TNI activities in 2004

TNI

August 2006

			See also TNI Annual Report 2004
	15 December		Seminar The Global Dimension of Peasant Struggles: La Vía Campesina organised by TNI and Friends of the Movimento dos Trabalhadores Rurais Sem Terra, Brazil. TNI Office
	7-8 December		Hilary Wainwright speaks on Arguments for a New Left Strategy for Radical Democracy at a Seminar on Economic Democracy at the European Parliament, organised by Transform! and GUE/NLG (European Parliament Group European United Left/Nordic Green Left)
	26-28 November		Boris Kagarlitsky speaks at the opening plenary "Tegen de Nieuwe Wereldorde voor vrede en sociale rechtvaardigheid". Dutch Social Forum, Beurs van Berlage, Amsterdam (Saturday, 20:00-22:00). TNI Fellow Myriam Vander Stichele participates in "Tegen de sociale afbraak: een ander Nederland is mogelijk" (Saturday 20:00-22:00). TNI co-organises with Focus on the Global South the workshop "Jakarta to Beirut. International cooperation of the anti-war movements" (Sunday, 12:15-14:00) and with CEO and Milieudefensie "Water in publieke handen" (Sunday, 10:00-11:45) See also Een gesprek met Susan George and Walden Bello
	25-28 November		Daniel Chavez speaks at a series of workshops being organised in Rabat and Casablanca in conjunction with the Forum de la Citoyenneté (Citizens' Forum), Enda Maghreb (a regional development network) and CISS - Cooperazione Internazionale Sud Sud (South-South International Co-operation, an Italian development-oriented NGO): La gouvernance participative : l'expérience du budget participatif de Porto Alegre - Ateliers de réflexion et d'échanges. These included meetings with local mayors and the Moroccan media. The events were also launch of a new book La Izquierda en la Ciudad: Participación en Gobiernos Locales de América Latina
	23 November		Public debate At your Service: The Global Sell-Out of Public Services Campaign "The Netherlands in Europe, Europe in the World" of the Working group EU Presidency 2004. Organised by TNI, Wemos and Wise on behalf of the GATS-Platform. Felix Meritis, Keizersgracht 324, Amsterdam, 10:00-22:00
	11-14 November		Daniel Chavez and Hilary Wainwright participate at the Fourth International Conference of the International Observatory of Participatory Democracy, Buenos Aires, organised by the International Observatory on Participatory Democracy. Check provisional programme [PDF] Presentation of books The Left in the City and Reclaim the State
	4 November		As a part of TNI Policy Dialogue series Dot Keet speaks about Regional Programs in the South and New People's Initiatives. Institute for Social Studies (ISS), The Hague
	October		Pien Metaal and Martin Jelsma from Drugs & Democracy Project attended a "Coca y Soberania" conference in Bolivia, organised by Movimiento al Socialismo (MAS), Bolivia's currently largest political party. The party grew out of a strong peasant movement and has been able to articulate coca farmers' interests. The occasion marked the first anniversary of "hot October" when Bolivia's President had to flee the country in the face of a mass uprising. As part of the celebrations, peasants from all over the Andean region travelled to Bolivia to take part in the first regional coca leaf fair and the conference.
	19 October		Boris Kagarlitsky presents the book The Politics of Empire. Globalisation in Crisis. Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences, Amsterdam.
	15-17 October		TNI organises several seminars and workshops at the Third European Social Forum in London.
	7 October		Author Susan George presents her new book Another World is Possible if... at De Balie, Amsterdam.
	1 October		Public forum/excursion Migrant Domestic Workers in the Private Household Acting Together for Human Rights - as Migrants, as Women and as Workers co-organised by Gendered Brothers, CFMW Women's Program togetherwith campaigning working group Respect NL and Stichting Bayanihan. TNI Office, Amsterdam
	23 September		In a lecture given at the Latin American Research and Documentation Centre (CEDLA) at the University of Amsterdam, Daniel Chavez examined the left's attempts to implement democratising experiments in city governments across Latin America. Attention was given to the specific participatory institutions created by the left once in power, with analyses of how the institutions function, their ability to attract popular participation, and their effects on national politics. The lecture served as a pre-publication launch of The Left in the City: Participatory Local Governments in Latin America, edited by Chavez and Benjamin Goldfrank.
