Matti Kohonen

Mikael[1]:We are in a process of structuring many discussions on global financial issues at the WSF.  Bamako, in January, was the first meeting, and we collected different kinds of materials, dealing with global social issues.  To give an example of a parallel campaign, Stiglitz and others in the USA are working on this type of a platform. www.thenewpublicfinance.org

Oscar[2]: Global collective action is needed.  In bond markets, all of the bond holders have to follow suit of the leading bond holder, so these power relations concerning debt have to be discussed.

Mikael: The 'new public finance' group is about financing the UN.  There could be a connection to the WSF as well, public finances could fund the WSF.  What they propose is a global reserve system, dealing with global externalities (e.g. climate change), debt restructuring, and aid.  Public goods is a useful concept, but we could talk of public services. 

Mikko[3]: Exactly, we need is to talk in practical terms.  We are not creating a strategy, but we should.  We know we want to tackle tax evasion, we want to solve the debt problem, we want the Tobin Tax; these are the main proposals and they are moving forwards on the international agenda. Here in Finland, we are now in a situation where there is an opportunity to do something, we are also in a position to work with Norway, who is chair in the Innovative Finance Mechanisms Group. Concerning Nairobi participation, in strategic terms, we need to build alliances with civil society in strategic countries to achieve something.

Mikael: WSF is a very serious thing, it's more like a what is to be done, and what is to happen, and when we know that, how will it go through the social forum.

Matti[4]: At the least, the World Public Finances is a platform that collects the different visions of the social movements.  But if it builds up and is attached to an institute who can fund conferences and gatherings and books, then it can be something else, a force for more change.

Oscar: The issues I'm dealing with have to do with international banking, mostly the International Financial Architecture.  We are seeking a new world, and it requires a new concept, and it needs a new way to relate to public finances.  We need a new sort of a development bank, also regional monetary funds and regional monetary unions to protect ourselves from major currency imbalances.  Finally we need new methods of negotiating debt that includes all creditors (perhaps not all at once) having to use the facility in a compulsory way.  We should be using the existing UN mechanisms, as long as they last, what we have to have is a technical secretariat that has neutrality, rather than having the IMF as the secretariat.

Matti: WPF is a channel for the intergovernmental platform to gain voices from various social movements. The problem with looking at new organisations is that it easily leaves out many groups, and the momentum isn't broad enough.  For instance, there isn't an International Accounting Standard (Richard Murphy’s “Proposed International Accounting Standards” (http://www.taxjustice.net/cms/upload/pdf/new_int._Account_Standard.pdf ) therefore the taxation capacities of developing countries will remain weak and we are looking at another debt crisis further down the line. 

Mikko: ICFTU, la Via Campesina, Ekta Parishad, actors like this, they have their basis in the grassroots; whereas, international trade union people have contact with the system. Via Campesina has a stance in the grassroots, they don't articulate change in the financial system only the interests of their members. Attac is more a European middle-class consciousness driven movement. I do not believe that we can engage the whole movement at the WSF to advocate the WPF.

Mikael: How should the WSF develop?

Mikko: One view from Latin American is that a portion the people involved in the WSF were in it to elect Lula, and now it's starting to be seen as a depoliticized project of NGOs. Latin Americans are loosing interest with the WSF process due to its incapability of tackling state-related issues, the WSF should find a path in between Chavez and Nairobi.

Oscar: In the debt and development network, we have been discussing the new financial architecture, the need for new rules of the game. This is felt by the 18 million people who are represented within various parts of the network. They are the people who signed the Cologne initiative and are being defrauded by the HIPC initiative. These developments are not to dismiss what is happening at the WSF, and definitely not to underestimate the demands of the people of MST on subjects that are not of their immediate concern, because it concerns humanity at large. The same way that all other aspects of international financial matters touch us.  In Latin America, people are terribly worried about migration, they know that it comes from the injustice of the system. The interest for change is there and the different needs are there, so why don't we produce a plan?

Mikko: What strikes me in the WSF process is that people are not present at the general assembly of social movements.  When Attac representatives are advocating a global action day on international financial reform at the assembly of social movements, it's not heard by many people.  I personally don't feel that it will mobilise enough people to be effective.

Matti: The assembly of social movements is not effective, there are 1000 people and there is an open microphone and no process of making any decisions.  A more structured way of making declarations should be developed in the WSF, where people could make some sort of 'open declaration' that would be base-line documents for social change.  No need to have final blue prints, but serious proposals that always ask for more comments and more activism to complement it.  The fourth day of the WSF is a step to the right direction in this respect.

