Community Organizing And Movement Building News

Globalization Tames the Left in Brazil
September 7, 2024 - Tom Palley, YaleGlobal Online Magazine
Brazil elected a progressive president, yet failed to tackle a long legacy of economic injustice. Instead, President Lula da Silva, a trade union activist born into poverty, was timid with economic policies: Playing it safe, Brazil embraced its traditional role of exporting resources abroad and allowing other countries to manufacture and innovate.  Go...

Over 100,000 to attend world economic congress in Kenya
September 1, 2024 - Daily Nation- Kenya's largest circulation newspaper
More than 100,000 delegates descend on Nairobi in January for a major conference aimed at saying No to the economic domination of poor countries by the rich.  Go...

When Hippies Turn to Cyber Terror
August 23, 2025 - Ryan Singel and Kevin Poulsen, Wired Magazine Blog
... a newly-published DHS PowerPoint presentation... reveals that the real terrorist threat in cyber space isn't from obvious suspects like al Qaida types or Connecticut voters; it's from anti-globalization radicals and peace activists.  Go...

Body blow to world poor as World Trade Organisation talks sink
July 24, 2025 - Press Statement, Christian Aid
Last night’s failure by rich countries to reach agreement on trade talks strikes a terrible blow at poor people and puts the entire World Trade Organisation in jeopardy.  Go...

Project Corpus Callosum
July 17, 2025 - SARAH STILLMAN, The Nation
The winner of this year's Nation Student Writing Contest... I never expected to find the secret of my generation's political salvation floating inside a clear glass jar of formaldehyde.  Go...

Gendering the WSF Nairobi 2007 process
June 16, 2025
The author, a member of the WSF 2007 Secretariat, addresses extensively Gender and the WSF Open Space process, and concludes at the end of his critical text that "When one looks at the gender dynamics informing the WSF 2007 process, one is filled with optimism and left brimming with hope. This despite the parlous panorama painted in the preceding section; this despite the unflattering global audit of power relations between women and men around the world. "  Go...

PANNA Seeks New E.D.
May 11, 2025
Pesticide Action Network North America (PANNA) seeks an experienced and visionary professional for the position of Executive Director to provide leadership and oversee all program and administrative aspects of the organization.  Go...

Funder Convening on Globalization
June 1, 2025 - FNTG
New Perspectives, Key Strategies, Success Stories and Funder Opportunities

San Francisco Bay Area Evening of June 6 – June 8, 2025

Join a community of funders from diverse fields and perspectives to analyze global trends and the evolving discourse around globalization, to share and celebrate successful civil society strategies, and to discuss how funders can use our resources most effectively to support positive change in these most fundamental driving forces, both at home and abroad.

* Mapping the global economy, and exploring terrains of intervention

* The changing discourse on globalization: Where is it now and where is it going?

* Revisiting trade, poverty and development… with new data

* Globalization of human rights: Breakthroughs and continuing challenges

* Bringing it home: Local organizing in a global context

* International cooperation vs. global domination, for security in an insecure world

* Funder Opportunities: What does it all mean; how do we continue moving forward?

For program details and registration please click here:  Go...

Critics Plan Offensive as IMF-World Bank Crisis Deepens
April 27, 2025 - Walden Bello, Focus on the Global South
Washington, DC, April 24. The spring meetings of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund took place this weekend with police barricades ringing the two institutions at the heart of Washington, DC. There were almost no protesters in sight.  Go...

Students get a say in this course -Besides picking globalization as subject, they select instructors
April 9, 2025 - KENNETH AARON, TimesUnion.com
SCHENECTADY -- Union College had a question for students when it planned this spring's classes: Any special requests? And the students said: How about a class on globalization? And let's say we help design the curriculum? And how about you run the faculty by us before we show up? And so it happened.  Go...

Global Justice: Another US is Possible
February 15, 2025 - Tanya Dawkins, Global-Local Links Project, Yes Magazine
The World Social Forum and its ambitious rallying call, “Another World is Possible” responded to a hunger for a different kind of possibilities-oriented dialogue that embraces principles of pluralism, deep debate, respect, justice, and an internationalist perspective. A broad-based network of U.S.-based activists, grassroots organizations, and their allies are betting that a similar hunger exists in the U.S. and that this is a time when a social forum could be a vehicle for moving a social, environmental and economic justice agenda to center stage in the United States.  Go...

