Please endorse NGO statement on Davos!
Date: Sat, 15 Jan 2000

Dear friends,

The 30st Anual Meeting of the World Economic Forum will take place on 27
January - 1 February 2000 in Davos/Switzerland. For the first time, NGOs
are organizing an independent monitoring and advocacy presence in Davos.
Please find below some information on this new effort and an NGO statement
for endorsement.

"The Public Eye on Davos" is a joint project of the Berne Declaration,
Friends of the Earth/US, and the Globalization Challenge Initiative. Its
purpose is to monitor the discussions in Davos, to advocate NGO concerns,
to challenge the Davos consensus in the media, and to disseminate
information on important developments to the NGO networks. You will find
the program of planned NGO activities at the end of this message. The first
year will be a learning experience, and we intend to expand the
institutional base and activities of "The Public Eye on Davos" in the years
to come.

The NGO statement will be published on 28 January in Davos. We ask you to
study it and to endorse it if possible.

Please send any endorsements (name of organization, country) to davos@evb.ch
until 24 JANUARY at the latest.

Feel free to pass the statement on to partner NGOs, but do not make it
public before 28 January. We will report back to you from or after Davos.

Thank you for your support.

Peter Bosshard & Jolanda Piniel
Berne Declaration

NGO statement: The Public Eye on Davos

Davos has become one of the capitals of globalization. Every year, the
small Swiss mountain resort hosts the Annual Meeting of the World Economic
Forum (WEF) and attracts about 2,000 corporate CEOs, leading politicians,
academics and journalists. Hundreds of workshops and informal meetings
provide opportunities to discuss important issues. The world's presidents
and prime ministers court corporate chiefs and financiers; together they
chart the global economic rules for finance, trade and development. Under
the grand motto of being "committed to improving the state of the world,"
past Forum meetings have engendered the launch of trade negotiations such
as the GATT's Uruguay Round or NAFTA. The upcoming Annual Meeting will
discuss topics such as "Building the new financial architecture," "Tackling
the challenges of the Millenium Round," "How many people can the earth
sustain," "What's left to privatize," and "The fate of the universe."

The format of any meeting should be compatible with its goals and topics.
The World Economic Forum agrees that "creating a new paradigm of governance
at the national as well as international level" is a central challenge of
the 21st century. Yet what is the WEF's own governance paradigm? Its
members are the 1,000 largest private corporations and 1,000 so-called
global growth companies. At the Annual Meetings, closed circles of
business, government, academia and media elites discuss problems of global
importance. The media representatives are handpicked, and some have been
refused accreditation after reporting critically about the WEF. Journalists
are excluded from certain secret meetings altogether. Common people have no
voice in the discussions of Davos. The number of NGO representatives is
growing, but still minimal. This secretive approach is not compatible with
the "highest degree of credibility, efficiency and accountability" which
the WEF purports to aspire to. Symbolized by NAFTA and the Uruguay Round,
the approach has rather contributed the very problems of economic
marginalization, financial crisis, loss of democratic space, social
exclusion and environmental destruction which the world is suffering from
today.

Public affairs must be negotiated in democratic fora, in a spirit of
openness and participation, with full public debate and dissent. We
therefore believe that the World Economic Forum has two choices. If it
intends to remain an exclusive club of the world's corporate elite, it
should restrict its agenda to corporate management issues, and should not
aim to deal with issues of global public concern. In this case, the
representatives of governments and international organizations should not
negotiate their affairs at exclusive gatherings of corporations in Davos
anymore. The failure of the Multilateral Agreement on Investment (MAI) and
the WTO Millenium Round demonstrates that in today's world, issues of
public interest cannot be negotiated behind closed doors any longer.

If on the other hand, the WEF intends to become an forum where important
public concerns have a place to be debated, it must radically change its
perspectives, rules and proceedings. It should not only look at how
globalization can serve corporate interests, but should respect public
interests. Its agenda must include concerns such as debt cancellation, fair
trade, democratic control of international institutions, stopping the abuse
of human rights, preventing the privatization of life forms and public
goods, and changing unsustainable consumption patterns. Participation at
the WEF must be expanded to include a fair balance of all social sectors,
particularly the groups who have so far been marginalized by the
globalization processes. The interested media should be free to attend all
meetings of the Forum, and the practice of secret meetings should be
discontinued. To borrow the Forum's 2000 motto, such an approach would
indeed constitute a "new beginning" for Davos.