	19 September		Annual Sheridan Circle Memorial, to commemorate Orlando Letelier and Ronni Karpen Moffitt's commitment to justice by celebrating this year's advances in the Pinochet case and in Chile's democratisation, organised by the Institute for Policy Studies, Washington.
	17-19 September		As resistance to the illegal occupations of Iraq and Palestine continues, representatives of the global anti-war movement converge at the Beirut International Assembly of Anti-War and Anti-Globalisation Movements in Lebanon, very close to the two current focuses of their struggle: Palestine and Iraq.
	September		Pien Metaal attended the Foro Andino Amazonico in Popayan, Colombia. This was an initiative of the Independent World Commission established at the special thematic social forum on drugs held in Cartagena, Colombia last year, in which TNI participated. The Commission's task is to evaluate the impact of global drug policy, with particular attention being paid to the issue of chemical fumigations aimed at illicit crop eradication, a major issue in Colombia.
	7-10 September		The People's Dialogue, Johannesburg, South Africa.
	6-7 September		Asia Europe People's Forum 5, Hanoi, Vietnam. Water workshops during Asia-Europe Peoples Forum During this year's AEPF conference, there will workshops on: the impacts of water privatisation in Asia and experiences with alternatives (effective public water) in Asia and Europe.
	July		Pien Metaal and Tom Blickman undertook a field trip to Brazil, which included meetings with government officials. The aim was to collect information for a briefing paper on Brazil to be distributed and debated at a seminar in Porto Alegre, taking place just before the fifth World Social Forum in January 2005. The paper is aimed at stimulating a new policy approach on the part of Brazilian government.
	June		An informal drug policy dialogue takes place in on the island of Crete, as a result of a joint initiative by TNI and the Andreas G. Papandreou Foundation. The meeting is hosted by the Orthodox Academy in Kolymbari, and is guided by "Chatham House Rules" to encourage a free exchange of thoughts. The thirty participants include ministerial officials from several countries, representatives from UN and European institutions, and non-governmental drug policy experts engaged in an open-minded debate about ongoing drug policy trends.
	27 June		Dot Keet addresses the Globalisation Festival [short report in Dutch] held at the University of Amsterdam. Acknowledging the importance of trade for Africa, Keet stresses the need for increased market access for Africa and an end to Northern protectionism, particularly considering the bias towards a few commodities and markets characteristic of Africa. She warnes, however, of the dysfunctional impact for responsible development of the pre-eminent role given to trade in the current dominant international regime. Keet sees greater potential lying with the emergence of new alliances of developing countries (G20, G33, G90) at the WTO Ministrial in Cancún in 2003.
	June		The Info Tour exhibition is a collection of photos and interviews of people who are directly effected by the industry, slides, audio and video. The research was conducted in March and April of 2003. The interviews and photos aim to create space and a voice for people directly effected by the industry, governments, multinationals, IFI's and NGOs. The photography component of the exhibition is a collection of 30 black and white pictures of people living and resisting the expanse of eucalyptus monoculture. Each person was interviewed and asked to share their experience of living next to or surrounded by eucalyptus. Interviews took place in Indigenous communities, MST camps, small farming communities, Afro-Brazilian communities, and inside the plantations.
	25-29 May		On the occasion of the Third Summit of heads of state and governments from the EU and Latin America, TNI co-organised an Encuentro Social, aiming at strengthening co-operation between social movements and civil society organisations in Latin America and Europe with a shared interest in the promotion of models of sustainable socio-economic development that put people and not big corporations’ profits first. Linking Alternatives, Guadalajara, Mexico. Spanish version: Enlazando alternativas.
