STWR - Share The World's Resources

With no headquarters, budget or permanent staff, the Group of Eight is an informal but exclusive body whose members set out to tackle global challenges through discussion and action.

The G8 comprises seven of the world's leading industrialised nations, and Russia.

The leaders of these countries meet face-to-face at an annual summit that has become a focus of media attention and protest action.

OVERVIEW

The G8's roots lie in the oil crisis and global economic recession of the early 1970s. In 1973, these challenges prompted the US to form the Library Group - an informal gathering of senior financial officials from Europe, Japan and the US.

Since World War II ended in 1945 and the United Nations came into operation, we began to notice the letters NGOs used with relative frequency. These letters stand for Non Governmental Organizations. For all practical purposes we may conclude that all existent organizations that are not governmental they must be Non Governmental. This may certainly be viewed as pure common sense. Just as we do have a variety of governmental organizations, we also have a great amount of different Non Governmental Organizations.

Nature of Governmental Organizations

In every country, each government is run by a series of organizations that may be referred to by a variety of names like departments, agencies, and institutes in addition to others. Each of these organizations is represented by a director or minister or secretary or any other title a government may wish to devise or create. Needless to say, each one runs on a governmental budget and everyone that works within such entities works on a paid salary.

The business conducted by such governmental organizations anywhere in the world seems to function along the same lines regardless of the type or structure of government. On the other hand, when we come to Non Governmental Organizations, the variety is enormous. This explains why we need to learn more about the structure and purpose of such organizations, which are found in every country across every continent.

Let us bring a few examples to illustrate this great variety of NGOs. Every religious congregation or order, like the Dominicans, the Benedictines, the Franciscans and the Jesuits among numerous others are all Non Governmental Organizations in the sense that they are not controlled by any rules and regulations of any government. The congregation of nuns of the well-known Mother Teresa has been undoubtedly an NGO from the outset. This type of NGOs may be classified as religious.

Other types of NGOs may be enlisted as academic or educational like the National Education Association, the Philosophy of Education Society, the Boy Scouts Association, and the list goes on and on. Besides, we do have NGOs that stemmed from the field of sociology like Marriage Encounter, Alcoholic Anonymous, and various supporting groups for widows and widowers and for the handicap. In recent times, we find many NGOs working for a variety of vital human causes, like peace education, environmental protection, human rights and disarmament. Some work on a budget while others work merely as volunteers.

Importance of Non Governmental Organizations

The various governments of the world have at least one thing in common. They all know that without people involvement in the solution of problems, the nation may deteriorate to the point of disintegration and self-annihilation. In fact, in countries where we have plenty of volunteers working through various Non Governmental Organizations, we tend to discover less problems and less human suffering. Very fortunately, from the very outset, the United Nations has realized this tangible evidence and thus it proceeded to establish good rapport with several NGOs. These good relations of the UN with selected NGOs should continue to be strengthened, and to grow and to develop further.

As to whether an NGO works closely with the United Nations through the establishment of some link or not is irrelevant for all practical purposes. What should be important lies in the fact that we do have volunteers who give their time, energy and expertise to help make the world better. Over the past 60 years, since the United Nations came into existence, NGOs have played a big role in the implementation of the peaceful objectives of this world body of nations. In fact, many believe that if the League of Nations had been blessed with the assistance of Non Governmental Organizations, it might have never disintegrated and gone into oblivion. It might have grown to become instrumental in the prevention of World War II and many other conflicts that took place around the world.

Many even believe that had it not been for NGOs, the United Nations, the way we know it today, would have ceased to exist quite a few years ago. Those that work within the confines of the United Nations should be grateful to NGOs which were eventually instrumental to help them keep their job. Moreover, those governments that tend to use the United Nations to exert their influence in any way they wish in some global areas should also be grateful to NGOs for doing vital humanitarian work that some governments tended to ignore. In essence, the presence of NGOs has always been for the United Nations and the world at large a win-win situation.

Those NGOs that have established some link with the United Nations should concentrate totally and thoroughly on the amount of contributions they could possibly make through the positive and constructive utilization of their expertise. They should view as their primary mission the implementation of the positive and constructive goals of the United Nations. Needless to say, when it comes to the implementation of such UN goals, there should be no difference whatsoever in the work of those NGOs that do not happen to have established some link with the world body of nations.

