The international debt network

This case study on the international debt network is focused on one of the major international networks campaigning on the debt issue: Committee for the Abolition of Third World Debt (CADTM). It is based on both web research and a dialogue with Denise Comanne and Eric Toussaint, respectively coordinator and chair of CADTM, who have kindly answered our questions.

Origins of the networks

CADTM was set up in Belgium in 1990 out of a conference involving a broad range of social movements and political forces. CADTM has local committees in Europe and (Francophone) Africa and is developing in South Asia and to some extent South America.

From the very beginning, CADTM was strongly pluralist in composition, involving environmentalists, socialists, Christians, revolutionaries and representatives of NGOs, trade unions, and social movements. This diversity was our strength. While some NGOs were working on the debt issue, few were fully focusing on it. We therefore helped fill a vacuum. Denise Comanne, coordinator of CADTM

CADTM’s main objective is the total cancellation of the external public debt of Third World and transitional country economies. It is composed of not only lobbying-based campaign groups but also research and education centres that aim to increase public awareness around issues of Third World debt through conferences, seminars, training sessions and a range of publications.

It share a global and radical perspective, working with a wide range of partners (peasant, womens and labour organisations) and believing that the cancellation of the debt is only a tool and not an end in itself. In other words, it is a preliminary "condition for sustainable and equitable development" in the South as well as in the North.

Significantly, CADTM works in close partnership with another major international debt network Jubilee South, which is active in 40 Southern countries from Latin America and the Caribbean to Africa and Asia/Pacific.

We have one or two annual meetings to formulate a common strategy, drawing up shared assessments of previous months from which we decide our agenda and common goals. These meetings are increasingly a dialogue between North and the South with the attendance of other Northern movements such as Jubilee United-States, and drop the debt coalitions from Canada (Kairos), Norway (Slug), Germany (Jubilee Germany) and Spain (Observatorio de la Deuda et RCADE) Eric Toussaint, chair of CADTM

Amongst their general objectives are more specific demands, such as the democratisation of public funds to ensure they are used primarily for people’s welfare and equitable and sustainable development, the end of IMF-World Bank and similar structural adjustment programs, and the recognition of the people and countries of the South as creditors of an historical, social and ecological debt as the basis for restitution and reparation.

At the heart of the process of the WSF

From 1998 to 2000, CADTM and the debt network more generally participated and/or coordinated a series of international meetings alongside organisations and networks like Attac, Via Campesina, Focus on Global South, the World Forum of Alternatives and the World March of Women.

The international debt network therefore naturally found itself involved in the early stages of preparation for the first WSF.

From 1999, the debt network (with all its components from the South and the North) was ready to take part in the events which were about to foreshadow the momentum of the Social Forums. The Social Forums came as a natural development although we didn’t realise it at this stage. In December 1998, CADTM participated in the international platform of Attac on the debt issue. In June 99, we took part in the international event "Against the dictatorship of the market: another world is possible" in Paris St Denis. In February 2000, we signed the Bangkok Declaration, and then there were the Prague protests in September 2000. During this period, the debt network (from the South and the North) was present at all counter-summits and protests (G7, IMF/World Bank, European Union). Moreover, this process enabled us to build our own initiatives and agenda and hence in Dakar, December 2000, we held our own event: “Africa: from resistances to alternatives.”

At this moment, we stood at the dawn of the first WSF of Porto Alegre where all that had been patiently built over the previous years was about to find an adequate expression. Denise Comanne

These international meetings reflect the intensification of networking activities within the different components of the international social justice movement during the late 1990s, and it was out of this momentum that the idea of the WSF emerged.

The ‘drop the debt’ network was therefore at the heart of the dynamic which lead to the emergence of the Social Forums. However, when asked if the process of the Social Forums has stimulated the enlargement of the network, Eric Toussaint is ambivalent:

Did it really stimulate the network? I am a bit hesitant to say yes because even without the WSF, within the framework of the alter-globalisation movement and the various meetings organised independently we would have still probably achieved all that we have done over the last few years.

I think one needs to be very clear: the WSF can’t pretend to represent the whole alter-globalisation movement. It’s a very important movement and process, a space of convergence but it does not represent all the social actors of the alter-globalisation movement. Various events happen independently of its existence (which does not mean against it).

Perhaps it was the advanced development of the anti-debt network prior to Porto Alegre that has made the Social Forum less central to its work than other international networks.

However, Toussaint believes that the Social Forum space and process, shaped by the Charter of Principles, have helped to bring convergence between the moderate and radical wings of the debt network by facilitating “the debates, the synergies and the pursuit of common initiatives.” In a similar fashion, the Social Forum has also enabled transversal networking with movements campaigning on other issues that were not the primary focus of the debt network.