	20-23 May		After the war in Iraq and the collapse of WTO talks in Cancùn, the new Global Justice movements need to carefully assess the conditions in which they operate if they are to achieve another world. The annual Fellows' Meeting brings together around 40 activists from across the world to contribute to this task. Major themes include terrorism, the Middle East, the WTO, progressive movements in Latin America and global social movements. TNI also organises two evenings of public debate at De Balie, Amsterdam, giving the Dutch public the chance to hear and question some of our international guests on the Occupation of Iraq and political liberties in the context of the "war on terror".
	20 May		Another World is Possible If... There is Respect for International Law and the Sovereignty of Nations. The Case of Iraq de Balie, Amsterdam. Speakers: Phyllis Bennis, Jochen Hippler, Kamil Mahdi, Minka Nijhuis and Achin Vanaik.
	10 May		TNI hosts the Forum Activists' Exchanges between Dutch and German-based groups and a delegation of trade justice organisations from the Mercosur region on the neo-liberal agenda of the Trade Agreements. TNI office, Amsterdam.
	29 April-2 May		TNI and the Havens Centre at the University of Madison-Wisconsin set out to deepen and expand understandings of the new developments in Latin America. This culminates in a three-day conference co-hosted in Madison, USA. Participants are drawn from 10 Latin American countries. They include trade unionists, representatives of unemployed people, indigenous organisations, peasant organisations, current and former government ministers and politicians, as well as academics from each country. TNI is represented at the conference by Hilary Wainwright and Daniel Chavez of the New Politics Project. A book edited by Daniel Chavez (TNI), Cesar Rodriguez and Patrick Barret (Havens Center), based on the presentations is to be published in December 2004, in English and in Spanish. It will be launched at the World Social Forum (WSF) in Porto Alegre in January 2005.
	21 April		Public meeting on Africa and Globalisation Felix Meritis, Amsterdam. Co-organised by TNI, XminY, Both Ends and NiZA.
	19 April		One of the world’s leading expert on the Neo-Conservatives, US journalist Jim Lobe, shares his knowledge of who the Neo-Cons are, what makes them tick and their hold on US politics today with interested members of the Dutch public at a public discussion at the TNI office, Amsterdam.
	April		Environmental NGOs call for closure of World Bank climate change fund. Over fifty environmental and social justice NGOs and other groups sent a letter of protest to the World Bank calling for the closure of its new emissions trading fund, The Prototype Carbon Fund.
	15-17 April		International Experts' Meeting on Globalisation and Sub-saharan Africa European Parliament (Brussels). Co-organised by TNI, XminY, Both Ends and NiZA. Declaration and papers available online.
	5 April		The implications of Cancún for trade and development in the South is the subject of a public talk After Cancún. Southern Prospects for Trade and Development by Walden Bello at the Institute for Social Studies in The Hague. The G20 group of developing countries, which emerged as a strong bloc in Cancún, represents the interests of large agricultural exporters, and as such may contradict the interest of small farmers. Nevertheless, Bello sees the G20 as a very positive development insofar as it has successfully shattered the monopoly of the EU and US on the international trade negotiation front, thereby opening up new space for the developing world. The heirs to this space may not be the G20 itself, he argues, but other regional formations in the South. At another talk at Felix Meritus in Amsterdam, Bello focuses specifically on "Asia and Globalisation", as part of an ongoing series of high profile lectures co-organised by a local publisher, a major Dutch newspaper and NCDO, a government-funded NGO concerned with public consciousness-raising on development issues. A full page interview with Bello ran in de Volkskrant.
	20 March		The General Assembly of the Global Anti-War Movement called on the world to fill the streets on 20 March to demand an end to the occupation of Iraq. The Assembly convened on 19 January at the World Social Forum (WSF) in Mumbai, India. Report of the General Assembly of the Global Anti-War Movement Report of the International Anti-US Bases
	3 February		Roundtable talk on Confronting Challenges to the Pinochet Precedent and the Globalisation of Justice organised by the American University Washington College of Law Center for Human Rights and Humanitarian Law and the Institute for Policy Studies.