NGOs in True Perspective

If we were to examine what outstanding NGOs that were religious in nature, such as the congregation of Mother Teresa have done, we all notice that they dedicated their time and energy to bring peace among all people they came across. Besides, they all tried to safeguard the purity of air and water to the best of their ability. Moreover, they all showed sensitivity on the question of human rights that relate to adequate shelter, proper nourishment, good health care, and relevant education. And lastly, they all viewed peace as a sacrosanct human right that could be obtained properly and effectively only through disarmament and arms control.

Hence, these UN humanitarian objectives are not a monopoly of NGOs that happened to have established some link with the UN but they are the moral obligation to follow and implement of all NGOs in every realm of society across every continent. Regardless of its defects and handicap, the United Nations still remains the best instrument we have available in the world today to whip things into order and to bring about world peace. We all should help the UN to create a good environment where people could enjoy a healthy life, where people could communicate freely with each other without any fear, and where violence that is often instigated through the waging of wars would become a thing of the past.

In view of what has been stated, it is obvious that Governmental Organizations have a unique role to play in the constructive management of a nation. At the same time, Non Governmental Organizations of any kind have the sacrosanct duty to provide their expertise as to enable the United Nations become more productive. In their work, Non Governmental Organizations should maintain their identity as distinct from that of the UN by not printing any UN lettering following the name of their respective organization, by never printing the UN logo in any of their publications, and by focusing thoroughly on the UN goals they are trying to achieve. This way the focus of NGOs on mere vital human needs would continue to bring about positive results everywhere.

We may state categorically that the ultimate objective of NGOs, regardless of their character, nature and eventual original purpose, is to make substantial contributions toward the creation of a better and more stable global community. This ultimate objective is best achieved primarily through a thorough dedication to the achievement of four main United Nations? goals that were mentioned earlier, that is, peace education, environmental protection, human rights and disarmament. NGOs should become the source of inspiration for every government to respect and implement these vital human needs.

Peace Education: The preamble of UNESCO starts with the words: ?Since wars begin in the minds of men it is in the minds of men that the defenses of peace must be constructed.? The schools should serve not only as an instrument to impart knowledge but also as a seat of inspiration through which students may learn how to use the acquired knowledge just for positive and constructive purposes.

Environmental Protection: For human beings to survive they must have both clean air and pure water. The air and water pollution that is being emitted by big industries, ironically supported by leading industrial governments, is leading millions a year prematurely to their graves through needless cancer and other deadly diseases. NGOs must bring this episode into the open for everyone to see.

Human Rights: One of the best documents in this regard is the UN Universal Declaration on Human Rights, which was signed by all nations. In spite of this, every single nation without exception tends to violate one segment or another of this sacred document. Human beings have a sacrosanct right for free health care and education, for adequate housing facilities and appropriate nourishment.

Disarmament and Arms Control: We learn from history that the waging of wars never solved problems in the long range. They always served to instigate more problems and to deteriorate the quality of human life. NGOs in every segment of the community should emphasize the criminality of war, which by its very nature, disregards all kinds laws: divine, natural, ecclesiastic and civic.

What is highly encouraging lies in the fact that several Non Governmental Organizations, from every segment of the community, have already taken gigantic steps to dedicate themselves toward the achievement of United Nations? goals that we have just outlined, namely, peace education, environmental protection, human rights and disarmament. Among such NGOs, that may or may not have any link with the UN, we find religious groups, humanitarian and educational organizations in addition to academic scholars and social workers that work harmoniously together in the best interest of the entire world.

In spite of its problems, the United Nations still remains the best element the world has at its disposal in the promotion of prosperity and peace. It is quite encouraging to hear the UN Secretary-General and other UN officials talking of the importance for everyone involved and concerned to help properly and effectively in the reformation of this world body of nations. The recognition of a problem is already a gigantic step in the right direction.

Two Alternative Choices

We learn from history that human conflicts are generally solved in one of two ways: either through healthy dialogues or through brutal wars. As far as the United Nations is concerned, all problems the world encounters should be solved through healthy dialogues. If we were to study the origin of every war that took place across every continent since World War II ended in 1945 and the United Nations came to existence, we will discover that such wars were waged by individual nations independently of the United Nations.

