FORUM OF "NGOs OF THE SOUTH AND THE CHALLENGES OF GLOBALIZATION"

FINAL DECLARATION

We, delegates of non-governmental organizations, social movements, popular organizations and academic institutions from countries of the so-called South, gathered here in Havana, March 1-3 of the year 2000, as part of the preliminary process of the South Summit, have come together to evaluate the problems related to the phenomenon of globalization, its principal trends and impact on the national economies of our countries, and to discuss the capacity of civil society and the NGOs of our peoples to influence, organize and act under current international conditions.

We agree that a process of globalization carried out on the basis of solidarity, considering human beings to be the central aspect of development, may offer opportunities for technological advance to contribute to development, progress and social welfare. However, when it occurs under the dominion of neo-liberalism, which drastically imposes the blind will of the market, deregulation, and increased and indiscriminate privatization of resources and the national treasures, that ultimately belong to our peoples, it provokes the brutal disintegration and economic and social fragmentation of our countries, with dramatic consequences for the survival of the traditionally most vulnerable and marginalized sectors.

We denounce that the neoliberal policy advocated by transnational capital and international agencies such as the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank has contributed to the concentration of wealth and the exacerbation of social polarization manifested in the increase of poverty, that today critically affects more than a billion persons throughout the world, who have no possible access to the food needed for survival, to the basic services of health and education, and to social security.

We emphasize just as strongly that these policies attempt to wipe out our cultures and identities, imposing instead cultural assimilation and models that legitimate their own: individualistic, exclusionary and lacking in solidarity.

We note with deep concern the continuing ecological deterioration of our planet and the persistence of barriers that prevent us from achieving sustainable development, above all the lack of political will to establish rigorous protection of the environment against the depredations of irrational economic policies and non-sustainable consumption patterns.

Based on these reflections, we identify the enormous obstacles that the current international economic order, in its various manifestations: financial, commercial and technological, opposes to the right to development and our peoples' aspirations for a just social order.

In consequence, we urge the Heads of State and Government of the countries of the Group of 77, who will meet in Havana next April, in the context of the South Summit, to denounce:

• That the foreign debt, which prevents the countries of the South from achieving economic and social development and which is an expression of the unjust international economic order and of the policies of neoliberal globalization, is today more than ever unpayable and uncollectible, and must be cancelled.

• That the growing technological gap between the industrialized countries and the countries of the South, which among other causes is a result of the strict application of intellectual property rights that exclude our countries from information and technologies that only bring profits to a minority and massive unemployment, marginalization and poverty to the dispossessed majority, is a very serious obstacle to the development of our peoples.

• That the liberating tendencies of world commerce promoted by the World Trade Organization are designed to favor the exports of the industrialized countries and promote the growing deterioration of industries and agriculture of the Third World,  accentuating the historic inequalities in terms of trade between the North and the South.

• That the Official Aid to Development (OAD) keeps growing smaller every year. In the decade of the 90s it went from 0.35% to 0.22% of the GNP of the developed countries, a figure quite remote from the 0.7% that was promised and that is indispensable in the development strategies of our impoverished nations.

• That the policies of cooperation, financing and credits of the Northern countries do not take into account the economic needs of the South, nor their unique historical and social-cultural aspects, but instead analyze the realities of our countries from a perspective of subordination, marginalization and recolonization, imposing unacceptable conditions.

• That the extensive speculation and volatility of the financial markets and the deregulation of the movement of capital place at a grave risk the economic and political stability of our countries.

• That the unilateral and extraterritorial application of national laws or measures which violate International Law or strike against the sovereignty of other States undermine the principles that guide coexistence among nations, debilitate multilateralism, and destroy the cooperation that the peoples of the South need for their development.

For our part, we, the delegates of this Forum, conscious of the adverse circumstances in which our peoples struggle for their most basic rights, and convinced of the urgent necessity for more active and effective participation of all sectors of civil society: the workers and their trade unions, women, young people, children, elderly, disabled, peasants, native peoples, social researchers and many other organizations and institutions representative of the population, in the processes of discussion and decision-making at the national and international level:

• Demand greater participation in the decision-making process and insist on more transparency by the governments and international institutions regarding problems that affect us directly and that in many instances have devastating effects in terms of increasing inequality, poverty and unemployment.

• Exhort  the countries of the South facing the challenges of globalization to further their economic, cultural and social integration in order to strengthen their capacity to act regionally.

• Reaffirm the willingness and capacity of the NGOs and the most divergent social sectors to play a role in the design of strategies, implementation of actions and management of resources in favor of our countries' social development

• Call on our organizations to form tighter bonds of cooperation, strengthening the elements that unite us, in defense of our right to development, which we consider to be a fundamental human right; and to demand from the governments that they fulfill their commitments to the needs and future of our peoples.

• Ratify our conviction that, in the face of the enslaving domination achieved by the transnational corporations at the threshold of the new millennium, and the alarming reality that these are experiencing a much greater growth than the entire world economy, thus threatening, with their power, the sovereignty and right to development of the countries of the Third World, our response can be no other than building and increasing our struggle, unity and solidarity, creating alternatives for a better world, while adhering to respect for the diversity that characterizes and so greatly enriches us.

TO GLOBALIZE SOLIDARITY IS NOT JUST A DREAM, IT IS THE ONLY WAY  TO SUCCESSFULLY CONFRONT THE EVILS OF TODAY AND THE CHALLENGES OF TOMORROW.

International Conference Center
Havana, March  3, 2000