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Statement endorsing Women's Tent City at G20 Summit
September 2009
The Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom endorses the People’s Summit - Sept. 19, 21-22, 2009 - and the Women’s Tent City to be held alongside the G20 meeting in Pittsburgh Pennsylvania, USA. WILPF believes that under systems of exploitation, peace and freedom cannot be achieved. Our mission is to further by non-violent means a transformation that would enable the establishment of economic and social systems in which political equality and social justice for all can be attained, and without discrimination on the basis of sex, race, religion, or any other grounds whatsoever. WILPF sees as its ultimate goal the establishment of an international economic order founded on the principles of meeting the needs of all people and not on those of profit and privilege. WILPF is concerned that the G20 is not moving in this direction.
To many millions of people the great gains of science, medicine and technology, let alone access to the internet, might as well take place on another planet. Meanwhile, criminal groups take advantage of porous borders and powerful new technology for their own nefarious aims. Although we have more wealth and technology than ever before, the number of people living in poverty and dying of hunger is still growing. Many poor countries and poor people are increasingly marginalized. Increasing inequity is taking a particularly heavy toll on women. Peoples of color are experiencing old and new forms of xenophobia as races jostle for positions in the undemocratic new world order. Although the cold war has ended, we are facing new threats to humanity such as the terror of potential nuclear wars and the crisis of environmental sustainability. Corporate driven globalization puts the integrity of cultures at risk.
We are lacking adequate global governance. Economic globalization, which allows corporations to make production, marketing and investment decisions relatively free of national constraints, has revealed a mismatch between current systems and institutions that are national or international and the global nature of economic activities. The criminal informal economy drives illicit drugs, money laundering and the trafficking in women and children and justifies the intervention of a global governance system.
What passes for global governance is controlled by institutions with an agenda of deregulating trade rather than democracy, peace, human rights or environmental protection.
Poor countries and poor people have little influence in today's international policy making. At the World Trade Organization, about 30 poor countries cannot afford to run permanent offices at its headquarters in Geneva, and are therefore excluded from shaping crucial trade agreements that affect their future. At the IMF and the World Bank, the prime mechanism of control is the size of rich countries' capital subscriptions, which gives them enormous voting power by comparison with the mass of developing countries. In the upcoming meeting in Pittsburgh, G20 members will use the opportunity to take stock of the progress made and discuss further actions to assure a sound recovery from the global economic and financial crisis. In fact, they are meant to review their priorities from the Washington summit, namely: strengthening transparency and accountability; enhancing sound regulation; promoting integrity in financial markets; reinforcing international cooperation; and reforming the international financial institutions. In our quest for an alternative economic and social world order to the present exploitative one, and to construct the necessary political system that will protect and further it, we must knit the vertical and horizontal interlinkages of economic, social environmental and political developments, we call on the G20 to recognize the interdependence of economic, social and political development and to foster agreements that are transparent and involve the voices of all stakeholders regardless of gender, race, or economic status.
The world order we want – to serve the interests of the peoples inhabiting this globe and which is the only basis on which peace can be constructed – needs a strong democratic system locally and internationally which must be interlinked in ongoing communication. The United Nations’ Charter as it is today provides possibilities for developing a strong democratic political global system. The texts have to be developed into concrete, practical arrangements. But they will not amount to much if the necessary changes in our economic and social order are not fundamentally changed and systems for accountability are developed. This is the challenge we face. We must speak up at every opportunity, inform educate and influence change, wherever and whenever we can, and join forces with those who are working for the same goal. It is for this reason that WILPF endorses the Women’s Tent City and the People’s Summit taking place in the sidelines of the G20 meeting in Pittsburgh.
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