UNU Update
The newsletter of United Nations University and its international network of affiliated institutes

Issue 8: April – May 2001

Activists
are needed
for global
finance reform
but have lessons
to learn, 
study says

 

Activists, NGOs, trade unions, lobby groups and other elements of civil society can play an important role in correcting major problems with the global financial system but to become more effective players they need to draw from several lessons of recent years, according to a new study by the United Nations University and the Centre for the Study of Globalisation and Regionalisation (CSGR) at the University of Warwick, U.K.

Today’s global financial system lacks stability, equity, democracy and efficiency and clearly needs to be better governed, the study says.  Advocacy groups have had both positive and negative influences on the evolving situation.  On the positive side, they promote attention “to the otherwise easily neglected social dimensions of global finance.”  They are also an important source of information for the public and “a spur to democracy.”

However, the legitimacy of civil society involvement is not always clear and tactics used in one region are not always appropriate elsewhere.  In the wrong place, in fact, they hurt the activists’ cause. Experience in Russia, for example, has shown how western-style activism in an unreceptive local political culture can be counterproductive.

Produced by UNU and CSGR in a project involving 20 authors from 12 countries over 18 months, the study suggests ways to build the ability of activists and others to engage in the debate more effectively.  For example, such groups need to choose between, or somehow combine, demonstrations in the street and media campaigns with quiet lobbying behind the scenes. 

Among the positive aspects of civil society involvement in the global finance arena:

  • Education of the public

  • Giving voice to stakeholders

  • Fuelling debate

  • Increasing public transparency of financial market operations

  • Increasing public accountability of the agencies involved

  • Promoting legitimacy in global financial governance

Albrecht Schnabel

The study's findings were discussed when United Nations University hosted a seminar on Global Finance and Civil Society after Prague: issues, challenges, implications for the United Nations at UN headquarters in New York on April 3

Speakers included the project coordinators, Albercht Schnabel, of United Nations University, and Jan Aart Scholte, Center for the Study of Globalization and Regionalization, University of Warwick; Gemma Adaba, International Confederaton of Free Trade Unions; Alison Van Rooy, North South Institute, Ottawa, Canada; Nodari Simonia, director of the Institute of World Economy and International Relations (IMEMO), Moscow, Russia; Barry Herman, DESA, United Nations and Inge Kaul, United Nations Development Program.

 

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