CoNGO President: Use People’s Charter for an Eco-Social World as advocacy tool; organize a robust and protected transborder and transnational civil society
New York City | UPDATED 8 August 2022 (CoNGO InfoNews) — The Global People’s Summit “Co-building a New Eco-social World: Leaving No One Behind” concluded its online meetings on July 2. The Summit run for 24 hours for four days between June 29 and July 2.
The Summit produced The People’s Charter for an Eco-Social World. The Summit’s website hailed the Charter, “which comprises voices from throughout the world, highlights the importance of participatory democracy in effecting transformational change.”
Liberato Bautista, the President of the Conference of Non-Governmental Organizations in Consultative Relationship with the United Nations (CoNGO), delivered a keynote speech and joined 25 global partners in drafting the Summit’s People’s Charter.
Bautista called on CoNGO members to study the People’s Charter and use it as an advocacy tool and inspiration in pursuing CoNGO’s strategic organizational mantra: “defining the present, shaping the future, making the change, now”.
Delivering one of the Summit’s keynote speeches, Bautista challenged the Summit participants to “co-build an eco-social world that depends largely on the empowerment of the voice and agency of peoples as they identify their concerns and craft their futures.”
Addressing more directly some of the elements of the People’s Charter, Bautista implored everyone to join in the task of increasing hope and decreasing fear. “Decreasing fear and replacing it with increased hope augurs well into assuring people of their dignity and human rights and of the planet’s sustainability,” Bautista added.
“To increase hope, we must build a common future for all the inhabitants of the earth and their natural ecology by promoting and safeguarding the common public goods and services indispensable to life. We must increase hope through arrangements that truly put peoples and the planet at the center of both the local and global public imagination of policy and legislation.”
Bautista stressed the need today for “a cadre of leaders from grassroots, local, national, regional and international arenas to provide leadership for the much needed catalytic strategies and action for transformative change in social and ecological relations” such as those identified in the “Pathway Forward” section of the People’s Charter.
Organizing the Summit and drafting the People’s Charter were done under the joint facilitation by Rory Truell, Secretary-General of the International Federation of Social Workers (IFSW) and Paul Ladd, the Director of the United Nations Research Institute for Social Development (UNRISD).
As you use the People’s Charter in your own contexts, the CoNGO President would like to know your experience. This will enhance our understanding of the elements of the Charter and enrich them. Email him at president@ngocongo.org. Read more about the Global People’s Summit and CoNGO’s collaboration here.