Contents...Unfortunately, instead of bridging the gap between the two sides, the debate widened it, since, in response to our requests and demands, World Bank President James Wolfensohn

f ocus on the global south / 2

Contents

Present at the creation : Focus and the march 3from Seattle to Porto Alegre

Economic, Financial and Trade Liberalisation 10

State, Market and Civil Society 16

Security and Conflict 14

Cultural responses to Globalisation 19

South East Asian Transition Economies 20

Thailand Regional Programme 27

India Regional Programme 33

Organisational Management 38

Information and Communication 42

Publications and Communications 47

Core Funders 2000 48

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Present at the creation:Focus and the march

from Seattle to Porto Alegre

T he last year will probably go down as oneof those defining moments in the history of theworld economy, like 1929. Of course, thestructures of the current global economicregime appear to be solid, with many in theglobal elite in Washington, Europe, and Asiacongratulating themselves for containing theAsian financial crisis and trying to exudeconfidence about launching a new round oftrade negotiations under the World TradeOrganisation (WTO). What we witnessed,nevertheless, was a dramatic series of eventsthat might, in fact, lead to that time when, as thephilosopher says, “all that is solid melts intothin air.”

Expressing the way the dominance of certaintrends go beyond the conventional time-categories we want to divide history into,historians talk about the “long” 17th century”and, in the case of Eric Hobsbawm, about a“short” 20th century that began in 1914 andended in 1989. Similarly, we can speak aboutthe “long” year of 2000. For global capitalism,the year began a month early, on Nov. 30-Dec.1, 1999, when the Third Ministerial of the WTOcollapsed in Seattle. It ended in the last week ofJanuary 2001, with the face-off between theWorld Economic Forum held in Davos, Switzer-land, and the upstart World Social Forum whichtook place in Porto Alegre, Brazil.

The dominant feature of the period was thedescent into a deep crisis of legitimacy of thekey institutions of the current global economicregime: the World Trade Organization, theInternational Monetary Fund, the World Bank,and the Davos Forum. Focus, as a participant inthe events that shook these institutions, enjoyeda ringside view of the development of the crisisand the rise of a vast and a varied globalmovement against corporate-driven globaliza-tion.

Seattle: the turning pointThe definitive history of the Seattle events stillneeds to be written, but they cannot be under-stood without the explosive interaction betweenthe militant and unrelenting protests of some50,000 people in the streets and the rebellion ofdeveloping country delegates inside the SeattleConvention Centre. Much has been made aboutthe different motivations of the street protestersand the Third World delegates and the differ-ences within the ranks of the demonstratorsthemselves. True, some of their stands on keyissues, such as the incorporation of labourstandards into the WTO, were sometimescontradictory. But most of them were united byone thing: their opposition to the expansion of asystem that promoted corporate-ledglobalisation at the expense of social goals like


justice, community, national sovereignty,cultural diversity, and ecological sustainability.

Still, the Seattle debacle would not haveoccurred without another development: theinability of the European Union and the UnitedStates to bridge their differences on key issues,like what rules should govern their monopolisticcompetition for global agricultural markets. Andthe fallout from Seattle might have been lessmassive were it not for the brutal behaviour ofthe Seattle police. The assaults on largelypeaceful demonstrators, including myself, bypolice in their Darth Vader-like uniforms in fullview of television cameras made Seattle’s meanstreets the grand symbol of the crisis ofglobalisation.

When it was established in 1995, the WTO wasregarded as the crown jewel of capitalism in theera of globalisation. With the Seattle collapse,however, realities that had been ignored orbelittled were acknowledged even by thepowers-that-be whose brazen confidence intheir own creation had been shaken. Forinstance, that the supreme institution ofglobalisation was, in fact, fundamentallyundemocratic and its processes non-transparentwas recognised even by representatives of someof its stoutest defenders pre-Seattle. The globalelite’s crisis of confidence was evident, forinstance, in the words of Stephen Byers, the UKSecretary for Trade and Industry: “The WTOwill not be able to continue in its present form.There has to be fundamental and radical changein order for it to meet the needs and aspirationsof all 134 of its members.”

UNCTAD XSeattle was no one-off event. Bitter criticism ofthe WTO and the Bretton Woods institutionswas the not-so-subtle undercurrent of the TenthAssembly of the United Nations Conference onTrade and Development (UNCTAD X), held inBangkok in February. Focus had been requestedby the UNCTAD to set up the Civil SocietyConference that would accompany the officialmeeting. We agreed and helped bring over 100NGOs to Bangkok to dialogue with UNCTAD.It is unlikely, however, that the cautiousUNCTAD secretariat was pleased to hear whatFocus had to say, for we urged them to take

advantage of the crisis of legitimacy of theWorld Trade Organization (WTO) to push forprinciples and rules for world trade that wouldpromote the interests of developing countries.

UNCTAD officials demurred and UNCTAD Xended up like most other UN conferences: dulland inconclusive. Indeed, what brought anotherwise uneventful international meeting tothe front pages of the world press was the pie-splattered face of outgoing IMF ManagingDirector Michel Camdessus, who was on thereceiving end of a perfect pitch from anti-IMFactivist Robert Naiman.

Washington, DC, Chiang Mai, andMelbourneNaiman’s act helped set the stage for the firstreally big post-Seattle confrontation betweenpro-globalisation and anti-globalisation forces:the spring meeting of the IMF and the WorldBank in Washington, DC. Focus joined the30,000 protesters that descended on America’scapital in the middle of April and found a largesection of the northwest part of the city walledoff by some 10,000 policemen. For four rain-swept days, the protestors tried, unsuccessfully,to breach the police phalanx to reach the IMF-World Bank complex at 19th and H Sts., NW,resulting in hundreds of arrests. The policeclaimed victory. But it was a case of theprotestors losing the battle but winning the war.Just the mere fact that 30,000 people had cometo protest the Bretton Woods twins was alreadya massive victory according to organisers whosaid that the most one could mobilise in previ-ous protests were a few hundred people.Moreover, the focus of the media was onWashington, and the first acquaintance ofhundreds of millions of viewers throughout theworld with the World Bank and IMF were ascontroversial institutions under siege frompeople accusing them of inflicting poverty andmisery on the developing world.From Washington, DC, the struggle shifted toChiang Mai in the highlands of NorthernThailand, where the Asian Development Bank(ADB), a multilateral body notorious forfunding gargantuan projects that disruptedcommunities and destabilised the environment,held its 33rd Annual Meeting in early May. Soshaken was the ADB leadership by the sight of

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some 2000 people asking it to leave town thatsoon after the conference, ADB President TadaoChino established an vice presidential level“NGO Task Force” to deal with civil society.Fearful of even more massive protests in 2001,the ADB also shifted the site of its next annualmeeting from Seattle to Honolulu in the beliefthat the latter would be a secure site.

Chiang Mai had significance beyond the ADB,however. With a majority of the protesters beingpoor Thai farmers, the Chiang Mai demonstra-tions showed that the anti-globalisation massbase went beyond middle class youth andorganised labour in the advanced countries.Equally important, key organizers of the ChiangMai actions, like Bamrung Kayotha, one of theleaders of the Forum of the Poor, had partici-pated in the Seattle protest, and they sawChiang Mai not as a discrete event but as a linkin the chain of international protests againstglobalisation.