Jorge[5]: The structure of the WSF has been very ample, the restructuring of all sorts of things together is good, in particular the self-organised activities, it's very innovative, however arriving at proposals is a big problem.  It is very important to introduce some technical aspects to the debate.  It's very important to be prepared with technical details, but it is not a substitute for democratic debate.  Without preparation like this, we would only meet people, which is not very good for the process, I haven't read this or that is the sort of things people discover.  So, at least try as a first step in establishing consistency to the proposals - and we have to be bold – make a five page document for example to give to the governments of the world.  The technical aspect are very important, what are we going to, we can prepare a proposal with Oscar, concerning the Debt Observatory, Southern Bank (Banco del Sur). So in Nairobi we can bring some new ideas, and they can be radically modified.

Hanna[6]: For this reason we need concepts that are like World Public Finance, or the World Financial Architecture, so people can understand them and still invites scholars to work on them.  In a way they are nothing other than images for our work, but it’s good that scholars could finally start communicating with each other. So when they meet they know that he is doing research on debt, someone else is doing taxes.

Oscar: That is not the place for the academics to meet each other.

Mikko: In this sense, it's very good that we dialogue with the WSF movement, it's obligatory for the legitimacy of our proposals, what I would like to see to happen in there, we need to invite the right people to the event to push it forward.

Matti: The Tax Justice Network is organising a TJN for Africa workshop, and we are having academic papers for a dialogue between activists and researchers so they can comment on each others work and see how they benefit each other.  For instance we usually have a round table discussion at the very end where, quite openly, we can criticize either the academics (for lack of comprehensive solutions or data to help activism) or activists (for making unrealistic or badly articulated demands).  So this dialogue pushes the TJN forwards every time, and this event in Nairobi will start a TJN for Africa, so we hope it will be a big push for more civil society voices in Africa to emerge.  Though our focus is tax, it's a vast area, and the philosophy is clearly in the domestic resource mobilisation and replacing aid and debt dependency with public finances.

Mikael: We need present political parties to promote an international financial law, a broad international financial movement is needed to make some storm so that something like that can go forward. It's an embryo of such a global movement, it will not come about with diplomacy and the UN general assembly, it will come when people see that it is necessary to change, our contribution is to help a little bit in that.

Oscar: I have been working on this idea, the international trade law, for 10 years, it's a process that begins when everybody begins to think that the way things are going has to end.  Present it to the Latin American Information Agency (ALAI), and let's use that, at least that is a network in Spanish that reaches everywhere.  That is just for the means to get there, we need to demand, and make demands, if the governments don't feel pressured they won't act, the Latin American governments were horrified of 1985 and the reprisals. Day after day we need to keep working on concrete proposals.

Mikael: In the area of the Tobin Tax, the draft treaty ( http://www.nigd.org/world-public-finances/nigd/ctt ) is too technical type of a treaty for such debate, we have a very, very fragmentised movement for CTT, and people mean completely different things with this and we have completely different ideologies and ideas. 

Matti: The CTT treaty has not had the effect to date of sparking debate, though we spread it around at meetings.  Maybe we need to learn from our past mistakes of how we want to communicate.  It talks directly to Geneva and New York bureaucrats, but it may be filed or ignored there.  The agency of the document is possibly misplaced, and we should learn from the few years that we have had the document in the public.  Campaigners who could advocate for it haven't picked it up. It is a similarly technical document that hasn't yet been picked up by campaigners, so we should popularise these proposals in some ways, making shorter articles and summaries.

Tytti[7]: I do see the fragmentation in NGOs that you refer to.  I don't stay touch with social movements that much, I mainly go around in NGO movements in Africa and Asia, but they don't know of each others campaigns, and are looking for realistic concepts, some are not following the tax discussion, for instance EURODAD isn't involved with the tax discussion.  In the Bamako notes, the point g) (http://worldpublicfinances.blogspot.com/ ) may be new to someone, so that means that movements don't communicate enough.  There are quite a few technical papers that already exist. There could be a clear objective of getting more comments.

Jorge: There is a network of encounters, and a magic within each forum, but it's useful to create a document.  A three or four page document, I think of very democratic way that people could do that. A really creative event could produce a surprising contribution by many people.  The WSF is getting to a new stage, there are many initiatives, so what is the mechanism?  You don't have to invite the government stars, the WSF really is related to the grassroot movement that is looking for answers.

Mikko: A politically relevant way of making document is limiting it to two pages.  David Hillman is a master of this trade, and everyone reads when he makes a two-page summary.

Mikael: He is a very good campaigner, but he is more controversial in the content of his campaigning. Our concept must go deeper than his solutions.

Jorge: We want to have opinions, it's very important, althought I'm not going to Nairobi, one or two members can call people to this seminar, and have a deadline for comments. 

Oscar: One impression from two years ago in Porto Alegre, the complicated manner in which people speak at the WPF events didn't allow for the general public to follow.  So we have this problem of talking together at the WSF; our speech should reach across different publics, social classes, linguistic communities.