Another Election, Another Wake-Up Call for Washington
February 10, 2025 - Mark Weisbrot, Knight-Ridder/Tribune Information Services
Costa Rica is a small Central American country of four million people that - unlike its neighbors El Salvador, Guatemala, and Nicaragua during their bloody civil wars - has never attracted much attention in the United States, except as a destination for tourists and retirees. But last Sunday's election there should serve as another wake-up call for Washington  Go...

'Global Trade: look at the facts rather than heed corporate lobbying'
November 15, 2024 - Financial Times
Letter from civil society organizations, in response to the letter signed by the CEOs and chairmen of the world's "leading corporations" in which they urge WTO member governments to conclude the Doha round of negotiations "on time."  Go...

Citizen Action, Knowledge and Global Economic Power: Intersections of Popular Education, Organizing, and Advocacy
September 1, 2024
From August 1-3rd, 2005 ActionAid, the IDS Participation Group and Just Associates co-convened a workshop to explore how to expand citizen engagement in making global policy processes that shape development and justice more democratic and responsive. We sought to explore how organizations can best work to make a difference on questions that affect the rights and livelihoods of the growing numbers of marginalized people – issues such as trade, debt, structural adjustment, reduction of environmental standards and privatization. More concretely, the workshop sought to consider ways of strengthening and deepening economic justice strategies – ranging from advocacy and campaigning to community development, organizing and popular education – with a particular focus on how to build meaningful community and citizen participation from local to global arenas.  Go...

Good Neighbors Again
October 6, 2024 - om Barry, Salih Booker, Laura Carlsen, Marie Dennis and John Gershman, The Albuquerque Tribune
Seldom, if ever, has U.S. foreign policy been as confusing or as divisive as it is today. The occupation of Iraq, the deepening trade deficit, saber-rattling abroad and disdain for international cooperation have left the American public uncertain about what exactly the U.S. government is doing overseas and why.  Go...

Civil society transcends right-left gap
September 15, 2024 - Severyn T. Bruyn, Christian Science Monitor
NEWTON, MASS. - How will current US social and political trends - amid the rise of the right - affect the world in the decades ahead? Surprisingly, some sociologists say that they augur for curbing the excesses of national power and capitalist markets while strengthening the UN and other forms of global governance.  Go...

U.N. Summit Cacophony Drowns Out Voices of Poor - Groups
September 13, 2024 - Abid Aslam, OneWorld.net
... ActionAid International, ... spent the past three months interviewing 340,000 villagers in 18 poor countries and compiling a report designed to bring their voices to New York in time for the Sep. 14-16 U.N. summit on poverty and the world body's future.  Go...

Under scrutiny, NGOs should relax and put their case patiently
China Development Brief
Chinese government concern over ‘colour revolutions’ in countries of the former Soviet Union has prompted an ongoing investigation of international NGOs that support work in China and of local organisations that receive funding from overseas (and especially from the USA).  Go...

Rights-Based Approaches and Beyond: Challenges of Linking Rights and Participation
December 1, 2024 - Lisa VeneKlasen, Valerie Miller, Cindy Clark and Molly Reilly, Institute of Development Studies
As more and more development and human rights organisations critically assess their impact and strategies, there is growing convergence in the questions they raise about how to be most effective in addressing structural, systemic causes of poverty and exclusion and thus, make a positive difference in the lives of poor and marginalised people. This paper explores the growing trend of “rights-based approaches” (RBA) to development, drawing from interviews with a range of primarily US-based international human rights and development organisations as well as from insights through the authors’ years of experience working with development and rights groups in the global south. While the theory of RBA has been broadly embraced as key to getting at the root causes of poverty, many organisations are struggling to make sense of the significance of RBA in practice. We begin to unravel some key concerns with a brief discussion on critical considerations for groups as they advance rights-based work. Next, we focus on clarifying meanings, offering our own definitions of what seem to be critical components of RBA, namely participation, rights, and power. Next we summarise some of the current thinking and practice among international human rights and development organisations that are deepening their work in RBA. This includes some of the key tensions, challenges and opportunities they are encountering. Finally, in building on forgotten experiences and innovations we look at a handful of practical experiences from the past that offer valuable insights and lessons as groups seek to maximise the full practical potential of RBA.  Go...

Citizen Action, Knowledge and Global Economic Power: Reflecting on Current Practices and Challenges Ahead
May 20, 2025 - Lisa VeneKlasen, Just Associates
We are organizing an exciting gathering of colleagues working on ways to better organize, educate and engage people on issues of economic policy that connect community realities to global power dynamics.  Go...

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