In the lead-up to the ADB meeting, Focusproduced commentaries and studies critical ofADB projects in the Philippines, Thailand, andLaos, zeroing in on the agency’s promotion ofthe privatization of public services. And duringthe demonstrations, we proudly took our placeat the side of farmers, fisherfolk, and NGOswho told the ADB that they would no longertolerate dislocation, resettlement, impoverish-ment, and environmental degradation broughtabout by its projects.

The battle lines were next drawn Down Under,in Melbourne, Australia, in early September.The glittering Crown Casino by Melbourne’supscale waterfront had been chosen as the siteof the Asia-Pacific Summit of the WorldEconomic Forum (Davos) which had become aleading force in the effort to put a more liberalface to globalisation. The casino, many activistsfelt, was a fitting symbol of finance-drivenglobalisation. In nearly three days of streetbattles, some 5,000 protesters were at times ableto seal off key entrances to the Casino, forcingthe organisers to bring some delegates in andout by helicopter, again in full view of televi-sion. And again, as in Seattle, rough handling ofdemonstrators by the police, many of themmounted, magnified the global controversy overthe event.

As in Seattle, Washington, DC, and ChiangMai, Focus was asked by the organizers inMelbourne to provide its analysis of the roleand behavior of multilateral institutions andtransnational corporations and our proposals forchanges in the global economy at variousspeaking engagements and rallies. We wereglad to do this.

The battle of PragueLater in September came Europe’s turn to serveas a battleground. Some 10,000 people camefrom all over the continent to Prague, preparedto engage in an apocalyptic confrontation withthe Bretton Woods institutions during thelatter’s annual meeting in that beautiful EasternEuropean city in the most beautiful of seasons.Prague lived up to its billing. With demonstra-tions and street battles trapping delegates at theCongress Centre or swirling around them asthey tried to make their way back to theirquarters in Prague’s famed Old Town, theagenda of the meeting was, as one World Bankofficial put it, “effectively seized” by the anti-globalisation protesters. When a large numberof delegates refused to go to the CongressCentre in the next two days, the convention hadto be abruptly concluded, a day before itsscheduled ending.

As important as the protests in Prague was thedebate held on Sept. 23 at the famous PragueCastle between representatives of civil societyand the leadership of the World Bank and theIMF, an event orchestrated by Czech PresidentVaclav Havel. I was asked by the organizers tobe one of the three members of the civil societypanel, a role I was more than willing to fill.Unfortunately, instead of bridging the gapbetween the two sides, the debate widened it,since, in response to our requests and demands,World Bank President James Wolfensohn andIMF Managing Director Horst Koehler were notprepared to go beyond platitudes and generali-ties, as if worried that they might overstep thebounds set by their G-7 masters. George Soros,who defended the Bank and Fund at the debate,said it all when he admitted that Wolfensohnand Koehler had “performed terribly” and hadblown their most important encounter with civilsociety.


After Seattle, much talk about reforming theglobal economic system to bring on board those“being left behind” by globalisation was emittedby establishment personalities like Bill Gates,Bill Clinton, Tony Blair, Kofi Annan, and NikeCEO Phil Knight. The Davos Forum, in fact,placed the question of reform at the top of theagenda of the meetings it held for the globalelite.

Over a year after Seattle, however, there hasbeen precious little in the way of concreteaction. The most prominent reform initiative,the Group of Seven’s plan to lessen the servic-ing of the external debt of the 41 HighlyIndebted Poor Countries (HIPC) has actuallydelivered a debt reduction of only $US 1 billionsince it began in 1996—or a reduction of theirdebt servicing by only 3 per cent in the past fourand a half years!

Over a year after the Seattle collapse, talk aboutreforming the decision-making process at theWTO has vanished, with Director General MikeMoore, in fact, saying that that the non-transpar-ent, undemocratic “Consensus/Green Room”system that triggered the developing countryrevolt in Seattle is “non-negotiable.”

When it comes to the question of the interna-tional financial architecture, serious discussionof controls on speculative capital like Tobintaxes has been avoided. An unreformed IMFcontinues to be at the centre of thesystem’s “firefighting system.” A pre-emptive,pre-crisis credit line at the Fund (which nocountry wants to avail of) and a toothlessFinancial Stability Forum—where there is littledeveloping country participation—appear to bethe only “innovations” to emerge from theAsian, Russian, and Brazilian financial crises ofthe last three years.

At the IMF and the World Bank, similarly, thereis no longer any talk about diluting the votingshares of the US and European Union in favourof greater voting power for the Third Worldcountries, much less of doing away with thefeudal practices of always having a Europeanhead the Fund and an American to lead theBank. The much-vaunted consultative processin the preparation of “Poverty ReductionStrategy Papers” (PRSP) by governments

applying for loans is turning out to be nothingmore than an effort to add a veneer of publicparticipation to the same technocratic processthat is churning out development strategies withthe same old emphasis on growth via deregula-tion and liberalisation of trade, with maybe asafety net here and there. At the Bank, strongresistance to innovations that would put thepriority on social reforms led to the resignationof two reformers: Joseph Stiglitz, the chiefeconomist, and Ravi Kanbur, the head of theWorld Development Report task force.

Debacle in the HagueThe protests throughout the year had a stronganti-TNC (transnational corporation) strain,with the World Bank, IMF, and WTO regardedas servitors of the corporations. A strong distrustof TNCs had, in fact, developed, even in theUnited States, where over 70 per cent of peoplesurveyed felt corporations had too much powerover their lives. Distrust and opposition toTNCs could only be deepened by the collapse inlate November of the Hague Conference onClimate Change, owing to US’s industry’sunwillingness to significantly cut back on itsemission of greenhouse gases. At a time thatmost indicators are showing an acceleration ofglobal warming trends, Washington’s move hasreinforced the conviction of the anti-globaliza-tion movement that the US economic elite isdetermined to grab all the benefits of globaliza-tion while sticking the costs on the rest of theworld.

Sunrise in Porto AlegreBut the Hague was not the last word of thismemorable year. 2000 ended on a high note atthe World Social Forum (WSF) in Porto Alegre,Brazil, which was organized as a counterpointto the World Economic Forum, the annualglobal elite event taking place in Davos, inSwitzerland.

One of the highlights of the WSF was a tel-evised trans-Atlantic debate between PortoAlegre and Davos. Since I had been in Davoslast year, the producers requested that I makethe opening statement for the Porto Alegre side.I obliged with the following: “We would like tobegin by condemning the arrests of peaceful

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demonstrators to shield the global elite at Davosfrom protests. We would also like to register ourconsternation that while we in Porto Alegrehave painstakingly come up with a diversepanel of speakers, you in Davos have come upwith four white males to face us. But perhapsyou are trying to make a political statement.

“I was in Davos last year, and believe me,Davos is not worth a second visit. I am here inPorto Alegre this year, and let me say that PortoAlegre is the future while Davos is the past.Hemingway wrote that the rich are differentfrom you and me, and indeed, we live on twodifferent planets: Davos, the planet of thesuperrich, Porto Alegre, the planet of the poor,the marginalized, the concerned. Here in PortoAlegre, we are discussing how to save theplanet. There in Davos, the global elite isdiscussing how to maintain its hegemony overthe rest of us. In fact, the best gift that the 2000corporate executives at Davos can give to theworld is for them to board a spaceship and blastoff for outer space. The rest of us will definitelybe much better off without them.”

