Yearbook 2001
SHARING ALTERNATIVES TO
ECONOMIC GLOBALIZATION
SHARING ALTERNATIVES TO
ECONOMIC GLOBALIZATION
24 February: From 26 to 30 June, Geneva 2000 will assess the results of the World Summit on Social Development held in Copenhagen in 1995. At a 3-14 April UN “prepcom” for Geneva 2000 being held in New York, an ecumenical team is offering a church viewpoint on social development.
28 March: The new Commission on World Mission and Evangelism, meeting in Morges, Switzerland, proposes to organize a future world mission conference on Christian mission in the context of globalization. Such world mission conferences are a long WCC tradition, but the new commission is envisaging a change of style for the next one. The commissioners have adopted a study document on “Mission and Evangelism in the World Today” that summarizes developments since the 1982 publication of the Ecumenical Affirmation on Mission and Evangelism which, for the time being, remains the official WCC position on mission.
5 April: The ecumenical team tells “prepcom” delegates that the goals set by the 1995 Summit can’t be achieved without fundamental changes in the world economy. Poverty has increased in the five years since the world’s political leaders committed themselves at Copenhagen to reducing it, they say, while the gap between rich and poor continues to grow.
7 April: The idea of a “currency transfer tax” to restrain the movement of capital by currency speculators and produce funds for development is gaining widespread acceptance, according to participants in a church-sponsored panel discussion held during the Geneva 2000 prepcom in New York. Panelists say the proposal is not likely to be adopted soon, but is being discussed in many places and is now “an idea whose time has come”. Today’s panel, held at UN headquarters in New York, is being sponsored by the WCC, the Canadian Council of Churches, the International Cooperation for Development and Solidarity (a federation of Roman Catholic organizations) and the UN Division for Social Policy.
10 April: Geneva 2000 is unlikely to achieve the basic changes proposed by churches to aid poor and marginalized people. But members of the ecumenical team attending the meeting of the “prepcom” at UN headquarters say their work is achieving incremental changes and getting attention for ideas not previously given serious consideration. WCC and the Lutheran World Federation, which enlisted some two dozen representatives of their member churches and partner organizations for the team, will be sending a team to Geneva in June to continue lobbying for “clarity of vision” and “a change of heart”.
29 April: Representatives of the Inter-American Development Bank (IADB) and Protestant and Evangelical churches in Latin America are meeting in Washington on “the struggle against poverty in Latin America”. The meeting is being organized by the IADB and the WCC and jointly sponsored by the Latin American Council of Churches (CLAI) and the Latin American Theological Fellowship (FTL). The meeting is one of a series, launched by IADB president Enrique Iglesias, with the Roman Catholic Church and Jewish communities in the region. Church participants report that while some prejudices and preconceptions have been cleared up, views on key issues continue to differ. In a position paper entitled “Jubilee in a Time of Globalization”, the 24-member church delegation calls for an ethical revolution based on the biblical idea of Jubilee.
23 May: Diplomats preparing a document for adoption at Geneva 2000 in June remain deadlocked on many issues of special concern to the WCC. The April prepcom moved so slowly that an intersessional meeting was needed in May to resolve as many difficulties as possible before the final prepcom meeting 14-20 June. But WCC UN representative in New York Gail Lerner says the diplomats are engaged in a “slow and tedious process” and there is still no agreement on many points. 21 June: On the occasion of the UN General Assembly’s Special Session on Social Development (UNGASS), Geneva 2000, UN secretary-general Kofi Annan and Abbé Pierre will attend a service in Geneva’s St Pierre cathedral on Sunday, 25 June. Representatives of the Protestant, Roman Catholic, Old Catholic, Orthodox, Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist, Baha’i communities and other religious congregations present in Geneva will attend in a spirit of solidarity and prayer.
26 June: “Now Is the Time” is the title of an oral statement being presented by the ecumenical team today to the Committee of the Whole of the Special Session of the General Assembly on the Implementation of the Outcome of the World Summit for Social Development and Further Initiatives. It is the role of the ecumenical team to monitor critically the Special Session and bring expert local voices to the UN discussion.
28 June: In response to a joint report by the UN secretary-general, senior officers of the OECD, the World Bank and the IMF entitled A Better World for All, the WCC general secretary Konrad Raiser has written to Kofi Annan at the opening of Geneva 2000. “By privileging the World Trade Organization and the Bretton Woods institutions as your partners in presenting a vision to UNGASS,” the letter says, “considerable damage has been done to the credibility of the UN as the last real hope of the victims of globalization. It signals an acceptance of the logic of the market and could further limit space for governments and civil society to develop alternative goals and means to achieving social development through democratic and transparent processes.”
10 November: Over 20 leaders of Asian and Pacific ecumenical organizations, churches and church-related agencies will focus on globalization and its impact in their regions and countries at a 11-16 November meeting in Shanghai and Nanjing, China. The encounter, hosted by the WCC Asia desk with the Christian Conference of Asia (CCA) and the China Christian Council (CCC), is a joint meeting of two WCC regional groups. It will identify common and emerging issues and priorities for ecumenical involvement and joint action in both regions. Participants will have an opportunity to observe the life and witness of Chinese Christians and what is happening as the People’s Republic of China changes from a centrally-controlled socialist economy to a market-oriented one within a globalized system.
14 November: Climate change and the need to reduce carbon dioxide emission levels is fundamentally an ethical issue. That is the WCC position at the Sixth Conference of Parties (COP6) on the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change currently taking place in The Hague, Netherlands. The WCC is represented at the conference by an ecumenical delegation of twelve people. “Over the years since the adoption of the Climate Change Convention at the Rio Earth Summit in 1992, attention has shifted away from emphasis on emissions reduction actions in the richer polluting countries to strategies for those same countries to purchase low-cost reduction credits in other countries. Wealthy polluting countries should not be allowed to buy their way out of the problem through paying for projects in other countries,” says the WCC statement.
17 November: Members of the WCC Asia and Pacific Regional Groups are highlighting the negative impact of globalization in their regions, and saying that most Asian and Pacific countries face an increasingly explosive social, economic and political situation as globalization brings new forms of exploitation, dependence and more poverty to larger numbers of people. Meeting in Shanghai and Nanjing, the two groups are seeing the effects of dramatic modernization and industrialization in this part of China. This setting highlights the negative social, economic and political impact of globalization in participants’ own countries, experienced especially in unequal distribution of wealth, inter-religious tensions and violence, cultural and environmental destruction and political instability.