Protesting against the World
Trade Organization meeting in Seattle, November 1999.
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When the people fought against
slavery, or apartheid, or colonialism, they did not speak in terms of sharing better
the benefits of slavery or apartheid or colonialism. They fought the systems of slavery,
apartheid and colonialism themselves. So too, we cannot just talk of sharing better
the benefits of globalization. We have to fight the system of globalization we have
today.
Martin
Khor, director of the Third World Network
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The non-governmental
challenge to mindless globalization is not opposition to profits, but rather support
for broader ownership |
Non-governmental organizations
took centre stage in Seattle, but many have been spinning their web for several decades
around the globe
 Everywhere
we turn there is good economic news. The massive growth of the global economy, fed
by revolutionary changes in communication, promises unending prosperity that will,
it is said, benefit even the poorest people on earth.
Protestors in Seattle who questioned the role of the World Trade Organization in
supporting the present contours of globalization were widely portrayed in the media
as new activists focusing on small issues such as the fate of the sea turtle. Yet
the “Battle in Seattle” was but one tip of a mountain range of non-governmental challenges
to politics as usual.
This worldwide explosion of NGOs (non-governmental organizations) actually began
about thirty years ago, in response to the intertwined crises posed by poverty, population,
and environmental degradation. Population growth can lead to deforestation or soil
exhaustion, and thus increased poverty. The latter fuels migration to giant urban
centres, or to more remote areas where the cycle begins anew. Moreover, environmental
destruction by multinational corporations can further poverty by disrupting the traditional
co-existence between people and the land.
NGOs, including the grassroots movements featured in this issue, have focused on
these priorities for some time and have pushed governments to do so as well. The
recent surge of activism testifies not to a change in purpose, but a growing realization
that certain shared problems are partly caused by the common root of globalization.
Targets like the agencies of international trade and finance are hardly new, though
their current prominence reflects an era of much greater NGO co-ordination in the
face of rapid economic change and unresponsive national governments.
The real question, however, is whether a growing global civil society, even in concert
with willing governments, could begin to match the magnitude of the global challenge.
No one alive today can answer this question, but an overview of what is happening
may provide some clues.
International NGOs (INGOs) generally focus on development, relief, refugees, human
rights or democratization. As of 1995 there were an estimated 20,000 INGOs with branches
in at least three countries, plus 5,000 or more northern NGOs working internationally
that are based in only one developed country.
Although INGOs have quadrupled in number since 1970, their contribution to relief
and development pales beside the demands posed by increasing numbers of complex human
emergencies. In 1995 only about $10 billion of $60 billion in overseas development
assistance flowed through NGOs.
Yet these organizations have become prominent global players. They lobby official
international organizations with increasing frequency and success, and have become
important actors in agenda-setting meetings. From the Montreal Protocol regulating
ozone emissions in 1987 to the 1994 Cairo Population Conference and the 1995 Beijing
Women’s Conference, they have accompanied their partner organizations in keeping
such issues as human rights, women and environmental deterioration on the front burner.
The most dramatic chapter in the NGO story has been their proliferation in the global
“South.” Beginning about thirty years ago, increasing numbers of well-educated young
people took advantage of foreign financial assistance to create NGOs. Although a
few organizers created local “counterparts” to INGOs, most others used funds from
several donors to define their own programmes. Several of these organizations provided
protection from political repression.
Almost everywhere, this process depended on partnerships between two types of NGOs:
grassroots organizations (GROs) and grassroots support organizations (GRSOs). Grassroots
organizations have local members and help develop their own communities. Although
some, such as women’s groups, are new, others evolved from traditional community
organizations such as rotating credit societies that have existed for thousands of
years. There are now probably several hundred thousand GROs in Asia, Africa and Latin
America.
Faced with the deterioration of their environment and the increasing impoverishment
of the 1980s, GROs and local individuals began organizing networks and movements
among themselves. A network of lane committees in Oranji, Pakistan, for example,
has provided clean water and sewage for 100,000 people. An estimated 50,000 largely
professional GRSOs, meanwhile, help channel international support to these lower
levels. In Bolivia, for example, a set of GRSOs focuses on propagating solar greenhouse
technologies.
Other organizations work on corruption or human rights. An anti-corruption centre
in Maharashtra, supported by a GRO network, succeeded in getting forty local revenue
officers dismissed and has received requests for help from other localities intent
on pursuing complaints through the courts. This type of political activism sometimes
reaches the global level, as the Philippine indigenous leader Victoria Tauli-Corpuz
explains (p.
24-25).
The retreat of authoritarian rule, meanwhile, has led to the creation of new types
of NGOs concentrating on broader democratic processes such as public deliberation,
voter registration and election monitoring, and even to the election of some grassroots
leaders to local office. Many NGOs also advocate major political changes, though
protests are not always at the street-level. A Brazilian NGO, for instance, provides
citizens with a toll-free “green phone” to report environmental crises. Nor is there
a clear distinction between advocacy and collaboration. One network in India, the
Integrated Child Development Service, campaigns for political change through both
NGOs and “chapters” in federal and state governments.
Stronger civil societies are also emerging in Central and Eastern Europe, and the
former Soviet Union. Only a minority of the estimated 75,000 “Eastern” NGOs were
previously tied to Communist regimes, with the rest created or resurrected by an
inflow of foreign assistance after 1989. Because these NGOs emerged with the collapse
of governmental social services, they are more likely to be service providers than
tied to members at the local level. Indeed, some forms of local organization such
as co-operatives acquired a bad name under Communism.
Among the more innovative NGOs in this region are those organized in response to
the emerging environmental crises of the 1980s. Originating as quasi-opposition movements,
they have continued to challenge governments. Microcredit, initiated in the developing
world, has also gained at least a toehold in the transitional countries.
The non-profit sector has also grown in the developed countries. In the United States,
for example, 70 per cent of non-profit organizations are less than thirty years old.
Even more recent are the protest and other social change movements fuelled by the
growth of the Internet, such as those described by student activist Andrea del Moral
(p. 22-23).
If nothing else, this overview highlights the difficulties in mapping a complex,
vast and dynamic global civil society still in its infancy. On a global level, some
business networks focus on sustainable development, and national NGOs as diverse
as the Grameen Bank in Bangladesh and Working Capital in New Hampshire (U.S.) promote
businesses. Thus, the non-governmental challenge to mindless globalization is not
opposition to profits, but rather support for broader ownership and competition.
Most importantly, true civil society is more than a collection of NGOs, but rather
a measure of how citizens associate, talk and act together in public life.
Much has been made of the Internet and how it may contribute to a stronger civil
society. Yet though the Internet has helped create global coalitions on hundreds
of issues, billions of people still have no access to a telephone, much less to a
computer. Even if people gain access, they may be more likely to see an advert for
a soft drink than learn how to purify water. Ultimately, the contribution of the
Internet to the governance of globalization will depend on the human ties that are
established off-line.
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