The holding of the weeklong World SocialForum was nothing short of a miracle. Proposedby the Workers’ Party of Brazil (PT) and acoalition of Brazilian civil society organisa-tions, supported with significant funding by anumber of civil society donors and providedwith strong international support by the Frenchmonthly

Le Monde Diplomatique and Attac, the Euro-pean anti-globalisation alliance, the event wasput together in less than eight months’ time. Theidea of holding an alternative to the annualretreat of the global corporate elite in Davossimply took off. While there were some glitcheshere and there, the event was resoundinglysuccessful, despite the massive challenge ofco-ordinating 16 plenary sessions, over 400workshops, and numerous side events.

The sharing in Porto Alegre focused not only ondrawing up strategies of resistance toglobalisation but also on elaborating alternativeparadigms of economic, ecological, and socialdevelopment. Militant action was not absent,with Jose Bove, the celebrated French anti-McDonalds’ activist, and the Brazilian MST

(Movement of the Landless), leading thedestruction of two hectares of land planted withtransgenic soybean crops by the biotechnologi-cal firm Monsanto.

Porto Alegre achieved its goal of being acounterpoint to Davos. The combination ofcelebration, hard discussion, and militantsolidarity that flowed from it contrasted with thenegative images coming out of Davos. Focusmade a big commitment of time, personnel,resources, and energy to the Porto Alegreprocess, and we were happy to see it succeed.We are committed to establishing Porto Alegreas the premier forum for the discussion andsolution of the planet’s many problems.

The alternativeThe key institutions that run the world economyare suffering a severe crisis of legitimacy in thewake of the long hot year of 2000. Now thetime is ripe for proposing alternatives to theseinstitutions and to the obsolete paradigms thatincreasingly serve as cages for the vast majorityof the world’s population. Without alternativesthe window of opportunity for restructuring theglobal system could vanish.

At the various activities and events that weparticipated in, we in Focus did not only speakabout resistance to the forces and institutionscreating global poverty, inequality, and injus-tice. Drawing from our research, analysis, andcapacity building work at the grassroots, wealso talked about alternatives to the globalregime. We disagree with the view that think-ing about the alternative is a task that for themost part is still in a primeval state. In fact, wefeel that that many or most of the basic or broadprinciples for an alternative order are alreadywith us, and it is really a question of specifyingthese broad principles to concrete societies inways that respect the diversity of societies.

Work on alternatives has been a collective pastand present effort, one to which many Northand South have contributed. Allow us tosynthesize the key points of this collective effortunder the rubric “deglobalisation.” While thefollowing model addresses principally thesituation of countries in the South, many pointshave relevance as well to societies and econo-mies in the North.


DeglobalisationWhat is deglobalisation? We are not talkingabout withdrawing from the internationaleconomy.

We are speaking about reorienting our econo-mies from the emphasis on production forexport to production for the local market;

• about drawing most of our financial re-sources for development from within ratherthan becoming dependent on foreigninvestment and foreign financial markets;

• about carrying out the long-postponedmeasures of income redistribution and landredistribution to create a vibrant internalmarket that would be the anchor of theeconomy;

• about de-emphasising growth and maximis-ing equity in order to radically reduceenvironmental disequilibrium;

• about not leaving strategic economicdecisions to the market but making themsubject to democratic choice;

• about subjecting the private sector and thestate to constant monitoring by civil society;

• about creating a new production andexchange complex that includes communityco-operatives, private enterprises, and stateenterprises, and excludes TNCs;

• about enshrining the principle ofsubsidiarity in economic life by encouragingproduction of goods to take place at thecommunity and national level if it can bedone so at reasonable cost in order topreserve community.

We are talking, moreover, about a strategy thatconsciously subordinates the logic of themarket, the pursuit of cost efficiency to thevalues of security, equity, and social solidarity.We are speaking, to use the language of thegreat social democratic scholar Karl Polanyi,about re-embedding the economy in society,rather than having society driven by theeconomy.

Deglobalisation or the re-empowerment of thelocal and national, however, can only succeed ifit takes place within an alternative system ofglobal economic governance. What are thecontours of such a world economic order? Theanswer to this is contained in our critique of the

Bretton Woods cum WTO system as a mono-lithic system of universal rules imposed byhighly centralised institutions to further theinterests of corporations—and, in particular, UScorporations. To try to supplant this withanother centralised global system of rules andinstitutions, though these may be premised ondifferent principles, is likely to reproduce thesame Jurassic trap that ensnared organisationsas different as IBM, the IMF, and the Sovietstate, and this is the inability to tolerate andprofit from diversity. Incidentally, the idea thatthe need for one central set of global rules isunquestionable and that the challenge is toreplace the neoliberal rules with social demo-cratic ones is a remnant of a techno-optimistvariant of Marxism that infuses both the SocialDemocratic and Leninist visions of the world,producing what Indian author Arundathi Roycalls the predilection for“gigantism.”

A plural worldToday’s need is not another centralised globalinstitution but the deconcentration and decen-tralisation of institutional power and thecreation of a pluralistic system of institutionsand organisations interacting with one another,guided by broad and flexible agreements andunderstandings.

We are not talking about something completelynew. For it was under such a more pluralisticsystem of global economic governance, wherehegemonic power was still far from institution-alised in a set of all-encompassing and powerfulmultilateral organisations and institutions that anumber of Latin American and Asian countrieswere able to achieve a modicum of industrialdevelopment in the period from 1950 to 1970. Itwas under such a pluralistic system, under aGeneral Agreement on Tariffs and Trade(GATT) that was limited in its power, flexible,and more sympathetic to the special status ofdeveloping countries, that the East and South-east Asian countries were able to become newlyindustrialising countries through activist statetrade and industrial policies that departedsignificantly from the free-market biasesenshrined in the WTO.

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Of course, economic relations among countriesprior to the attempt to institutionalise one globalfree market system beginning in the early1980’s were not ideal, nor were the Third Worldeconomies that resulted ideal. They failed toaddress a number of needs illuminated by recentadvances in feminist, ecological, and post-postdevelopment economics. All we wish to pointout here is that the pre-1994 situation underlinesthe fact that the alternative to an economic PaRomania built around the World Bank-IMF-WTO system is not a Hobbesian state of nature.All we want to stress is that the reality ofinternational relations in a world marked by amultiplicity of international and regionalinstitutions that check one another is a far cryfrom the propaganda image of a “nasty” and“brutish” world. Of course, the threat of unilat-eral action by the powerful is ever present insuch a system, but it is one that even the mostpowerful hesitate to take for fear of its conse-quences on their legitimacy as well as thereaction it would provoke in the form ofopposing coalitions.