In view of this, it seems to be of paramount importance for this world body of nations to have more power in world affairs in the best interest of all people of all nations without exception. There should be a functional International Court of Justice to prosecute politicians that perform actions that are detrimental to society in a number of ways. Besides, the United Nations’ goal of disarmament and arms control should receive top priority by every single member nation.

In addition, no corporation should be allowed to produce lethal material that is detrimental to our earthly environment and to human life in general. Above all, this world body on nations must realize that every nation should abide by the same moral laws that are meant to protect the sacredness of human life from conception to natural death. The waging of wars is an act of aggression not only against human life in all of its stages, but also against people’s sacrosanct right to prosperity and peace.

The idea that a war is waged to promote democracy, stability and peace constitutes a contradiction in terms. Very shamefully, war has emerged to become a lucrative business enterprise where big and influential corporations make plenty of money and build a never-ending wealth through the infliction of atrocious pain on millions of innocent people. Quite often, this leads to the destruction of human life that would involve women, children, the elderly and the sick along with social workers that may include clergymen. In Kosovo, for example, more people were killed in just three months by NATO military forces than people were killed during the previous 50 years under Milosevic and all the way back to Tito. The military exists to wage wars and not to promote peace.

Need for United Nations’ Reform

Ironically, the United Nations needs to be seriously reformed from the inside, since its real enemies are found among its member states, which tend to act independently of this world body of nations in their foreign policies. The UN Secretary-General has a very difficult job. He has to be diplomatic in the sense that he tries to be firm but without offending or alienating any of the member states. This may sound to be easier said than done since the more powerful nations do not seem to feel bound by any decision the United Nations may make, no matter how important and beneficial it may prove to be to the world at large.

When it comes to prosperity and peace, all member states of the United Nations must abide by the same rules. For example, it makes no sense at all for one nation to assume it has the right to have nuclear weapons as much as it wants while, at the same time, it demands that other nations should not have any of such weapons at all. In spite of the fact that the United States has its own surmountable problems, it remains a tangible reality that its fifty states can work independently with a separate government for each. At the same time, these fifty states can work together so harmoniously that they do feel they constitute one solid and inseparable nation.

What is the secret of this harmony and peace that we notice among these fifty states? They are all demilitarized. The idea that in the USA one state may be preparing to wage a war against another state becomes laughable because a war of such a nature is viewed to be a virtual impossibility. However, let us suppose that each state has its own military that functions independently of the military of any other of the forty nine states and that there is no such thing as a federal army. Only God knows how many wars of some kind or another might have been waged over the past 200 years. This means that the United Nations’ program of disarmament and arms control should be given top priority.

From the past 6,000 years of recoded history of civilization we learn that the military, as stated earlier, serves always to wage wars and not to bring about peace. Hence, a strong United Nations that would be instrumental in bringing a genuine peace is bound to emerge only after it would succeed to implement its program of international disarmament and arms control. Maybe that educational branch of the United Nations, commonly known as UNESCO, could take the initiative to promote programs that are meant to educate government officials and to enlighten their minds. Such programs may be viewed as philosophical, psychological, sociological, and biological in nature.

Constructive View of Human Life

Philosophical Aspect: Philosophy deals with the way we view life for better or for worse. People differ from each other for a variety of reasons but primarily because of their diversity in philosophy. In spite of this, the fact remains that we are all living in an interdependent world, same way as the various members of our body, though distinct, function interdependently. Hence, we need to keep in mind that if one part of our body is injured, the rest of the body will suffer the inconveniency as a result. A good philosophy at work will enable us to keep in mind the welfare of all people without exception. This would be a gigantic step in the right direction.

Psychological Approach: Psychology deals with our inner feelings and with our emotions. All people in the world have a feeling of belongingness. They all want to be loved and respected. They all want to live at peace through harmony, progress and prosperity. The best gift we may give to our relatives, friends and all people as a matter of fact is our substantial contribution to their state of serenity and happiness along with a feeling of safety and security. This could be achieved through the exercise of care and respect that is made possible through our altruistic services. Those who demonstrate this kind of dedication are always viewed as great benefactors to the cause of humanity.

Sociological Element: Sociology deals with community needs relative to shelter and style of life. People everywhere have a sacrosanct right for adequate homes and for good education. There are some members of the United Nations that give this element top priority in their respective countries. Among such nations we have those where the government provides free or inexpensive adequate homes and free education for all natives from the cradle to the grave. More nations should follow this pattern in dealing with their people. After all, people may be viewed as the backbone of the nation. The fewer problems they experience, the less problems the nation faces.

