Global Progressive Forum
Over 2000 people attended the second annual event of the Global Progressive Forum on 9-10 September in Milan, in the festive atmosphere of the Festa de l’Unita, organised every year by Democratici di Sinistra.
Ninety speakers from different parts of the world took part in intense debates on issues ranging from the reform of the United Nations and of the World Trade Organisation (WTO), and trade and poverty, to women’s’ rights, sustainable development, the UN Millennium Development Goals and the fight against AIDS.
The event featured Margot Wallström, European Commissioner, and Pascal Lamy, Director General of the World Trade Organisation, as well as leading figures from the World Social Forum, Chico Whitaker and Aminata Traoré. Party leaders Piero Fassino, Mircea Geoana, Istvan Hiller, George Papandreou and Mahamadou Issoufou also expressed their vision of global governance, alongside international and European parliamentarians including Josep Borrell, President of the European Parliament.
Guy Ryder, head of the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU), and other trade union leaders exposed the effect of globalisation on workers’ rights. Womens rights activists Namrata Bali, Founder of the Self Employed Womens’ Association and Director Hilary Fisher of Amnesty International, among others, explained the social and economic implications of globalisation for many women worldwide. Other NGOs, including Oxfam, WWF, Greenpeace, Third World Network, and SOLIDAR were represented at the highest level in Milan, where they also contributed actively to the discussions on global challenges in the fields of social rights, development policy and environmental issues.
Leading specialists on global questions such as Martin Khor and Yilmaz Akyüz also shared their expertise with the audience on the social dimension of globalisation and on innovative sources of financing for development. Top officials from the United Nations Millennium Development Goals Campaign, Eveline Herfkens, and United Nations Development Programme, Zéphirin Diabré, shared their views on peace and prosperity in Africa and global governance.
The Global Progressive Forum will develop some of the activities initiated in Milan in the coming months. An International High Level Panel on Poverty and Environment will hold a first round of discussions on sustainable development based on the policy paper Poverty and the Environment - The Imperative of Change produced by WWF. A series of events will be organized in the run up to the WTO ministerial summit in Hong Kong in December, under the trade and poverty and social dimension of globalization initiatives, in cooperation with ICFTU and SOLIDAR. The constitution of a Women and Globalization working group is also being explored, as are future activities within the AIDS campaign and the UN reform initiative.
For further details, see the final programme. Further information will be available shortly on http://www.globalprogressiveforum.org/