In other words, what developing countries andinternational civil society should aim at is not toreform the TNC-driven WTO and BrettonWoods institutions, but, through a combinationof passive and active measures, to either a)decommission them; b) neuter them (e.g.,converting the IMF into a pure research institu-tion monitoring exchange rates of global capitalflows); or c) radically reduce their powers andturn them into just another set of actors coexist-ing with and being checked by other interna-tional organisations, agreements, and regionalgroupings. This strategy would includestrengthening diverse actors and institutions asUNCTAD, multilateral environmental agree-ments, the International Labour Organisation,and evolving economic blocs such as Mercosurin Latin America, SAARC in South Asia,SADCC in Southern Africa, and a revitalisedASEAN in Southeast Asia. A key aspect of“strengthening,” of course, is making sure theseformations evolve in a people-oriented directionand cease to remain regional elite projects.

But above all, it would support the formation ofnew international and regional institutions thatwould be dedicated to creating and protectingthe space for devolving the greater part of

production, trade, and economic decision-making to the national and local level. Theprimal role of international organisations in aworld where toleration of diversity is a centralprinciple of economic organisation would be, asthe British philosopher John Gray puts it, “toexpress and protect local and national culturesby embodying and sheltering their distinctivepractices.”

More space, more flexibility, more compro-mise—these should be the goals of the Southernagenda and the international civil society effortto build a new system of global economicgovernance. It is in such a more fluid, lessstructured, more pluralistic world, with multiplechecks and balances, that the nations andcommunities of the South—and the North—willbe able to carve out the space to develop basedon their values, their rhythms, and the strategiesof their choice.

In conclusion, in this post-Seattle, or should wenow say, post-Porto Alegre, world, our side hasthe momentum, the initiative, the ascendancy.Of course, the structures of corporate-drivenglobalization seem as firm as ever. Whileguarding against unwarranted optimism, wemust also not underestimate the possibilities inthe more fluid situation of the moment. Let usremember that power structures ultimatelycannot survive without the perception that theyare legitimate. We have a window of opportu-nity as we enter 2001. Focus is determined tocontribute its share to make ensure this windowdoes not slam shut.

Walden BelloExecutive Director


Economic, Financialand Trade Liberalisation

Economics and financeThe main work in 2000 was monitoring,research and policy analysis, and helping buildnetworks and campaigns on the IMF, the WorldBank and the Asian Development Bank,currency transactions taxes (CTT) and capitalcontrols, financial architecture and Financingfor Development (FFD), debt, the impacts of theAsian financial crisis, and developing frame-works for alternatives to the existing structuresand institutions of international finance.

Specifically, Focus was extensively involved inthe preparations and the educational, public andofficial events during the Washington andPrague meetings of the World Bank and Interna-tional Monetary Fund and the Chiang Maimeeting of the Asian Development Bank. Thisincluded writing and publishing articles andreports for the events, speaking on panels and inworkshops, extensive media contact, attendingboth official and parallel meetings and debates,and developing networks for informationexchange and coordination.

Some of the highlights included the Interna-tional Forum on Globalisation’s (IFG) teach-inprior to the Washington meetings and the“Prague Castle” debate prior to the annualmeetings in September. All of these activitieswere reported extensively in Focus on Trade.

Two Focus dossiers were prepared for theChiang Mai and Prague events: CreatingPoverty: the ADB in Asia and Prague 2000:Why we need to decommission the IMF and theWorld Bank. Both are available on the Focuswebsite in pdf format.

Financial architectureThe debates on financial architecture ground toa halt in 2000, reflecting the G7 consensus thatthere is no further need for reform or debate(insofar as there has been any at all). Interestwas revived briefly just weeks before the AprilIMF and World Bank meetings when the reportof the US Congressional International FinancialInstitution Advisory Commission, better knownas the “Meltzer Report”, recommended a radicaldownsizing of both institutions. And while thiswas a short-lived debate, the report is stillsomething of as “sleeper” in Washington DCand could at any time be dusted off to serve amore reactionary Republican sentiment. This, ofcourse, would create renewed political opportu-nities for progressive and public debates aboutfinancial architecture and the role of the IFIs.

The institutions themselves have done little toreform except at the level of rhetoric, with bothpromising to focus on their core competenciesand mandate, yet engaging in an ever greaterproject of imperial expansion.

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This is of course the risk when there are noclear-cut demands being made on the institu-tions. For example, the expectations from somegovernments and NGOs that the IFIs shouldadopt a human rights framework risks anuncontrolled extension of their scope of actionand conditionalities. In Focus’ view, the institu-tions are deeply undemocratic and hegemonicand are too embedded in their own history andinterests to undertake the necessary ideological,personnel and structural changes. They haveoutlived their usefulness (if they ever had any).Again, this analysis and these views have beenextensively aired in our publications, and inmeetings and public events.

The Focus Dossier Prague 2000: Why we needto decommission the World Bank and the IMF isa significant contribution to the debate oninstitutional and structural issues, especially thearticle by Walden Bello “From Melbourne toPrague: the struggle for a deglobalised world”which begins to articulate a framework foralternatives.

This dossier also includes an important updateon the impact of IMF policies in East Asia.Written by Jacques Chai Chomthongdi, whojoined Focus in 2000, “The IMF’s AsianLegacy” reviews the impacts of IMF policiesand assesses the extent to which the IMF canclaim any credit for the so-called “recovery” inAsia.

In response to the past twelve months of protest,the IFIs have attempted to deepen the divisionsbetween the so-called “reformists” and the“abolitionists.” However, the level of collabora-tion and coordination between most groupsremains high and many are questioning thelimits of reform. For example, some NGOs andgovernments who have supported the EnhancedHighly Indebted poor Countries (HIPC) Initia-tive and the Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers(PRSP) as “steps in the right direction” are nowbecoming increasingly frustrated with the lackof real change. Twenty years of structuraladjustment programmes has provided enoughempirical evidence to support calls for theradical transformation or even abolition of theIMF and the World Bank and, in most quarters,the institutions new-found interest in povertyalleviation is met with scepticism.

Given that the legitimacy of the IMF and theWorld Bank are at an all-time low, regainingcredibility is paramount. The Bank, the Fund,the WTO and the UN, especially through theoffices of Secretary General Kofi Annan, seemto be converging in their strategy to promote“globalisation with a human face.” This startedto emerge during the Davos meeting of theWorld Economic Forum in January 2000, andwas fully realised at the June 2000 WorldSummit on Social Development +5 in Genevawhen the report “A better world for all” effec-tively tied the UN into the language anddevelopment agenda of the Bretton WoodsInstitutions.

Similarly, the UN-initiated Global Compact —an unenforceable, non-binding and voluntary“gentleman’s agreement” which asks corpora-tions to “support” human rights principles – isan attempt to manage the processes ofglobalisation without dealing with the funda-mental contradictions. It has been called a “bluewash” for corporations, and even internationalfinancier George Soros has expressed deepreservations, saying “I think it is well intended,but it does have an element of whitewash orblue-wash in it… It’s very hard for business tosort of step out of its skin. Business is basicallyrun for profit.” It is, however, supported bylabour and civil society groups such as theICFTU, Amnesty International, Human RightsWatch and WorldWide Fund for Nature, to-gether with various business councils and a longlist of corporations.