Biological Factor: Biology deals with life. A nation without people is viewed as lifeless. No one views the continent of Antarctica as a nation simply because there are no native inhabitants living there. For the people to survive and to live healthy they need to have good nourishment and good environment. Air and water pollution become their poison, their instrument of slow and torturous death. Hence, every government should put top priority on the provision of adequate food and clean environment. Big corporations do not have a right to make money by jeopardizing people’s lives. If they do not change their lethal product, then the government should quickly compel them to do so.

Importance of Healthy Dialogues

The United Nations came into existence to bring all the nations of the world together to enable them to solve problems through healthy dialogues rather than through devastating wars. This vital organization is as important or as useless to the good of humanity as its determination to implement boldly the major goals of the United Nations. Such goals relate in particular to peace education, environmental protection, human rights and disarmament. If this world body of nations moves ahead to implement such objectives by all means at its disposal, then its presence on earth may be viewed as a heavenly blessing. If not, the United Nations may be viewed merely as an ornament of bureaucrats and self interest groups that exert influence and power.

Those nations that would not abide by international laws that serve the best interest of all people without exception should be ostracized or quarantined. They should be viewed as dangerous and any official communication with them should be suspended. A newly reformed UN should measure drastic actions that need to be taken to whip things into order not in terms of money a member state may contribute or military might a nation may demonstrate to possess. United Nations actions should be based on international ethical and moral laws that are geared toward the universal welfare of all people without exception.

A newly reformed United Nations should view integrity of character and personality as indispensable to generate itself into a source of prosperity and peace. The six billion people of the world cannot continue to be exploited by industrial nations, which have provided the poor natives of helpless countries with air and water pollution, epidemics and numerous health problems, while depriving them of adequate shelter, food, medicine and other vital needs of life. The UN has the obligation to stop such abuses. This way it will demonstrate to have a strong moral leadership that is capable of whipping things into order as to give prosperity and peace a chance to work out wonders in due time.

Director of EDUCATING CITIES LATIN AMERICA Regional Office, International Relations Bureau. According to Agreement signed by the Municipalities of Rosario, Argentina and Barcelona, Spain.

Member of the UNESCO CHAIR on Culture of Peace and Human Rights in charge of Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Arq. Adolfo Perez Esquivel, University of Buenos Aires, Argentina.

By the end of the XXth. Century a wave run all over the world. That wave is called globalization. It is a wave both economic and cultural and it goes ahead and introduces itself without rules in countries and regions. Globalization tells us about emergent markets noisily falling down. It shows economic advances, concentration of wealth and expansion of poverty. Globalization transversally splits society, generating illusions and disillusions. Globalization leads to deep uncertainty...

Thus, globalization and uncertainty are part of the reality of the world we live in and it has a direct influence in our cities... those dearly artificial spaces where each society represents itself, trying to turn them into trustees of their individual and collective desires.

The governments of the cities, poles or node centers of different nations, regional or continental areas emerge as first instance juridical-institutional referents to consolidate Latin American democratic systems and to protect the rights of it?s inhabitants.

Particularly at a historic time when the risk of de facto governments and military coups, that prevented every possibility of constitutional governments, are over. Economic and cultural globalization stands up as a new risk for keeping equity in the development of social policies and the protection of Human Rights in the cities.

The globalization process that characterizes global economy at the end of the last millenium, with a strong accent in concentration of wealth and high degree in technology brought poverty and marginality to our region.

Increasing precariousness of the working conditions, unemployment and corruption, deterioration of institutional life and weakening of representative Democracy without any mobility to switch to other participatory mechanisms have had a great impact on the social and economic spheres of our cities. The result is absolutely devastating.

The structural poverty sectors had not substantially changed their previous situation of scarce or null participation in the distribution of wealth. Still, they are suffering deeper marginality: higher infant mortality rates, precocious pregnancy, lower performance and even desertion from primary schools, alcoholism, etc. In addition some other scourges also increased, such as domestic violence, children delinquency, citizens? insecurity, addictions, environmental destruction, children?s work, etc., characteristic of extreme poverty processes.

To these we must add the advent of thousands of new poor people. These are unemployed workers who have lost their jobs and their social security, without any alternative or any social service to assist them.

