issues: convergences and animated discussions around strategic issues to overcome the current model of society and the establishment of a new paradigm of civilization, which should be worked out and answered by the various self-managed spaces, existing or emerging from this process, which is organized around themes or mobilizing its history of struggle and convergence.

We start this discussion here, from text-based networks formulated by facilitators – responsible for animating the face of each question – aims to lead us to Rio +20 with a significant accumulation and common struggles.

The questions proposed and approved to stimulate the debate on self-organized groups are:

1) What are the structural causes of multiple crises and failures in the implementation of international agreements?

2) How can we build a new economy based on social and environmental justice?

3) How can we make visible the struggles of resistance and defense of territory is claimed and expand the existing experiences of production and consumption and processing with a future now?

4) How to stop the commodification (marketization) of life, nature and the privatization of the commons?

5) How to enhance the coordination and control strategies and campaigns to bring about new and existing campaigns?

6) What we want global governance facing the current architecture of power?

d) International Liaison:

Develop in parallel, a dialogue with the processes that drive the agenda of struggles, mobilizations and building alternatives, among which are:

- Preparation of the seminar COP 17, in 2011, South Africa;

- The mobilizations against the G20 in Paris on 3 and 4 November;

- Mobilizations at COP 17 in Durban, from November 28 to December 9;

- Thematic Social Forum in Porto Alegre in January 2012 and,

- The Water Forum in Marseilles in April 2012.

CFSC / +20 Rio

Coordination Group

Operative Secretariat

Email: secretariaoperativa(@)rio2012.org.br