Financing for developmentIn the coming year, the Financing for Develop-ment (FFD) process will be where many ofthese debates continue. Although this is theconference and the agenda that developingcounties have been asking for, early signs arenot promising. There seems to be an assumptionthat integration into global markets is theequivalent of development, and therefore allfinancing should meet this end. As Kofi Annanremarked in his address to the 2001 WorldEconomic Forum in Davos, “better targeted”official development co-operation is necessaryto make countries “more attractive as invest-ment destinations”. Presumably, the rest canthen be left to the private sector. Debt cancella-


tion (let alone restitution and redistribution) oralternatives to global market oriented “develop-ment” are simply not on the agenda.

While there has been general agreement that theinvolvement of the Bretton Woods Institutionsis central to the success of the FFD, the openingremarks from the WTO, the IMF and the WorldBank at the second session of the preparatorycommittee reinforced their unwavering commit-ment to a pro-liberalisation, pro-market policies.Developing countries, the UN agencies and civilsociety groups will have to form strong alli-ances if they are to stop the wholesale transferof the Washington consensus to the UN. The USdelegate to the FFD indicated the magnitude ofthis task when he asserted that his governmentwould “oppose any attempt to interfere in thegovernance and decision-making mechanismsof the World Bank and the IMF” and that anyattempt to do so would “seriously undermine”the credibility of the UN.

Capital controls, currency transac-tion taxes and debtThe international campaigns for debt cancella-tion, a tax on currency transactions (CTT),closing of tax havens, regulation of hedgefunds, capital controls and regulation of foreigndirect investments are closely tied to the workon the international financial institutions,financial architecture and democratisingfinance.

In 2000, Focus started work on capital controlsand CTTs in East and Southeast Asia. A shortresearch project reviewing the level of publicand policy discussion on the CTT and capitalcontrols was carried out in six countries – thePhilippines, Korea, Malaysia, Japan, Indonesiaand Thailand. This, together with a policy paperon the feasibility of a regional CTT or capitalcontrols, will be part of efforts to build acampaign in Southeast Asia to raise politicaland public debate on financial regulation. Thiswill be undertaken in collaboration with otherregional groups such as the Asia RegionalExchange for New Alternatives (Arena) and theInternational Council of Social Welfare (ICSW)and will be integrated into plans to develop aregional civil society response to the Financingfor Development agenda. As in other countries,

the practical proposals for a CTT, regulatingspeculation and closing tax havens are notmerely objectives in themselves, but an impor-tant channel for education, raising publicawareness and mobilising campaigns on a broadrange of financial and economic policies.

In September 2000, Focus on the Global Southand Zed Books published Global Finance: NewThinking on Regulating Speculative CapitalMarkets. It is a collection of papers from theMarch 1999 conference “Economic Sovereigntyin a Globalising World” and is edited by WaldenBello, Nicola Bullard and Kamal Malhotra.Details are available on the Focus website.Focus also co-published with the Toda Instituteand Latrobe University Reimagining the Future:Toward Democratic Governance, whichincludes a chapter by Kamal Malhotra andMarco Mezzera “Governance of global financialflows”. Publication details of both books areincluded at the end of this report and on theFocus website.

Focus has worked with the Jubilee debt net-works over the past year. In particular, Focuswas involved in many aspects of the JubileeSouth regional meeting held in Bangkok inOctober which resulted in the formation of theAsia Pacific Coalition on Debt and Develop-ment. In addition to helping with many practicalissues, Focus provided speakers for severalpanels and resource people for workshops.Focus researched and published a dossier for theevent The Transfer of Wealth: Debt and themaking of a Global South. This is available inPDF format on the Focus website.

Trade and agricultureFocus did extensive research and providedanalytical support to developing countries in theagricultural negotiations in partnership with theSouth Centre in Geneva. This work contributedto three papers which were jointly submitted byabout twelve countries to the WTO on theDevelopment Box, The Green Box and MarketAccess. These papers are posted on the Focuswebsite.

As part of the work with governments, Focusalso took part in a workshop for trade negotia-tors organised jointly between South Centre and

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Oxfam on Institutional Reform held in January.In this workshop, we gave a paper outlining therelevant issues from a developing countryperspective. We highlighted, in particular, thedevelopment needs of countries, which theWTO agenda contravenes.

In October, Focus co-sponsored a workshopentitled ‘WTO Negotiations on Agriculture:Setting the Right Agenda’. The other sponsorsof the workshop were South Centre, IATP andAction Aid. Focus staff gave a presentationentitled ‘Special and Differential Treatment forDeveloping Countries’ highlighting the prob-lems of forcing down an industrial-type agricul-tural export model onto developing countries’small farmers.

In response to interest by some developingcountry delegates, Focus also developed a papercritiquing the WTO’s single undertaking from ahistorical and development perspective, sug-gesting that a more development-centredmultilateral trading system would consist ofplurilateral agreements which governmentscould sign on to if they felt that the area was ofinterest to them, rather than taking an all ornothing WTO package.

The other component of the trade-relatedactivities was working in solidarity with otherNGOs. In this vein, Focus took part in the NGOworkshop preparing for the Global Forum onAgricultural Research (GFAR) workshop inDresden, in July. Focus presented a paperentitled ‘Politicising Research: Trade andAgriculture and an Enabling Institutional andPolicy Framework’.

Focus took part in another NGO workshop ‘TheTwo-thirds Minority – Developing Countries inthe WTO’, organized by Germanwatch inOctober and presented a paper on ‘WTOTransparency – View of a Southern NGO’. Wealso participated in a “brainstorming” meetingon the proposed Trade and Sustainable HumanDevelopment Report organised by UNDP inOctober.

Two major pieces of research were undertakenin 2000. The first was commissioned by theProtestant Farmers in Germany on ‘Non-tradeConcerns in Agriculture: Comparative Analysis

of Asian and European Perspectives’. The workincluded highlighting the non-trade concerns ofdeveloping countries, the impact of agriculturalliberalization in Thailand and the Philippines,the implications of EU agricultural subsidiesand an analysis of what an agenda for sustain-able agriculture for developing countries wouldlook like.

The other research piece is entitled ‘SmallFarmers and the Need for Alternative, Develop-ment-friendly Food Production Systems’. Thepaper looks at the problems small farmers indeveloping countries encounter when they arethrust into an industrial / export agriculturalproduction system and suggests livelihoodsustaining alternatives.

These papers are posted on the Focus website.

Focus on TradeThe monthly electronic bulletin Focus on Tradeis the main channel for disseminating Focus’written material on economic, financial andtrade liberalisation. It is published every monthand has a subscription list of more than 4,000.The bulletin is re-posted on several other listsand articles are frequently requested for re-printing elsewhere or translation into otherlanguages, including Bahasa Indonesian, Thai,Japanese, Korean, German and French.

In 2000, thanks to the initiative and excellenttranslations of Gerard Coffey, an activist livingin Ecuador, Enfoque sobre Comercio is nowavailable in Spanish. If you would like tosubscribe, send an email [email protected]


Security and Conflict

Contrary to expectations, conflicts have notabated with the end of the Cold War. In fact, inmany cases, conflicts and tensions have in-creased, with the flaring of antagonisms alongcleavages that were ‘frozen’ during the Coldwar, such as ethnic and cultural differences.Today’s conflicts are derived from a mixture ofantagonisms that are a legacy of the Cold War,old territorial disputes, struggles over resourcesor potential resources, North-South struggles,class, ethnic, cultural and gender differences.Dominant patterns of globalisation have alsocontributed to the emergence and re-emergenceof both new and traditional forms of violence.