	16-21 January		General Assembly of the Global Anti-war Movement, a self-organised event starting with a major conference on the US occupation of Iraq, Palestine and Afghanistan. A full day strategy meeting follows on Globalisation and War, Global Resistance, and Global Campaigns. Full report is available. WSF, Mumbai, India.
	17 and 20 January		Conference International Anti-US Bases bringing together 125 participants from 34 countries, with many community-based anti-bases campaigners as well as representatives from other movements and campaigns such as environmental and human rights groups, anti-IMF-WB and anti-debt campaigners, as well as from the women's movement. The conference is a continuation of the process of initiating and launching an international campaign against US foreign bases. WSF, Mumbai, India.
	20 January		Workshop Sustainable Energy. A workshop to discuss issues related to sustainable energy in the context of neo-liberalism and with a view to the links to food and environmental issues organised by TNI with Censat Agua Viva/FOE (Colombia), Friends of the Earth Latin America and Carribbean. WSF, Mumbai, India.
	19 January		Workshop Financing Public Water for All! initiated by the Water Warriors coalition. WSF, Mumbai, India. Full report available [PDF document].
	19 January		Workshop Electricity Sector Reforms in Asia. Experiences and Strategies. A workshop to exchange experiences and strategies as regards electricity sector reforms organised by the TNI Energy project. WSF, Mumbai, India.
	19 January		Workshop Globalisation and Militarisation. Linking Global Peace and Justice Movements organised by the Transnational Institute with Focus on the Global South, Polaris Institute and Corpwatch. TNI Speakers include: Walden Bello, Achin Vanaik, Boris Kagarlitsky. WSF, Mumbai, India.
	19 January		Workshop Global Drops in the Local Ocean. A workshop to exchange experiences and strategies as regards electricity sector reforms organised by TNI with CEUTA (Uruguay), CLAES and the Social Continental Alliance. WSF, Mumbai, India.
	18 January		Workshop Europe and the World. Role and Responsibilities organised by TNI with Tavola della Pace Peace Roundtable, IBASE and Ubuntu. WSF, Mumbai, India.
	18 January		Strategy Meeting of the Globalisation and War Assembly, an activity arising from the Strategy Conference of the Global Peace Movement, Jakarta, May 2003. WSF, Mumbai, India.
	18 January		Workshop Another Regionalism is Possible If... organised by TNI with Focus on the Global South, RMALC (Mexico), SAAPE (Asia) and AIDC. WSF, Mumbai, India.
	17 January		Seminar People-centred Water Management is Possible. Alternatives to Water Privatisation organised by TNI with CEO, ASSEMAE (Brazil), NCAP (Ghana), Public Services International, REDES (Uruguay), Friends of the Earth International, Council of Canadians, Public Citizen (US), the Water Vigilance Network (Philippines) and the World Development Movement (UK). WSF, Mumbai, India. Full report is available [PDF document]. The new website Water Justice initiated by Transnational Institute and Corporate Europe Observatory is being launched.
	17 January		Seminar Deepening Democracy. From the Local to the Global organised by TNI with Hilary Wainwright, Joel Rocamora, Marcos Arruda, Dot Keet, Walden Bello, Meena Menon and Giovanni Allegretti speaking. WSF, Mumbai, India.
	12-14 January 2004		Seminar People's World Water Forum New Delhi, India.
	6-8 January		Over 300 people attended the Oil Change: Petro Politics National Summit in Washington DC. The citizens conference was sponsored jointly by Foreign Policy in Focus and the Sustainable Energy and Economy Network, a joint project of TNI and IPS, Washington DC. A conference report (58 pp) is available in PDF as well as in HTML format. Additional information: Conference website FPIF's special The Progressive Response e-zine on Petropolitics C-span coverage of the event Terry Lynn Carl answered in a WashingtonPost.com web discussion.