These sectors that previously enjoyed the condition of citizens, that identified themselves with a trade union, that could see possibilities of development and could dream with a future, today have abandoned the institutions or were abandoned by them.

The results of the policy of adjustment are very well known and in Latin America. We speak about the ?lost decade? when we try to characterize the reach of our increasing marginal condition from the most outstanding global economic activities.

Especially the cities? local authorities, strongly affected from economic recession and from the social deficit generated by the neo-liberal model had to assume the challenge of starting some governmental alternatives that put into practice the values of equal opportunities, equity and citizens? participation in decision taking.

An open statement of policies and mechanisms of affirmation and protection of the rights proved necessary to protect the citizens? juridical integrity.

How much poverty can liberty put up with? starts by asking itself the document of the 1988 Group of Rio.

How can the reality of poverty be overcome?

How can it be avoided that inequality repeats itself inside each society?

How can it be guaranteed that every citizen?s fundamental rights will be protected?

Local governments, more than ever, are facing supra structural conflicts that are sometimes out of their sphere of resolution. In fact, a great number of problematics are out of the competence and responsibility of local administrations.

Nevertheless, people demand solutions and the demands go to the most immediate authorities, the closest and most reliable, with whom they share everyday life in cities full of contradictions.

That is why the local governments are acquiring more relevance. The search for the answers to people?s demands starts from the knowledge that there is no economic policy differentiated from a juridical-social policy.

There is, indeed, a policy where the social issue is present in all and each one of the actions carried out by the municipality.

In a state of social exclusion there is insecurity not only for the excluded but also for society as a whole.

This is the time when the promotion and defense of Human Rights turns to be a political-social imperative.

Facing this reality there are two alternatives: following the habitual bureaucratic features of public offices (To tell: this is not possible, it is beyond our control) or, on the contrary, to assume the challenge of developing a new concept of municipal state, making it more modern, efficient, broadening its sphere of competence, of research and management.

And, above all, broadening its executive and guarantor role of public liberties in the cities? jurisdiction.

Re-structuring the municipal government taking into account this new sphere of competence is today a demand. A time when the construction of a just, free and supportive society is a permanent aspiration.

Local authorities must strategically design programs that lead to fulfil these aims, bearing in mind the needs for the future and the tools that model the city that is needed here and now. Not an easy task, certainly.

The city, the municipality is the place where life goes on. It is also the place where human development must be achieved in conditions of equal opportunities for everyone.

It is about incorporating to the municipal dimension of collective work the valuable contribution of the community and solidarity organizations, of the spontaneous actions of neighbors that develop important protection mechanisms for the defense of Human Rights.

Moreover, the state is a part of the solution and it has an irreplaceable responsibility in conciliating public and private interests and in the creation of suitable conditions to develop the initiatives and efforts of non-governmental organizations in this direction.

Political interventions of the local government in a city with equal opportunities definitely presuppose thinking the social in the same strategic framework than economical reform and juridical protection. Thus, it proposes a new model of development in which social reform and economic reform enhance each other and are strengthened in the same logic of efficiency and equity.

It is thus overcome the limitation of considering the social as the object of sector or assistance policies, that was one of the contradictions of the old pattern in which great growth was achieved without eliminating poverty and with systematic violation of the population?s fundamental rights.

In the policies and mechanisms of protection of Human Rights in cities the great challenge is based in the definition of a synthesis of that deep bipolar ideas. Economic development versus structural poverty and unemployment. Cultural development versus urban violence. Opening to a globalized world of increasing goods and services versus marginality, exclusion, illiteracy. Production of knowledge and technology versus illiteracy. Construction of concrete concepts of citizenship and rights versus anomie, disaffiliation process, breaking of containment bonds, primary socialization in a world of violence and exploitation.

It is, no doubt, a challenge that largely exceeds the possibilities of local governments. Since all these differences have a common source in macro-economy variables and in exclusion policies that are supported by creating big poverty areas and through permanent violation of the rights of the citizens.

Thinking from the very beginning in the city as integrated and integrating allows us coherent courses of action avoiding isolated and consuming programs. We can take advantage of the impact of favorable situations such as physical interventions: opening of streets, construction of equipment, etc. to change unfavorable situations. We can organize social interventions facilitated by the mobilization and expectations produced by this kind of actions that allow us to work with the neighbors in situations of neighbors organization, real practice of participatory democracy

From this perspective, we recognize the policies for protecting Human Rights when cities seek for inclusion to favor the integration of its inhabitants. When assistance actions facilitate each other so as to produce multiple and different impacts to aware consciousness, to help organization and management ability on the part of the population these actions are addressed to. It is an effort to turn the beneficiaries of social services into subjects of rights, bearers of citizenship.

