Publication and Resources

Mobilizing for National Health Care Reform - Presidential Candidates' Plans for Reform
October 22, 2024
"Mobilizing for National Health Care Reform" is now online as a podcast, with some additional documents. The forum "Mobilizing for National Health Care Reform," held on October 22 in San Francisco, compares the presidential candidates’ plans for national health care reform. Renowned public health and health care leaders examine how these plans address the concerns of: public health; women; low-income residents; and health care providers. The forum was presented by the Center for Policy Analysis, Californa Public Health Association-North, UCSF Center of Excellence in Women's Health, and Women LEAD for Health.  Read publication...

Fort Mason Process - Report and Next Steps
March 24, 2025 - FNTG
In January 2008 over fifty funders and donors were joined by two dozen movement leaders from in and outside the U.S. at Fort Mason in San Francisco to explore how better to support social justice movement-building. This report provides a summary of convening activities, feedback from assessment surveys and other documentation produced through this initiative. Most importantly, it provides an overview of the results of what was billed as an organizing meeting, outlining next steps that funders can engage in to build what we are calling the Fort Mason process – an ongoing effort among funders, with movement leaders, to encourage and increase support to social justice movement-building within philanthropy.  Read publication...

The Environmental Movement in the Global South: The Pivotal Agent in the Fight against Global Warming
October 12, 2024 - Walden Bello, Transnational Institute
The developing world’s stance towards the question of the environment has often been equated with the pugnacious comments of former Malaysian Prime Minister Mohamad Mahathir... Mahathir has been interpreted in the North as speaking for a South that seeks to catch up whatever the cost and where the environmental movement is weak or non-existent... This view of the South’s perspective on the environment is a caricature.  Read publication...

Relevance of ‘Policy Space’ for Development: Implications for Multilateral Trade Negotiations
May 4, 2025 - Nagesh Kumar and Kevin P. Gallagher, RIS Discussion Paper #120
There remains a compelling case for policy intervention to foster industrial development in the global South, according to a new paper from an Indian research institute co-authored by Kevin P. Gallagher and Nagesh Kumar.

The authors note that developed countries have consistently deployed industrial policy, performance requirements, soft intellectual property regimes, subsidies, government procurement, and regional economic integration among other policies in their own processes of industrializations. Many of these policies were successfully emulated by the newly industrializing economies in East Asia to build internationally competitive modern industries despite the lack of apparent comparative advantage.

A development-friendly outcome of the Doha Round of World Trade Organization negotiations would provide flexibility from the intellectual property restrictions and investment obligations to facilitate rather than inhibit the transfer of technology to developing countries. This would give them the policy space they need to pursue industrial development.  Read publication...

Globalization
April 27, 2025
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Funding Social Movements
April 1, 2025 - New World Foundation
The New World Foundation Perspective  Read publication...

Fair Labor Practices certification for cut flowers announced
March 14, 2025 - International Labor Rights Fund
The ILRF’s Fairness in Flowers Campaign has promoted the occupational health and safety and the labor rights of workers in the cut flower industries of Colombia and Ecuador since 2003. There are 40,000 flower workers in Ecuador and over 100,000 in Colombia, working to grow, harvest, and package the roses and carnations sold in US florist shops, supermarkets, and online retail sites. These workers routinely experience a number of labor rights violations.  Read publication...

FNTG Activities Report for 2006
March 13, 2025 - Mark Randazzo, FNTG
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Funder Delegation to the World Social Forum Participant Assessment Report
March 13, 2025 - FNTG
FNTG delegates assessment report based on results of post-trip online survey  Read publication...

WSF International Council Report
February 16, 2025 - WSF Secretariat, Brazil
Report on the World Social Forum IC Meeting held in Nairobi, January 26 and 27, 2007.  Read publication...

The Future of the WTO
September 1, 2024 - Sandra Polaski, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
When the Doha Round of global trade negotiations derailed on July 23, many observers proclaimed a crisis that threatens the global trading system. This alarm is misleading. The failed negotiations were on the wrong track and unlikely to produce a balanced and widely beneficial new agreement. The aftermath of the crash provides an opportunity to set resumed talks on a better course to achieve the agreed objective of rebalancing trade rules so that developing countries can benefit more...

This Policy Outlook analyzes the causes of the recent failure and identifies key objectives that must be addressed when talks resume. It explains that the WTO remains indispensable and will survive. However historical patterns and the political calendar suggest that the Doha Round may not be completed until 2009 or thereafter.  Read publication...

The Fair Trade Sweep
January 8, 2025 - Chris Slevin and Todd Tucker, The Democratic Strategist
In 2004, the celebrated author Thomas Frank asked: “What’s the Matter With Kansas?” ... In 2006, we got the answer to Frank’s question. There’s nothing the matter with Kansas, ...when Democrats are willing to run on an economic platform that emphasizes their opposition to corporate-sponsored trade deals and support for policies that address middle- and working-class needs.  Read publication...

Nationwide Candidates Win by Fighting for New Trade Policies
November 8, 2024 - Global Trade Watch
Public Citzen charts impacts (gains and losses) for "fair trade" for all races and candidates - PDF version.  Read publication...