Focus combines two approaches to securityissues. On the one hand, it is squarely in thetradition of the peace movement by advocatingwithdrawal of military bases, disarmament andconflict resolution through diplomacy, collec-tive security and multilateral arrangements. Onthe other hand, Focus realises that stabilisationand conflict resolution mechanisms are notenough. It is necessary to address the roots ofconflict, and this lies in resolving inequalitiesengendered by differential access to naturalresources, food, property and income. It alsomeans addressing environmental degradation,since this is becoming a key source of potentialconflict among states. In the past year Focus hasaddressed some of these issues.

Nuclear disarmament conferenceFocus India and Bangkok offices in cooperationwith the Community Development Library(CDL), a local organization in Bangladesh, co-organized the nuclear disarmament conferenceentitled “Peace Builds Bombs Destroy: Let’sMake Asia Nuclear-Free”, in Dhaka, Bangla-desh, February 18-20, 2000. About 150 partici-pants from South Asia, East Asia and Southeast

Asia countries and the U.S gathered to discussthe impact of nuclear weapons on society andsecurity. The conference called on the globalcommunity, in particular, the U.S, Russia andChina, to ratify nuclear treaties and strengthenthe call for global nuclear disarmament. Ralliesto the Indian and Pakistan embassies in Dhakawere organized to present the Dhaka Declara-tion.

The South Asia Peace Coalition has beenconsequently formed after the nuclear confer-ence in Dhaka. In which the Focus India officeplays a key role.

The Focus India office has invited Admiral L.Ramdas to be its advisor to the Security Pro-gramme. Admiral Ramdas is a former Chief ofthe Naval Staff (CNS) of the Indian Navy. He iscurrently the Chairperson of the Indian chapterof the Pakistan India Peoples Forum for Peaceand Democracy, and an active campaigner fortotal abolition of nuclear weapons. His keyadvisory responsibilities include enhancing thefunction of South Asia Peace Coalition as wellas anti nuclear campaigning in India and SouthAsia.

People’s security conferenceJapanese groups based in Tokyo and Okinawa,and Focus on the Global South jointly held the“Okinawa International Forum for People’sSecurity” conference prior to the G8 summit inOkinawa, Japan, from June 29-July 1, 2000.Around 100-150 from the Asia Pacific countriesparticipated in the event. The discussionsfocussed on the presence and impact of USbases and its impacts in the regions and theconcept of people’s security. Visits to thelocation of a new heliport as well as local NGOsoffices and groups fighting against the USpresence were arranged.

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Indonesia, during November 24-26, 2000, aparallel meeting to the informal ASEAN leaderssummit in Singapore. About 300 participantsfrom ASEAN countries plus others from Japan,Canada, US, and European representativesgathered there. The failure of official ASEANstructure and how people’s participation can bestrengthened were actively debated.

Global governance reform projectThe project entered its final phase in March2000, when a series of working group meetingstook place in New York under the auspices ofthe Queens College and the Rockefeller Broth-ers Fund. During those meetings, which wereattended by various United Nations officers,academicians, and personalities such as Profes-sor Richard Falk and former Australian ForeignMinister Gareth Evans, the three writtencomponents of the work were closely scruti-nized and modified. That preparatory workresulted in a policy advocacy booklet, entitledReimagining the Future: Towards DemocraticGovernance, which was presented to the UnitedNations Millennium Assembly at the beginningof September 2000. The book was jointlyproduced with Latrobe University in Australiaand the Toda Institute in Hawaii. This book isavailable from Focus.

A review of security programThe Security programme underwent an exten-sive review in the last months of 2000. Thereview team has come up with two activities tobe conducted as initial steps of further actions.One is a mapping exercise on the currentsecurity situations in the regions – South Asia,East Asia, and Southeast Asia to see how toappropriately respond to the present realitiesand needs. In particular this project will focuson the inter-related processes of militarisation,democratisation and liberalisation. The secondis a project on the Reunification of the Koreas.The latter supposed to be a gathering of allconcerned parties to analyze both negative andpositive elements of the reunification as such.

To effectively fulfil and accomplish the map-ping research, a new senior analyst is to berecruited to work closely with staff both inMumbai and Bangkok offices.

ASEM III – Asia-Europe meeting2000Focus was a member of an InternationalOrganizing Committee (IOC) of the socialforum, parallel to the official ASEM meeting inSeoul, October 17-21, 2000.The joint cooperation on ASEM III meetinghelped strengthening Focus’s collaboration withthe South Korean groups.

ASEAN activitiesThroughout the year Focus had taken part inASEAN activities conducted by Forum Asiaand other organizations. On July 21, 2000, asymposium called “ ASEAN 2000 and Beyond:Putting people First” was co-organized byForum Asia and Focus parallel to the ASEANMinisters Meeting (AMM) and ASEAN Re-gional Forum (ARF) held in Bangkok, Thai-land. The keynote speech “ The Challenges ofthe ASEAN in 2000 and Beyond” was given bythe East Timor leader and Noble Peace Prizelaureate Jose Ramos Horta. A proposal for analternative model of ASEAN as well as conflictresolution in problematic countries like Burma,Philippines, Thailand, Indonesia, etc. werediscussed. The adopted resolutions werepresented at the meeting between the group ofparticipants and Thailand Deputy Minister ofForeign Affairs Ministry. An ASEAN embassytour was also made presenting the same resolu-tions.

Focus staff also participated in the ASEANPeople’s Assembly 2000 (APA) held in Batam,

Speakers at the Okinawa Conference


State, Marketand Civil Society

M obilising civil societyThroughout 2000, there were many political andstrategic discussions within Focus on our role inthe struggles against corporate globalisation andneo-liberalism. These have been open andconstructive with a strong consensus and sharedunderstanding. We see ourselves as a move-ment-oriented NGO and we hope to maintain acritical perspective of our own role and legiti-macy within civil society. In the course of thesediscussions we have made clear decisions whichsupport our views. These include expanding anddiversifying the Board membership, consciouslyattempting to work more closely with labour,social movements, farmers organisations andother mass-based movements, and trying toarticulate alternatives which come from realexperiences. Nonetheless, we think that thework of research, policy analysis, articulatingand disseminating ideas, networking, accessinginformation and technology, and establishinguseful links between different levels of actions,sectors and regions is essential.

The UNCTAD X conference was held inBangkok in February 2000. Focus was ap-proached several months earlier by theUNCTAD secretariat to facilitate and coordinatethe civil society input to the official conference.It was decided that this was a good opportunityto mobilise and engage local organisations in

some of the international debates aboutglobalisation. It was also the first major meetingof trade ministers post-Seattle.

Focus produced the first dossier for 2000 forthis meeting Why reform of the WTO is thewrong agenda: four essays on four institutions.This is available in pdf format on the Focuswebsite.

