by Eduardo Missoni

Five hundred young delegates from all over the world, together with another thousand participants from around Italy will meet in January 2010 in Bari, capital of the southern Italian Puglia Region, to take part in the World Youth Meeting for a Sustainable Future.  They will work together on a coordinated plan linking global and local action.

Think globally, act locally

The motto “think globally, act locally” is not new but, today, we need to take a major step forward.  Interdependence between local and global phenomena, related to an unprecedented acceleration of the globalization process, requires us to go far beyond just the consciousness of the link between local actions and their global dimensions.  Action-oriented synergies need to be put in place.

The speed and frequency of global interchanges have spurred world economic integration, opening new opportunities for social and economic development. Nevertheless, a development model has been imposed from above, at the planetary level, one based on endless growth and consumption, with progressive cultural as well as economic homogenization.  The artificial stimulus of new needs feeds the myth of economic growth without concern for its consequences: to humanity’s health, the environment, or the life conditions of future generations. Such an unsustainable model provokes wild and irresponsible competition for water and energy resources, producing everlasting mountains of waste. The future of today's youth and the coming generations is at stake. Humanity is facing today the challenge of growing inequality and insecurity, geographic instability, enormous migratory flows, unprecedented conflicts, and climatic changes.

A new social dynamic

The decisions and strategies of a reduced number of global actors shape the experience of billions of the planet’s citizens even though these actors keep themselves at a lamentable and safe distance from the daily lives of their less fortunate fellows.

These actors shape global relations.  Global relations differ fundamentally from international relations because they are not limited to the interactions between nations-states.  Global relations are trespassing upon the traditional rules of the game; exercising an enormous power over national and local realities which become progressively more difficult to govern at the appropriate levels. Today, for example, local and national governments have to deal with the consequences of a financial crisis without borders; one which dramatically links the destiny of the poorest African to the insane speculations of American financial companies.  

Hence, the need to go beyond global thinking and local action in order to establish a new social dynamic that, starting from an understanding of local situations within the global, is able to link global actions and social change implemented at the local level. The consciousness of the causes of global warming and of the profoundly unsustainable development model, for example, now pushes a growing number of communities to explore alternative economic approaches and life styles, such as those based on mutual support, voluntary simplicity, and deep respect for the natural environment.

This new dynamic can only be the result of a new shared “g-local”—at once global and local—   citizenship experience, engaging especially youth citizens: those members of society who are expressing today a strong demand for the future and the concept of sustainability.

Young people as agents of change

Though representing the central and most numerous segment of world population, as well as the main stakeholders of a sustainable future, young people are underrepresented when policies are decided and implemented. Their arguments, their strength, and their proposals are almost always left aside when decisions are taken, both in broader society as well as in the world’s institutions and organizations, at all levels, including in many NGOs.

It is at the territorial level, within the local realm, that the effectiveness of policies is measured.  It is within a given territory that one can concretely influence societal changes. Many examples of such change are already underway:  collectively choosing to be critical consumers; looking for new entrepreneurial approaches, inclusive and socially responsible; building a culture that recognizes the value of diversity and a science able to link the centers of knowledge to the community and its needs; correcting injustice in access to basic services, to education, and health; as well as defending the environment and energy sources as a collective good. It is indeed within a given territory that the first and fundamental pact must be established between youth and society, its institutions as well as its social and production networks:  a pact that would ensure young people their full, active, and responsible right to citizenship.

This right that would remain empty if it were not allowed to express itself in a collective consciousness, taking action at the global level, where knowledge and experiences can be constructively shared  and young people allowed to participate in the real sphere of global decision making.

Ni, mondlokaj civitanoj

On these thoughts, I find myself fully attuned to Luca Bergamo, whom I first met in 2006.  Calling himself a “stubborn innovator”, Luca is a creative youth organizer deeply concerned with actively linking local initiatives with global questions. We discussed the possibility of starting a project to face these challenges.  At that time, he was the Director General of an international organization known as the Glocal Forum, aiming at the networking of local governments while also offering space for youth participation in the Glocal Youth Forum.

At that time, from 2004 to 2007, I served as the Secretary General of the World Organization of the Scout Movement (WOSM), leading the world largest youth movement. At WOSM, I was convinced of the “g-local” potential of Scouts as a social force and imagined young people taking the lead of the Movement. But the Scout movement paradoxically was controlled, at its international peak organizational level as well as in many of its National Member Organizations, by people who are rather advanced in age who were and remain lagging behind in this manner of thinking.

Once Luca Bergamo became the Director General of the Italian National Youth Agency, the international initiative of the Glocal Forum dissolved, and he was able to transform that idea into a project, establishing the baseline for the program that is finally taking off today: an initiative which brings us again together.

Parallel to Luca, I have left my position at WOSM and am back in academia, trying to actively link my teaching activities on global health, ethics and management of international organizations with the growing interest in promoting g-local citizenship. With Dominique Bénard, an educator who has dedicated his life to teaching young people, we launched the Indaba-network (www.indaba-network.net): a network that uses the tools offered by globalization to support g-local youth initiatives.

With numerous other international actors and institutions (examples include the Interamerican Development Bank, the International Labour Organization, UNESCO, UN-Habitat, the Millennium Development Goals campaign, UNDP, and the World Bank), the Indaba-network supports the initiative that it recently presented to the public.

Notwithstanding their being politically extremely distant, the Italian Youth Minister, Giorgia Meloni, and the President of the Puglia Region, Nichi Vendola, jointly launched Ni, mondlokaj civitanoj (NMC – We, global-local citizens, www.nimociv.org) in a commendable bipartisan action, with reciprocal recognition of their institutional work.

To emphasize the sharing attitude and rejection of any cultural prevarication in the exclusive search of the common good, the initiative bears a name in Esperanto.  Esperanto is a language which can belong to anybody but is nobody's language: representing the adoption of an “open source” communication philosophy. Reference is made to the values expressed in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and in the Declaration on Social Justice, whereby achieving the Millennium Development Goals is the concrete target.

The 1500 young people meeting in Bari in January will participate in three days of meetings, workshops and capacity building seminars on citizenship, education, environment, employment and the social economy, as well as human security and development.  The Bari event will launch a process that we hope will involve a growing number of young mondlokaj civitanoj.  The gathering will support young men and women who are ready to engage in their communities and in the world to build a sustainable future and a society without discrimination, a society where there will be a place for all; paraphrasing Martin Luther King a cause making them fit to live. .