Henceforth, NGOs will be present in Davos in order to monitor the
discussions of the World Economic Forum. We will press for new perspectives
and more democratic space at the Forum so that the social groups who pay
the price for the globalization process can speak up. The public eye is on
Davos.

(List of endorsing NGOs)

Background information: The Public Eye On Davos

Davos has become one of the capitals of globalization. About 2000 leading
business people, politicians, academics and editors convene there every
January for the Annual Meeting of the World Economic Forum (WEF). Formal
and informal gatherings provide opportunities to shape opinions and prepare
decisions on important issues such as international trade, financial
relations, and the environment. The upcoming 2000 meeting will discuss
topics such as "Building the new financial architecture", "Tackling the
challenges of the Millenium Round", "How many people can the earth
sustain", "What is left to privatize", and "The fate of the universe".

So far, the World Economic Forum has been a closed event and has lacked any
kind of accountability to the public at large. Non-governmental
organizations and social movements have so far hardly been present in
Davos. A new NGO project is now being launched to challenge the fundamental
premises of the World Economic Forum: "The Public Eye on Davos".

"The Public Eye on Davos" is a joint project of the Berne Declaration
(coordination), Friends of the Earth/US and the Globalization Challenge
Initiative. It plans to carry out various activities in Davos during the
WEF 2000 (see below). And it will disseminate information about the WEF to
interested NGOs, social movements, and individuals around the world.

The failure of the Multilateral Agreement on Investments (MAI) and the WTO
Millenium Round demonstrates that in today's world, the public interest
cannot be negotiated behind closed doors any longer. NGOs believe that the
World Economic Forum has two choices: If the WEF intends to remain a Forum
where important public concerns are discussed, it must radically change its
perspectives, rules, and proceedings. Its agenda must include topics such
as debt cancellation, fair trade, democratic control of international
institutions, and changing unsustainable consumption patterns. WEF
participation must be expanded to include a fair balance of all social
sectors, particularly the groups who have so far been marginalized by the
globalization process. If on the other hand the WEF intends to remain an
exclusive club of the world's elites, it should restrict its agenda to
management issues, and should not aim to deal with global public concerns.

"The Public Eye on Davos" - Program of Activities

Panel debate in Zurich: "Who Governs the World?"

Date and venue: 27 January 2000, 8 p.m.; Volkshaus, Stauffacherstrasse 60,
Zurich. Featuring Elmar Altvater (Free University Berlin), Peter Bosshard
(Berne Declaration), Nicola Bullard (Focus on the Global South).

Media conference in Davos: "The Public Eye on Davos"

Date and venue: 28 January 2000, 2 p.m.; Dutch Asthma Clinic,
Scalettastrasse 19, Davos (next to the Congress Centre). Featuring Peter
Bosshard (Berne Declaration), Andrea Durbin (Friends of the Earth/US),
Nancy Alexander (Globalization Challenge Initiative), Manuel Chiriboga
(Asociacion Lationamericana de Organizaciones de Promocion, ALOP).

Panel debate in Davos: "The Public Eye on Davos"

Date and venue: 28 January 2000, 3 p.m.; Dutch Asthma Clinic,
Scalettastrasse 19, Davos (next to the Congress Centre). Featuring Manuel
Chiriboga (ALOP), Goran Lindahl (ABB, invited), Klaus Schwab (WEF), Vandana
Shiva (Third World Network).

Comments from the NGO community on the WEF proceedings

Representatives of the following NGOs will be present throughout the WEF in
order to comment speeches and announcements of the official Forum, and to
bring in NGO perspectives on the topics covered in Davos: Asociacion
Latinoamericana de Organizaciones de Promocion, Berne Declaration, Focus on
the Global South, Friends of the Earth/US, Globalization Challenge
Initiative, Third World Network.

Get in touch!

"The Public Eye on Davos"
c/o Berne Declaration
P.O. Box 1327
8031 Zurich, Switzerland
Ph +41 1 277 70 06
F  +41 1 277 70 01
e-mail davos@evb.ch
www.evb.ch

Contact details during the WEF in Davos:

"The Public Eye on Davos"
Ph +41 79 478 91 94
davos@evb.ch (?)
www.evb.ch

Jolanda Piniel, Berne Declaration, January 2000
********************************************
Erklärung von Bern - Berne Declaration
Jolanda Piniel, davos@evb.ch
Tel. ++41 1 277'70'06; ++41 1 277'70'00
Fax. ++ 41 1 277'70'01
www.evb.ch