Glocalization Manifesto
Source
- Article: Glocal Democracy; a Philosophical Platform for Democracy 2.0. By: Leif Thomas Olsen
Text
By: Leif Thomas Olsen
Uri Savir, a former Israeli diplomat then heading the Peres Center for Peace in Tel-Aviv. This initiative lead to the setting up of the Glocal Forum in 2001, a stakeholder-body aimed at promoting peace and mutual understanding, ‘while striving to create a new social and economic balance through city-to-city cooperation’ (The Glocalization Manifesto, 2004). This initiative came to blend with the neo-liberal ideas of glocalism (see above), although the manifesto itself lacks any such ideological or academic references, and/or -analysis.
The manifesto is nevertheless based on a joint study by the Glocal Forum, CERFE (Centro di Ricerca e Documentazione Febbraio ’74) and the World Bank Institute. This study (Glocalization; Research Study and Policy Recommendations, 2003) is full not only of such analysis and references, but also of recommendations.
It highlights e.g. the following (ibid, pp 1-4):
- that it intends to outline a new strategy of international cooperation,
- that it recognizes that actors and social relations at the local level have acquired crucial importance,
- that no serious [ … ] sustainable development can ultimately succeed if an adequate degree of stability is not attained at all levels, from local to global,
- that ‘governance of globalization’ requires bringing the benefits of globalization to local levels and empowering local realities so that they can contribute to the global decision-making process,
- that the movement towards glocalization is strengthened by the characteristics of the knowledge society.
When it comes to more concrete recommendations, this report lists the following:
- City diplomacy and city-to-city cooperation;
- Socio-economic local development, aiming at an appropriate and well-balanced management of relations between the local and global dimension;
- Culture, as a key factor in breaking down the barriers between peoples and human groups and as a powerful instrument of balancing the global and the local (in another part of the document referred to as ‘real multiculturalism’);
- Tourism, at the same time a crucial force for local social development and a key instrument for peace and mutual understanding;
- Sport, as a vehicle to deliver strong peace-building models and to provide concrete psychosocial dividends, especially to youth;
- Youth empowerment, as a way to activate and support those who can be considered as key actors in glocalization policies;
- Information and Communication Technology, as an instrument to foster relations and contacts between cultures and, at the same time, a key catalyst for economic development;