Focus staff working in the Thai programmewere heavily involved in translating materials,information sharing and helping to coordinatedifferent aspects of the Thai response to theUNCTAD X. Others were engaged at theregional and international level especially toensure broad-based participation in the civilsociety forums. It was decided that in additionto the official “NGO Caucus” there would be analternative event. This was called the“Alternatives to neo-liberalism” and wasorganised principally by NGO CORD, the mainThai NGO network. About 150 representativesattended the official NGO caucus and twice thatnumber the alternative conference. Mediaevents, protests and street theatre highlightedthe local impacts of neo-liberal economicpolicies and many Thais commented that duringthe UNCTAD events the local media momentar-ily lost its usual antagonism towards activistsand NGOs.

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The official NGO meeting produced a carefullycrafted statement reflecting the negotiatedposition of a wide range of groups. However,the alternative event produced the BangkokDeclaration which was both shorter and clearerand became the “springboard” for a group inGeneva to organise the alternative events duringthe World Summit on Social Development inJune.

The local organising for UNCTAD X was also aspringboard for the very successful mobilisationfor the Asian Development Bank meeting inChiang Mai in April also reflects the success ofthe UNCTAD civil society events in articulatingand energising links between the local, regionaland global spheres of action.

Linking the local and the globalThere is a strong link between the alternativeevents in Bangkok and Geneva in 2000 and thePorto Alegre World Social Forum in early 2001.For example, organisers of the Geneva eventsused the Bangkok Declaration (see box) as theirstarting point, while the World Social Forumwas launched in Geneva. More importantly,though, these events are activist and movement-oriented and seek to articulate alternatives toneo-liberalism. Social movements, trade unionsand NGOs from the South and the North havebeen able to carve out a new space for politicaland social engagements, and as John Lloyd,writing in the Financial Times about the WorldSocial Forum, said there is a sense of “beingastride a movement.”

Trade unions and civil societyIn mid-2000, Focus was approached by theFreidrich Ebert Stiftung to facilitate a discus-sion between trade unions and NGOs on theissue of trade and labour standards. We agreed,but only if the scope could be broadened toinclude a wider discussion on workers andglobalisation. While planning and progress hasbeen rather slow, the meeting will be held inearly March 2001, and will include representa-tives from social movements, trade unions andNGOs. Depending on the outcome, this couldlead to a closer dialogue with trade unions andthe labour movement in the future.

From Focus’ perspective, the traditional tradeunion movement has not effectively challengedneo-liberalism. On the other hand, though, neo-liberalism can never be challenged without anorganised presence of workers in both the Northand the South and in the formal and non-formalsectors. It is vital that unions, NGOs and socialmovements find ways of organising and educat-ing which once again give meaning to the wordsolidarity. This is one of the most interestingchallenges ahead of us, not only at Focus butalso for everyone.

Underlying all of our work is a debate aboutdevelopment: What is development? What is themarket? Can we imagine a world which isneither market nor state, but something else? Inthe next years it will become even more impor-tant to speak about alternatives and to makeconcrete proposals for change if we are to buildon the momentum of the past two years.


Bangkok Appeal to the People of the World

The events of Seattle have changed the balance of forces betweenthe social movements opposed to globalisation and the G7 lead-ers, governments, corporations and global economic institutions,including the IMF, World Bank and WTO, that drive theglobalisation project.

Seattle gave expression to the growing international rejection ofthis new form of exploitation that violates on a massive scale peo-ples’ human rights including, social, economic, cultural, environ-mental, political and democratic rights.

Seattle showed that we are able to unite against this global project.Our challenge now is to continue our resistance, and deepen thedebate amongst ourselves in order to articulate and promote com-mon alternatives.

In that regard, we need to improve our capacity for mobilisationat a national and international level, and to strengthen interna-tional co-operation.

We therefore appeal to all social movements, North and South, tofight for the cancellation of all debt of developing countries whichin the judgement of civil society is illegitimate, immoral or un-payable; to end the IMF’s structural adjustment policies in in-debted nations; to call for a moratorium on any new negotiationsthat would increase the power and scope of the WTO, and to ex-clude from the jurisdiction of the WTO such issues as peasantagriculture, social services, and intellectual property claims; andto impose controls and taxes on capital.

We call on social movements to mobilize in large numbers andunit against globalisation wherever world leaders gather and meet.In particular we call on movements to focus on two main forth-coming events. First, on the UN General Assembly Social SummitReview in Geneva on 26 - 30th June, 2000. On this occasion, wewill assemble to organise the debate, discussion and articulationof our alternatives; and also to prepare for a mass mobilisationin New York in September 5-6, 2000. This will be the Summit ofWorld Leaders in New York, on the occasion of the UN’s Millen-nium General Assembly on 6-9th September. Simultaneous ac-tions will be organised around the world.

Bangkok, February 2000

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Culture and Globalisation

I slamic revivalism and thepolitics of liberation and reform inMindanao, Aceh, and MalaysiaAfter some initial difficulties, the first project ofthe programme was finally launched at the endof August. A researcher was appointed fromwithin Focus to team up with a local journalistfrom the Philippines and to start doing fieldwork on Mindanao, the first of the three se-lected areas for the comparative study – theother two being Aceh and the Malaysian statesof Terengganu and Kelantan.

The goals of the research, as formulated in theproject proposal, were to understand the rise ofrevivalist Islamic movements to politicalprominence in the three countries and to providean analytical base to guide progressive forces inrelating to these movements. Further, thecomparative approach of the study was alsosupposed to identify some historical patterns onhow those movements were formed and theirdialectical relations to the homogenising forcesof globalisation. Attachment to religion, in thiscase Islam, was thus to be regarded as a power-ful means to counterbalance such forces,although dangerously open to political manipu-lations and to regressive tendencies.

By the end of the year, researcher had success-fully completed two trips to the Philippines and

to Mindanao in particular. Although the securitysituation on the ground was far from ideal, alsogiven to the large scale military offensivelaunched at the end of April, various meetingswere arranged with experts and with keysupporters and opponents of the main Islamicmovement in the area: the Moro IslamicLiberation Front (MILF). Under tight securitymeasures, a long interview was also taken withthe MILF Vice-Chairman for Military Affairs.

While working intensively on the Mindanaoissue, parallel attempts were successfullycompleted to contact local journalists in Acehand Malaysia as well.

The first phase of the project is to due to becompleted by September 2001.


South East AsianTransition Economies

Programme activities in mainland SoutheastAsia to date are more accurately describedthrough Focus’ framework on the SoutheastAsian Transitional Economies (SEATEs) andcan be grouped in two broad categories: in-country activities in the Lao PDR, Cambodiaand Vietnam, and regional activities that spanthe SEATEs sub-region with links to other sub-regions in Asia. Many of these regional activi-ties also involve work with Thai civil societyand peoples’ movements. Further, in keepingwith Focus’ organisational strategy, activitieshave been conceptualised in response to three ofFocus’ thematic areas: Economic and FinancialLiberalisation; Security and Conflict, andCulture and Globalisation.