It is the responsibility and commitment of local governments to guarantee the fulfillment of these rights in the urban scope, developing specific public policies that secure the application of protection systems, as is established by national constitutions and international agreements signed by national governments.

Nevertheless, it is true that Latin America has not had many opportunities to have ?peace for thinking, quietness for speaking, place for creating, room for having ideas? (from Juan Cruz, journalist of ?El País?, Madrid). Saturated of distrusts and fears by decades of institutional instability, censorship, violence and polarized political antagonisms, there are still many scars and even open wounds in Latin America social body caused by these lacerations.

?Visible expressions of an exhausted authoritarian and corporate order have fallen down. Nevertheless, some features belonging to the political practice predominant before remained undamaged? (Natalio Botana, ?El Siglo de la Libertad y el Miedo).

The incompetence of the political power to reconstruct the past with parameters of truth and justice has given politics a decadent sense, displacing it from the real power of decision which has gone to the hands of concentrated economic groups.

The democratization process of Latin American societies harassed by chronic crisis will be, no doubt, very long and characterized by comings and goings of growth and set backs similar to those of the global financial crisis that affects public policies ad governmental decisions.

This situation echoes in the real practice of fundamental rights in the cities and in the strategies of supervision that the municipal government can develop.

The cities are forced to face urgent decisions as regards Human Rights started by the application of unmerciful adjustment policies in agreement with the global institution of financial credit.

The political decision on the part of local governments of taking an active role in the policy of protecting their citizens? Human Rights, taking into account dynamic programs that can support definite actions is quite important here. These actions can be:

• Progressive, that is to say evolutionary, going slow and deep into society
• Systematic, coherent with a political project
• Global, comprising society as a whole
• Participatory, allowing every citizen to be leading protagonist subjects
• Innovating, allowing transformations in the structures and in people

In most Latin American countries democratic way of government has been recovered. But, are we really living a democratization process?

Thus... can we seriously think in a systematic policy for the protection of Human Rights?

There are certain elements in reality that prevent immediate changes towards true exercise of the system:

• The great external debt that conditions all new economic reformulation that the national governments may want to make at this new constitutional instance.
• The centralization of power produces disagreements between democratic institutions and the participatory demands on the part of the population.
• The bureaucratization and trans-nationalization of the state have transformed our states into democratic shells that naturally turn into authoritarian because they have been emptied of key decisions.
• The great number of social demands without any circulating mechanism in the middle of financial and economic crisis generate frustrations that lead to confidence crisis in the democratic system.

Taking this descriptive picture into account it will be understood that it is very difficult to introduce the democratization process as a wedge that can give birth to great changes in the medium or long term.

THE REALITY OF LATIN AMERICA IS THAT OF UNDERDEVELOPMENT, OF SOCIAL INJUSTICE, OF BAD QUALITY OF LIFE FOR MILLIONS OF PEOPLE, OF DEPENDENCE IN RELATION TO THE CENTERS OF POWER, OF CULTURAL ALIENATION.

The democratization process must change this reality and must develop active participation of all the community, as well as the opportunity of living in human conditions.

In this way the concrete and efficient supervision of the application of protecting mechanisms for Human Rights in the cities will be a reality.

With local governments? commitment to this democratization process of which they must be a part, they turn into political institutions with an extraordinary reach, since they are the real spheres where true education for democracy is carried out.

This assumed the need of overcoming authoritarian ways of leadership and the acceptance of ideas of autonomy, responsibility and dialogue. These premises imply the responsibility, on the part of the State of securing education, understanding it as the integral development of the individual for its inclusion in society through the construction of a social conscience open to change and participation.

The municipal system, due to its proximity to the citizens, is the most open and transparent. Its decisions and administration are more evident, easily generating public opinion.

It is, thus, school of citizenship.

This school of citizenship must be also be understood as the sphere where the policies of protection of Human Rights are developed and generalized as habitual ways of living in society and as a legitimate juridical system when defense of the citizens is at stake.

Global society is not a democratic society and the powers that have a part there are not guided by the criteria of equal citizens: we are not citizens of the world.