Candidate Profiles by State
November 10, 2024 - Global Trade Watch
Analysis of the fair trade positions of candidates in congressional and gubernitorial races.  Read publication...

The Crisis of Multilateralism
September 14, 2024 - Walden Bello, Foreign Policy In Focus
Both the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund are in trouble. They are running out of money to lend. And, though both institutions are reaching out to civil society, representatives of nongovernmental organizations are banned from their fall meeting in Singapore.

The Fund is searching for a new role and a new governance structure. But proposals such as linking voting weight to GDP are mired in controversy. The Bank, meanwhile, is groaning under the weight of a huge bureaucracy. The crisis of these two institutions combine to make a crisis for multilateralism in general.  Read publication...

The Other Oil War: Halliburton's Agenda at the WTO
June 1, 2025 - Victor Menotti, International Forum on Globalization
A Policy Brief on the Energy Services negotiations in the World Trade Organization (WTO)

Rich nations are trying to use the WTO to create a new global policy framework for "energy security" that would fundamentally redefine, under the logic of "free trade in services," who will access energy resources, which ones are used and how, and who will benefit most from their exploitation.  Read publication...

The Hijacking of the Development Debate - How Friedman and Sachs Got It Wrong
August 1, 2025 - Robin Broad and John Cavanagh, World Policy Journal
Just a half decade after protests by citizen groups in Latin America and elsewhere discredited two decades of market-oriented neoliberal dogma, Friedman and Sachs have narrowed the debate with simplistic slogans of “more aid” and “more trade.” They have done so by putting forward myths about the poor, economic development, and the global economy.  Read publication...

High Oil Prices: Undermining Debt Cancellation and Fueling A New Debt Crisis?
July 14, 2025 - Oil Change International and Jubilee USA Network, Oil Change International and Jubilee USA Network
Soaring oil prices are undermining the benefits of debt cancellation and putting serious stress on many of the world's most impoverished countries. This is not the first time that volatile oil prices have played a role in exacerbating debt. The oil shocks of 1973-74 and 1979-80 played a central role in triggering the modern debt crisis and clearly exposed the dangers of oil dependence. Today the stakes are higher than ever. Global warming threatens us all, but it is impoverished countries that are most vulnerable to its impacts. A new energy revolution is needed, one that focuses on promoting a just transition away from oil dependence and towards energy efficiency and sustainable alternatives. We need a global strategy that will take oil out of the debt equation once and for all, including more and faster debt cancellation as well as programs that are focused on overcoming energy poverty in a truly sustainable way. Unfortunately, many governments around the world are once again arguing that the solution to our oil addiction is more oil (that if we increase and protect the supply of oil and gas then prices will fall and all will be well with the world)! This approach, which is in part reflected in the Plan of Action on Global Energy Security that G-8 leaders endorsed at the July 2006 St. Petersburg Summit, will not address the role that oil plays in exacerbating the debt crisis nor will it help lift billions of people out of energy poverty. Using public resources to subsidize the expansion of the oil and fossil fuel industry will feed overconsumption in the North, fuel global warming, and increase international tensions without generating long-term alternatives. As outlined in the following brief, there is an urgent need to challenge G-8 plans to increase support for the oil and fossil fuel industry and to call on governments around the world to focus international efforts on strategies that will simultaneously address energy poverty, crushing debt and global warming.  Read publication...

The Unfinished Agenda on International Debt
July 14, 2025 - Jubilee USA Network, Jubilee USA Network
In July 2005, world leaders gathered in Gleneagles, Scotland, and announced a plan to cancel debts, increase foreign aid, and make changes to international trade policy. At the time, Jubilee USA Network responded to the announcement by the G-8 on additional debt cancellation by welcoming it as an important first step on a long journey. One year later, it is important to look back and take stock. On the positive side, some debts have been cancelled for 21 nations, and the money is being put to good use. But much more remains to be done: 9 out of 10 people in the developing world will see no benefit from the 2005 debt deal. A broader, Jubilee cancellation of debts is needed to meet the Millennium Development Goals and to cancel odious and illegitimate debts. This policy brief looks at the progress of the past year, and outlines the unfinished agenda on international debt ahead of the 2007 Sabbath Year.  Read publication...

Globalization's Hidden Benefits
July 4, 2025 - Richard W. Fisher, YaleGlobal
Globalization has its roots in the logic of capitalism and will continue to advance, unless authorities make a concerted effort to reverse or halt it. While some critics malign globalization, increasing evidence suggests that its benefits go hand in hand with fair, conscientious policies. Globalization rewards decision-making that serves the interests of many types of people living in diverse circumstances, according to Richard W. Fisher, president and CEO of the US Federal Reserve Bank in Dallas. Of course, proving that globalization inevitably produces social progress is not possible, and policies on labor and fiscal restraint do not follow the model. But other public policies associated with globalization do correlate with improved quality of life and greater economic freedom, and Fisher suggests that an examination of those could ease misunderstanding and fear.  Read publication...

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