8/2/2002
Two Forums, One Interdependent Message

The World Economic Forum ended this week in New York. The World Social Forum - the 'alternative' forum, less prestigious and more untidy than its big brother, - ended in Porto Alegre, a sprawling urban agglomeration in southern Brazil. The symbolism of the locations could not be more apt. The one in the rich north and the other, 10,000 miles away, in the poor south. The physical separation reflected the gulf in the perceptions of their respective supporters just as it reflected the gulf between rich and poor; and it set the agenda for both.

If Kofi Annan, the United Nations Secretary-General, could have been in two places at once, no doubt he would have. He is no doubt one of the very few people in the world who could be assured of being greeted by a standing ovation at either forum. In the event he accepted that of the thousand business and political leaders whom Klaus Schwab had beckoned to the Big Apple. That was inevitable and reflects real politics; the Social Forum had to make do with a message.

One day perhaps there will be an World Social and Economic Forum. Certainly, that was the theme, in its different ways, expressed in the Secretary-General's messages to both bodies. For he made clear to the Economic Forum that peaceful globalisation would not succeed, would not even be fully realised, without the social initiatives that ensured prosperity and security and rights for all. And he told the Social Forum that without the engine of economic globalisation, the social progress that was the due of the world's poor could never be achieved. "The way forward lies in finding constructive solutions together," said Mr. Annan.

'It's an ill wind that brings no one some good' runs the old saw, and if there is a positive consequence to have emerged from the evil and terrible events of last September it is a sharper focus on the social and economic fault lines that traverse our ever shrinking planet. Annan's analogy was that of a small, storm-tossed boat called Earth. We all risk infection from passengers that are sick, "and if they are hungry, all of us can easily get hurt."

That message, to be fair, has now seeped fairly deeply into the consciousness of world. But leaders constrained as they are by political, economic, and even legal pressures are still unsure of the way forward. Slogans are easy, they cost nothing and have no consequences; actions by contrast have widespread and not always predictable effects. And gestures get us nowhere.

So Annan appealed to both the members of both forums to join the slow and painful hunt for solutions to the world's many problems. "Our ability to improve the lives of the men and women of this planet will depend on the ability of all sectors of society to move beyond ideology, and work together in the search for pragmatic solutions," he said. And no doubt with the bitter taste of recent anti-globalisation protests in mind he warned those at Porto Alegre, saying "you in civil society must show that you are ready to work in partnership for change, rather than remain aloof through the politics of confrontation."

"I believe that perception is wrong," Mr. Annan said - this time to his New York audience - "but it is up to you to prove it wrong, with actions that translate into concrete results for the downtrodden, exploited and excluded…You must show that economics, properly applied, and profits, wisely invested, can bring social benefits within reach not only for the few but for the many, and eventually for all."

And to do this he charged businesses with a duty to invest in poorer countries. "The unpleasant truth is that markets put a premium on success, and tend to punish the poor for the very fact that they are poor," he said, warning that left alone in their poverty, these countries were all too likely to collapse, or relapse, into conflict and anarchy, a menace to their neighbours and potentially a threat to global security.

Rome was not built in a day. The evolution of a better world order will be a process rather than an event and a long drawn out process at that. Yet there is the opportunity this year in two important UN conferences to carry forward this process and in so doing fit a couple more stabilisers to the little and over laden boat called Earth. The Secretary-General appealed to both Forums to participate to ensure the success of the Conference on Financing for Development, which takes places next month, and the World Summit on Sustainable Development later in the year. "On all these challenges, the United Nations will depend increasingly on the constructive engagement of civil society," he said.