The city contributes to this process the consolidated historical practice of being the framework at human scale for democratic living together. It contributes with the resistance of the citizens to admit as inevitable an opaque political world and based in negotiating from nude power and the power of weapons.

The city is, then, both a framework and an agent educator of rights that, facing the tendency to concentration of power practices public opinion and freedom. Facing the tendency to gregariousness expresses pluralism. Facing the tendency to unequal distribution of possibilities defends citizenship. Facing the tendency to individualism makes the effort of practicing solidary individuality.

?Democratic training? in the city?s sphere is vital for the formation of the future citizen, conscious of his/her rights, responsible for his/her duties and sensible to everyone?s problems that are also his/hers, to the extent that he/she has been educated by an open and transforming society.

From this perspective, Latin American municipalities acquire a particular educative, social and political commitment for it implies to put into action a program with the aim of developing solidarity, cooperation and individual and group responsibility as basic foundations for a democratic formation.

Likewise, this formation must consider the principles entailed with Human Rights, Peace and the promotion of a critical spirit with the aim of transforming and modifying reality.

The municipal projects linked to policies and mechanisms of affirmation of Human Rights in the cities must be organized as true learning proposals. They must generate active participation, reflection, and permanent re-elaboration of contents and methods. They must always take into account the different characteristics of the groups and the constant verification with the needs of reality.

From our perspective, the projects of the cities with a protection policy of Human Rights must fulfill basically the following conditions:

• They must be a collective experience, in an environment of horizontal group relations.
• They must be an experience to solve problems and not merely to get information.
• They must be based on democratic relations among the participants that represent or anticipate democratic relations in society.
• They must pay attention to the formation of a democratic conscience, plural, defender of Peace and institutional rules in a state of law.

How can we achieve policies and mechanisms with these characteristics?

• By de-centralizing political conduction and de-bureaucratizing juridical management
• By endorsing the participation of all members of society
• By demanding each one?s responsibilities in their specific functions
• By promoting changes of attitudes aimed to solidarity and cooperation
• By establishing integration as an every day practice
• By promoting co-management with the community, non-governmental organizations, and all those institutions and enterprises that work with the aim of improving general welfare.

What are the aims we support from the protection of Human Rights policies in Latin American cities?

• Promoting the knowledge of juridical norms and the existent reality to a global, national and local level regarding Human Rights and the mechanisms that endorse their protection.
• Analyzing the existing contradictions regarding this issue throughout human history to recognize the struggles and advances obtained through the action of individuals, social groups, and nations.
• Organizing and managing from the sphere of the municipal government concrete projects aimed at forming a ?collective conscience? on the need of citizenship education and protection of Human Rights, in a contemporary society indifferent to the demands of the weak.
• Summoning international, national, governmental and non-governmental organizations, as well as the whole community, to put in motion actions leading to the defense of the principles stated here.

We firmly support same as the first article of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights that ?every man are born free and equal in dignity and rights?.

But society makes them unequal. Society quickly differentiates them. That is why it is a political imperative to MAKE THEM EQUAL as members of a community and based in a common decision of a political nature that endorses equal rights and the defense of that rights to everyone.

Equality is not, then, something that IS GIVEN. It is a CONSTRUCTION conventionally carried out through united actions of men through the organization of the political community.

It is this political community that has to commit itself to its protection and defense.

Here we find the relation between the individual right of the citizen to politically self-determination, together with other citizens through the exercise of his/her political rights and the right of the community to self-determination, by constructing equality again, as is pointed out by Hanna Arendt.

That is why it looks particularly important to us at analyzing the city as a sphere of application of policies and mechanisms for the protection of Human Rights, to point out that:

The institutions that facilitate and energize a process of these characteristics are always those that represent the local government, committed in a dynamics of broad political participation, democratic agreement, and stable, responsible and transparent government. This is the first protection for the promotion and defense of the rights of the inhabitants.

Lets pray that it is so in all Latin America for many years to come.

Prof. Alicia Cabezudo
Director
Educating Cities Latin America
International Relations Bureau
Municipality of Rosario
Argentina


Bibliography:

.Gardella, Juan Carlos. ?Ciudadanía y Derechos?. At the First Municipal Congress of Research and Social Policies ?From the Needs to the Rights?. Rosario, Argentina, December 1997.

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