I will not go as far as saying that it has accelerated our work but at least it has allowed us to get in touch more easily with movements which work on problems that we are also interested in and helped facilitate our collaboration with them. Collaboration that already existed, but which has been reinforced thanks to the common framework of the WSF. Eric Toussaint

Preparation throughout the process of the SF

The debt network has a longstanding experience of networking which is reflected in its preparation for the WSF. This preparation tends to be based on the equal participation of all the network’s organisations through various international meetings and email exchanges.

We prepare ourselves through email exchanges to formulate the best propositions for the public. It takes months. Within the debt network, the main benefit to us is the convergence: the preparatory process does not aim towards multiplying the numbers of interventions to showcase different organisations but on the contrary to make us coalesce around a strong and united message. And this requires extensive exchanges. We also take advantage of other events to meet and have face-to-face discussions. In the Forums so far, the debt network has featured between 10 and 20 times during the plenaries and workshops. Denise Comanne

Last October, we organised a joint-meeting with Jubilee South in Buenos

Aires and one of our agenda items was the organisation of joint-events in Mumbai. During November and December, we had extensive conversations through email followed by a meeting in December in Amsterdam (to coincide with a CADTM seminar on international law and the debt), where we fine-tuned our synthesis with the other movements. The final decisions were taken by email at the end of December. Eric Toussaint

So the work of the network in the run-up to each WSF focuses mainly on reaching consensus around the thematic content of their joint-programme and seems to pay less attention to the number of seminars and workshops they will organise.

During the last WSF in Mumbai, CADTM at first registered three seminars but after discussions with our different partners, we decided to only retain those activities co-organised with our partners and instead prioritise synergies. This meant that in the end, we didn’t organise a single seminar ourselves but participated in other seminars co-organised by CADTM and about 15 different movements.

For us, the aim is not to go to the WSF to make our voices heard above others, but to integrate our voices with the voices of others, reinforce collaborations and to take the time to listen. If you are intent on making your own voice heard, by definition you can’t be listening to others. This makes you guilty of using the WSF as a space to disseminate your own thinking, or worse, as a space for spreading propaganda... The participation needs also to go beyond discussions and exchanges to reinforce at the same time the pursuit of collective actions. The WSF is a space of mutual engagement which can result in actions assumed by the organisations (without pretending involving in those actions all the movements and people who come to the Forum). Eric Toussaint

Ways to move forwards to enlarge the networking activities

For Denise Comanne there are two particular aspects of the Forum process that require further work. Firstly, more attention needs to be paid to the construction of the movement at a local level. The proliferation of local social forums, which would then feed into the process at a regional and international level, should be encouraged. Secondly, she insists on the necessity of holding the WSF in different geographical regions.

I’m in favour of holding the WSF at less regular intervals otherwise we’ll end up only participating in them and forgetting to build strong local links. I also agree with the idea of holding the WSF in different geographical areas to enable all the people of the planet to become involved in the process and take ownership of it. This will be helped by the multiplication of local social forums, which allow a genuine grassroots enlargement. It is, after all, the ordinary person in the street that we need to convince to create a counter power, and not those already convinced and rich enough to travel across the world for each WSF. The local forums need to feed into the WSF: it is a process that would benefit not only the campaigns of the debt networks but every other network as well. Denise Comanne

In addition, Eric Toussaint draws attention to an ongoing debate within the WSF’s International Council, which relates to the format of the future editions of the WSF and the way in which its programme is put together.

I’m very concerned with the WSF itself and think it is fundamental that we conceptualise a new format for future forums. The International Council of the WSF is meeting in early April in Perugia (Italy) and it is crucial that we set up a public and transparent process of preparation for the 5th WSF, privileging seminars, workshops, and synthesis and convergence between the different organisations, whilst reducing the numbers of big conferences. The current idea is to begin the process of registration for the workshops and seminars as early as June of this year, so that we can put the different organisations in touch with each other six months beforehand. The work of unification and fusion would therefore start much earlier, allowing a deeper and more intense communication and collaboration between the different movements. We would therefore avoid a situation of intense and rushed preparatory activity in the final weeks leading up to and during the WSF without enough time to think about content, without enough accumulation of experience, without enough integration and assimilation and ultimately without enough concrete working-out. In this sense, the 5th WSF should represent a step forwards in relation to its predecessors.

The main challenge we face is how to start an interactive international process of collective construction of the 5th WSF from June. The organisations that are affiliated to the process will need to take responsibility for systematic communication between themselves on themes yet to be decided (debt, trade, women emancipation, human rights, international architecture, public good, peace...) and to facilitate transversal works and activities. Between June and December 2004, the aim would be to jointly elaborate analyses so that we can come to Porto Alegre with this common background. Eric Toussaint