To bring the voice of the peoples to the Millennium Summit deliberations, some 1,350 representatives from organizations in 106 countries held a Millennium Forum at United Nations Headquarters from 22 to 26 May. The Declaration and Plan of Action they negotiated and adopted contains wide-ranging and innovative proposals, including a call for the creation of a Global Poverty Eradication Fund and a volunteer Peace Force, binding codes of conduct for transnational corporations, a freeze on armed forces and action to cut small arms trafficking.

The Declaration and Plan of Action will be presented to the world leaders who will gather at the Summit on 6-8 September and will be considered by Member States during the Millennium Assembly session of the General Assembly that follows.

"The Millennium Forum Declaration offers a bold vision for humanity’s future and outlines a series of concrete steps that the United Nations, governments and members of civil society themselves can take to address the great global problems facing humanity," said Techeste Ahderom, Co-Chair of the Forum, after the session.

The event was organized by a coalition of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) at the suggestion of Secretary-General Kofi Annan, who saw the Forum as a way for the United Nations to receive input from civil society on the ongoing reform of the Organization. Under the over-arching theme of "The United Nations for the 21^st Century", the Forum held detailed consultations on six major sub-themes: peace, poverty eradication, human rights, sustainable development, the challenges of globalization, and strengthening and democratizing the United Nations.

At the Forum’s opening session, Mr. Annan contrasted the event with the anti-globalization protests staged at the recent World Trade Organization and World Bank meetings. He called on participants to work with the United Nations "to address the challenges and consequences of globalization," to "ensure that nobody sinks but that we swim together in the current of our times." He commented that the Forum brought "the promise that ‘people power’ can make the [United Nations] Charter work for all the world’s peoples in the 21^st century."

Declaration and Plan of Action

The 23-page Forum Declaration and Plan of Action, which addresses Governments, the United Nations and civil society regarding their responsibilities in coming years, calls for making the eradication of poverty and the implementation of the action plans negotiated at the major United Nations conferences of the 1990s a top priority. Among its specific proposals, the Declaration and Plan of Action calls for the United Nations:

          To act as an independent arbitrator to balance the interest of debtor and creditor nations and to monitor how debt cancellation funds are spent.

To introduce binding codes of conduct for transnational companies and effective tax regulation of the international financial markets, and investment in programmes for poverty eradication.

To immediately establish at the United Nations a Global Poverty Eradication Fund which will ensure that poor people have access to credit, with contributions from Governments, corporations, the World Bank and other sources.

To establish a corps of at least 50 professionally trained mediators for more effective conflict prevention, to assist in conflict warning, mediation and conflict resolution.

To authorize, through the General Assembly, the establishment of an international, non-violent, inclusive, standing Peace Force of volunteer women and men to deploy to conflict areas to provide early warning, facilitate conflict resolution, protect human rights and prevent death and destruction.

To expand the United Nations Arms Register, including specific names of arms producers and traders, in order to show production and sale of small arms and light weapons.

To initiate a worldwide freeze on armed forces and a 25 per cent cut in production and export of major weapons and small arms.

To reform the Bretton Woods institutions and the World Trade Organization to ensure greater transparency and democracy, to integrate these institutions fully into the United Nations system, making them accountable to the Economic and Social Council, and.to support the establishment of a consultative mechanism with civil society.

To develop a legally binding framework for regulating the actions of transnational corporations, respecting the international labour, human rights, and sustainable environmental standards set by the United Nations.

To establish a Global Habitat Conservation Fund to pursue the comprehensive protection of threatened, critical ecological habitat worldwide. The fund should accrue revenues from a nominal (0.5% - 1.0%) royalty on worldwide fossil energy production – oil, natural gas, coal – collecting at least $5 billion to $10 billion annually.

To extend the consultative rights of access and participation of NGOs to the General Assembly and its Main Committees and subsidiary bodies.

To support the creation and funding of a Global Civil Society Forum to meet at least every two to three years in the period leading up to the annual session of the General Assembly, provided that such a forum is conducted democratically and transparently, and is truly representative of all sectors of civil society and all parts of the world.

One of the most important trends since the 1990s has been the burgeoning of civil society organizations and the recognition, particularly by the United Nations, of the importance in world affairs of NGOs and other advocacy groups, as well as academic, trade union and religious organizations, parliamentarians, youth groups and business associations. These activist groups and coalitions have changed the way key social, environmental and economic issues are understood and approached, resulting in a new era of "people's participation" in solving human society’s most pressing problems.

For more information contact:
Brad Pokorny, Media Coordinator, Millennium Forum
Tel.: (212) 803-2544, fax (212) 803-2566
E-mail: bpokorny@bic.org
Internet: www.millenniumforum.org

Paul Hoeffel, NGO Section
UN Department of Public Information
Tel.: (212) 963-8070, e-mail: hoeffel@un.org

Published by the United Nations Department of Public Information
DPI/2143 – August 2000