Topics

» Relation between assemblies and facilitators’ dialogue

 Assemblies’ methods and challenges

 Assemblies’ history and social construction

1. Goal of the Meeting

This second meeting of Citizens Assembly coordinators aimed to examine the framework, progress and prospects for the Citizens Assemblies underway in the Southern Cone, Mediterranean, Asia, Oceania, Sahel Sahara, Mali and Europe.

The idea was to take a new look at the Citizens Assembly concept by asking how the Assemblies contribute to and strengthen the diversity of citizen and popular movements in the second decade of the 21st century. The meeting aimed to bring out the historical significance of the concept, its position and importance in the current context of globalization. The initial founding meeting took place only two years ago in 2008, but the world has not stopped changing ever since. The financial and economic crisis erupted just after the June 2008 meeting, and the idea of Citizens Assemblies became even more pertinent.

Another aim of the meeting was to produce an update on the preparations for the meetings planned for the second half of 2010. The wish to broaden the ties established between Assembly organizers to other similar initiatives implies progressing towards an overall vision and strategy as well an outline of post- 2010 prospects.

The meeting took place over two days: participants spent the first day getting to know each other again and getting back up to speed; the second day was spent on preparations for meetings in the second half of 2010 and post-2010 prospects.

2. Reporting Method

The two working days produced a number of communications, incorporating both accounts of the progress of the different initiatives as well as summaries, analyses, debates and personal comments that provided more detail on each initiative. Condensing this diversity of expression directly into summaries would have resulted in the dialogue being misrepresented and some of the richness of the contributions being lost. The decision was therefore taken to remain faithful to the initial content of communications by using video recordings (a total of 8 hours) supplemented by note taking.

The meeting allowed participants to explore, in a non-directive manner, each initiative’s path and construction process, with the added help of debates and explanations. This meant that the reporting process is more similar to initiative capitalisation rather than simply reproducing discussions. Several coordinators also stressed the need to give the paths taken and micro-processes at work in the Assemblies a higher profile and visible trace.

Transcriptions of communications were based on François Soulard’s video recordings (using the speakers’ original languages) and notes taken by Germà Pelayo. Most contributions to the debates have been rearranged to improve the description of the corresponding Assembly process.

The following open source software was used to create the support materials and report: Open Office, Scribus, Gimp, Kino, Kdenlive and Gwenview.

Illustrations and texts are licensed under a Creative commons 2.0 by-nc licence.

Table of Contents

1. Goal of the Meeting
2. Reporting Method
3. In Search of New Pillars for World Governance
3.1 Assemblies and Citizens Alternatives: Initial Debate and Explorations (discussion)
4. The regional assembly processes: events, developments and progress
4.1 From the 2007 China-India Forum to the 2010 Asian Citizens Assembly
4.2 Travelling Caravans and the Sahel-Saharan Citizens Assembly
4.3 Constructing Mali with Local Building Blocks
4.4 On the Road to the Iquique Regional Citizens Assembly – Southern Cone
4.5 Building a Mediterranean People’s Community
4.6 Crossing Oceania: on the Road to a Citizens Assembly for the Liquid Continent
4.7 Citizens for Europe: Linking Up Citizen Initiatives and Proposals
5. Beyond the Single Model: the Art of Building Links, New Balances and Paths between Unity and Diversity (cross-cutting monitoring)
6. Preparing for the 2010 Assemblies
6.1 Asia: the road to the August 2010 Assembly and beyond
6.2 Hui and the IUCN Conference in Oceania
6.3 Citizen Dialogues in Valencia: the First Mediterranean Assembly
6.4 Iquique Regional Citizens Assembly – Southern Cone
6.5 Sahel Sahara: Citizen Caravans at the Ayoun Assembly
6.6 Mali Assembly: from Local to Regional and National Stages
7. Contribution to a New Phase in Building Human Responsibilities
7.1 Drafting Ethical Charters, Ties Between Assemblies and Perspectives for the Future (discussion)
8. Appendices
8.1 Programme and invitation
8.2 Participants

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