PERUGIA: The cancellation of Third World debt is the main policy objective of global civil society, according to a report presented here on Friday.

This was the conclusion of a comprehensive survey carried out by the Italian research organization ‘Globi’. The study investigated economic and technological change, and the rise of global civil society, in association with the Peace Round Table, organizers of the 5th United Nations Peoples’ Assembly currently taking place in this Italian city.

Presenting the report to delegates, Mario Pianta, professor in economic policy at Urbino University and co-author of the study, said it aimed to develop a set of tools that would assist civil society in tackling problems that arise from globalization.

“Everyone is always saying that civil society’s proposals aren’t concrete enough, so we need to develop these tools to monitor development and form a concrete set of proposals,” said Pianta, who is also a member of the steering committee of the Peace Round Table.

The report, “Globalizers from Below”, found that 64 per cent of the civil society groups interviewed cited Third World debt as the main priority of their work. The majority of these groups came from Latin America and Africa. The movement for debt cancellation has been one of the longest and most successful campaigns to be conducted by global movements in recent years.

More than half of the groups wanted increased flows of development aid to the South, a greater role for NGOs, and support for fair trade and ethical finance.

Some 59 per cent of the organizations questioned said they were campaigning to ban missile defence and accelerate nuclear disarmament, while almost 55 per cent said they were working for the majority of development aid from donor governments to be directed to NGOs and local communities.

Other pressing issues included constraints on multinational corporations (65 per cent), the enforcement of labour rights (63 per cent) and the control of international financial flows (62 per cent).

The survey was circulated to more than 1,000 civil society movements, including NGOs, networks, and trade unions, between 2001 and 2002. It examined the evolution of these groups, their aims, actions, policy proposals and effectiveness.

The NGOs also called for the democratization of international institutions, and presented a variety of proposals for institutional reform. Forty-seven per cent of respondents wanted veto powers in the UN Security Council to be abolished, while 42 per cent wanted civil society to be represented at institutions such as the IMF, World Bank and WTO.

Pianta said that such reforms were essential to challenge the effects of globalization.

“It is possible to build alternative models of globalization but we have to start with the European policies and institutions. We have to move away from privatization and deregulation, but European governments still don’t realize that their model cannot be upheld. We are asking Europe when can we change this model,” he told delegates.

The report also examined the profile of the civil society movement.

Research showed that many organizations have a ‘young’ face, with half of them being created in the period from 1995 to 1999, between the UN Conference on Social Development and the WTO Millennium Round in Seattle.

With generally limited resources, most organizations said they favoured networks and international events for building alliances, and campaigns to highlight pressing issues.—Dawn/The InterPress News Service.