Call for Proposals to Promote Civic Engagement in Global Governance Summary: The 'Global Civil Society' Portfolio of the Ford Foundation has set aside $US1 million to promote civic engagement in global governance and to encourage global civil society actors to address the democracy deficits apparent within global governance. With this call for proposals the Ford Foundation is seeking civil society organizations that have a strategic plan to strengthen or promote accountability mechanisms between global governors and global citizens. We also seek effective mechanisms for a broad swath of citizen voices to be heard within global public policy deliberations. For two decades or more civil society organizations have followed and attempted to influence global negotiations relating to public policy in the fields of human rights, environment, empowerment of women, labor rights, consumer safety, development, peace and poverty alleviation. Today, many of these issues are impacted by decisions taken to develop a global market, create uniform global standards and/or address fiscal imbalances in developing countries. Impacts on health, human rights, consumers, gender relations, democracy or the environment are often not the first consideration of negotiators and often fall outside of their expertise. For these reasons, civil society actors often follow negotiations within international financial institutions that will have an impact on social policy and issues, but are not necessarily oriented toward those particular issues. As another strategy civil society actors attempt to strengthen global institutions that are specifically oriented toward social problems or encourage interaction amongst institutions so as to counter balance the power and authority of some financial institutions. Lastly, civic actors have promoted the idea to create new institutional global homes for some issues, like the World Environmental Organization, or to create competition for existing global financial institutions through promotion of regional institutions. Have these efforts been successful? In many instances, civil society has been effective in expanding the competitive pool of policy ideas within specific existing institutions, widening the terms of debate to take into account impacts that may not have been reviewed by negotiators, and in rare instances actual new policies have been created to address the concerns raised by civil society. Rarer still, civil society periodically is successful in addressing governance questions and has succeeded in restructuring the decision making path for permanent inclusion of the issue, developed and forced accountability measures to be created within governance structures or succeeded in opening up the process of decision making to include intended beneficiaries or other broad stakeholders. However, the instances where civil society has managed to address imbalances in governance are so rare that one can count them on one hand. Within the multilateral development banks, governance issues that have been addressed include: information policies, opportunities for impacted communities to question the adherence of the institutions to their own policies (inspection mechanisms), and in the case of structural adjustment programs promoted by the World Bank, opportunities for the public in developing countries to discuss the social and economic expenditures of their governments through the Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers. At the United Nations (UN), civil society organizations have a process through which they can be accredited to monitor the UN activities which take place through UNESCO. In certain instances, civil society has permanent processes for consultation such as at the Convention on Biological Diversity negotiations. In other forums, there is token civil society representation as well. For example, Consumers International has a seat at the Codex Alimentarius. However, these positions are often granted through national governments and are not sanctioned by the multilateral governing body. The lack of attention to the process of governing is frustrating in that it limits the outcomes that pertain to specific sectors and fails to address the larger questions of power and accountability. For example, after ten years of negotiations (1983 - 1993) with the World Bank, the environmental movement succeeded in their efforts to get the Bank to implement ten policies that protect minority communities and environmental resources from negative unintended consequences of development decisions. Today, those policies are under negotiation for the third time, with each round of negotiations resulting in a weaker set of policies with more responsibility shifting away from the well resourced World Bank and accruing to developing country governments. Each round of negotiations requires that the movement both demonstrate a sustained commitment to mainstreaming environmental concerns within Bank lending decisions and to hold the line on issues that it thought it had successfully addressed over a decade ago. There is no advancement. The same story can be told of the development community's efforts to mainstream participation within the field of development at the multilateral and bilateral agencies. Similarly, civil society organizations waste an enormous amount of time reinventing the participatory wheel every single time the UN holds a new global conference. Currently, the battleground is the World Summit on Information Society. The UN does not have a uniform way in which to invite and set the parameters for civic observation and participation in its deliberations. The worst offender within the UN system is the Security Council which locks out the bulk of members of the UN and civil society from its deliberations. Global institutions not only have tenuous links between the governors and the governed but also weaken democracy in three ways: one, they fail to operate along democratic principles. Two, international negotiations are the privilege of the executive branches of government. The judicial powers of a national court do not extend to the international political arena. And parliamentarians have no formal role in international negotiations. Three, there are no elected officials that are directly accountable to citizens engaged in negotiating global public policy. There are also indirect ways in which global governance undermines citizen rights. For example, the failure to operate within democratic parameters globally continues to justify less accountable forms of governance at national levels. By way of example, proposals could address the following: the need for a public record of security council agendas and deliberations; a reconstitution of voting shares at the IMF and World Bank; and end to green room deliberations at the WTO; an end to negotiating authority that truncates the role of representational branches of government; parliamentarians with voice and vote in international negotiations; elected national representatives operating within our global institutions; transparency campaigns; campaigns oriented toward strengthening global courts or holding global institutions accountable to national law; judicial enforcement of international law in national courts; advocacy for accountability mechanisms, etc. Projects that focus on deepening connections to the benefit of citizens between national and international governance mechanisms are encouraged. These issues are offered by way of example only. Applicants are encouraged to think creatively. Proposals can come from any issue-based (health, security, human rights, etc.) process but must move beyond the impact on the issue to address the governance process that might be improved. Proposals are welcome oriented toward any global institution, but will be judged in relation to possible demonstration affects. In other words, if the institution one seeks to change does not have considerable political or economic authority, the onus would be on the campaigners to argue the importance of the particular institution relative to other global governance institutions. Governance structures are difficult to change. It can take many years of sustained effort amongst a group of actors to create the conditions for social change. If the goals of a campaign are long term in nature, short term objectives should also be included. Multi-sectoral coalitions are encouraged; i.e. those that combine activists and actors from different issue-based fields. Multi-stakeholder projects, i.e. those that combine civil society actors with the private sector and governments are encouraged as well. This call is for active campaigns. Stand alone research projects will not be considered favorably. How to Apply The deadline for proposals is April 1, 2003. Proposals should be no more than ten double spaced pages and should include a 150 - 200 word summary. Longer proposals will not be reviewed. Proposals can be sent to the attention of Lisa Jordan, Ford Foundation, 320 East 43rd Street, New York, New York, 10017. Please include the code CFP at the top of the cover letter and cover page of the proposal.. Electronic versions can be sent to l.jordan@fordfound.org with the code CFP in the subject line. Decisions will be made by June 1, 2003 by a committee familiar with global governance issues. Applicants should expect to hear from the Foundation by June 15th. RG Lentz, UT Austin