Lao PDR

Training in macroeconomics, policyand research methodology with theNational Economic Research Institute(NERI)

Between December, 1999 and March, 2000, twoworkshops were conducted for staff from TheNational Economic Research Institute (NERI),the National Statistical Institute and the State

Planning Committee (SPC). The first workshopfocussed on fundamental concepts of macroeco-nomics and the second workshop focussed onresearch methodologies for policy researchers.Resource persons at these workshops includedFocus staff and Dr. Joseph Lim, a visitingprofessor from the University of Philippines.As follow-up from the workshops, Focus staffhave been assisting workshop participants todevelop a proposal for a small-scale study onoutward migration from rural areas to Vientiane,the capital city. The study seeks to examine thebroad push and pull factors that result in suchmigration, the links between migration andpoverty and the state’s response to migration.The process is ongoing and is likely to becompleted in the first part of 2001.

The overall process of capacity buildingthrough workshops and guided practice hasbeen positive for both NERI and Focus. NERIstaff participating in this process are alsoinvolved in other regional research efforts co-ordinated by the Australian Mekong ResourceCentre (AMRC), with whom Focus has anongoing programmatic relationship. Focus staffparticipated and assisted in workshops organ-ised by the AMRC on Impact Assessment ofInfrastructure projects in the Lower Mekong,and has joined a sub-regional network co-ordinated by the AMRC.

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The level of trust between NERI and Focusappears to have deepened and NERI has nowsuggested further areas for collaborative studyand training.

Promotion of local technologies tosupport agricultural production

Following from exchange activities and discus-sions initiated since early 1998, the ExecutiveDirector and Programme Director for Sustain-able Development from the Institute for Foodand Development Policy (Food First) visited theLao PDR in October-November, 1999 tofinalise agreements for future work on local,artisanal production of organic crop protectiontechnologies. This visit was then followed by avisit by two resource persons from the Agricul-tural University in Havana, Cuba, to the LaoPDR from February to April, 2000. Theresource persons worked with staff from theDepartment of Agriculture Extension in con-ducting a feasibility study for local productionof organic crop protection technologies, andrecommended future actions by which localproduction capacity can be established in theLao PDR. Food First is currently continuingdiscussions with the Lao Government onmoving to the next stage of implementing therecommendations of the Cuban-Lao resourceteam. Oxfam Solidarity Belgium will continueto co-ordinate this effort in-country while Focuswill remain involved in facilitating broaderregional and international linking.

Training and other support tostrengthen capacity among NGOnetworks

Focus was involved in two principle efforts inthis area. The first was a workshop in Novem-ber 1999 for the informal Micro-Macro IssuesNetwork on the Lao domestic economy. Theworkshop covered a range of topics from basicmacroeconomic principles and a history ofdevelopment to the structure of the Laoeconomy and regional influences on the Laoeconomy. Resource persons at the workshopincluded Focus staff, Lao NGO programmedirectors, and the co-ordinator of the Cambo-dian civil society network. As follow-up action,

participants at the workshop discussed thepossibility of setting up a small study group toexplore specific policies in some detail.The second effort was an evaluation of the LaoGender and Development Group (GDG), aninformal NGO network to provide recommen-dations on how the network can be moreresponsive to the changing situation in the LaoPDR. The evaluation was conducted in June2000, and the network’s participants have sinceconvened two planning workshops to discusshow some of the recommendations can be putinto practice.

In addition to the above, Focus has continued toprovide information materials to selected NGOsfor wider dissemination among NGO networksand government as they find appropriate.

Cambodia

Support for the Cambodian civilsociety network on development andpolicy issues

Focus provided support to the Cambodian civilsociety organisations network through participa-tion in two workshops organised by the Cambo-dian NGO Forum, both on the Poverty Reduc-tion Strategy process initiated by the WorldBank. Focus staff served as external resourcepersons on the broader implications of theinvolvement of the World Bank and the AsianDevelopment Bank in national poverty reduc-tion strategies.

In November 1999, the coordinator of the civilsociety network participated in the workshop onthe Lao domestic economy that was organisedin Vientiane. A similar workshop on theCambodian domestic economy was planned for2000, but did not materialise owing to the heavywork schedules of network members, and alsoconcerns that such a workshop be preceded byshorter, more specific, issue based seminars tocreate a common conceptual foundation amongnetwork members. The network has alreadyorganised at least two issue-based seminars inthis year and the longer workshop will likely beheld in 2001.


VietnamCollaborative research with theNational Institute for Science, Tech-nology, Policy and Strategy Studies(NISTPASS)

Focus increased contact with NISTPASS in thisyear through meetings, workshops and jointproposal development for a study on localeconomies. In February and May, Focusparticipated in seminars organised byNISTPASS on coastal resources, trade andeconomic integration. Staff from Focus andNISTPASS also worked together in two re-gional policy workshops organised by theAMRC.

As a precursor to longer term research collabo-ration, Focus has been working with NISTPASSto develop a small-scale study of the impacts ofthe Yalli Falls hydro-electric project on the localeconomy of the area—Sathay District in KonTum province in the central highlands. Sincethe study would be based on participatoryresearch principles, the proposal developmentprocess requires several consultations withcommunity members, District and Provincestaff in the study area. The proposal is likely tobe completed by early 2001 and, given timelyfunding support, the study should be completedby September, 2001.

Developing relationships with civilsociety organisations and NGOs

Focus increased its linkages with joint NGO-civil society efforts in Vietnam in this yearthrough visits of Focus staff to Vietnam, andvisits by Vietnamese colleagues to Focus’initiatives in Bangkok. For example, in May,Focus participated in a national conference onVietnam’s economic integration organised byAction Aid in Hanoi. In July, staff from theMinistry of Agriculture and Rural Development,and the National Committee for the Advance-ment of Women attended a workshop on genderand economics that Focus organised in Bang-kok. In addition, Focus has continued toprovide information materials on issues such astrade, the Multilateral Development Banks(MDBs), debt and global finance to colleagues

and organisations in Vietnam. Focus’ ownmaterials seem to be more widely circulatedthan before and many continue to be translatedinto Vietnamese. Focus will continue to play alow-key, “informational” role in Vietnam andsupplement it wherever possible with moreempirical work on key transition issues such asprivatisation and trade liberalisation.

Regional

As envisaged in1999, regional activities serveda useful linkage function across mainlandSoutheast Asia. These activities includedtraining, research and advocacy efforts, someinitiated solely by Focus, but many in collabora-tion with regional partners.

Training/capacity building

Strengthening individual, organisational andinstitutional capacities to understand, analyseand address the impacts of development policieshas been a crucial programmatic goal for Focus.In 2001, Focus moved towards this goal througha variety of activities: organising and conduct-ing workshops and conferences, participating inexternally organised conferences and work-shops, and through writing and publications.Focus staff served as resource persons in severalconferences and workshops in the region onsuch diverse issues as large dams, women andeconomic globalisation, the impact of economicglobalisation and trade liberalisation on smallfarmers and marginalised communities, traffick-ing in women, debt, and poverty reductionstrategies. Highlights of specific capacitybuilding activities in relation with the MainlandSoutheast Asia region are described below.

Focus hosted and co-ordinated the UNCTAD XCivil Society Caucus in February 2000. Fol-lowing the formal Caucus meeting, the ThaiNGO Co-ordinating Committee in collaborationwith international partners hosted anotherconference titled “Alternatives to Neo Liberal-ism,” which was attended by activists, repre-sentatives from peoples’ movements, grassrootsnetworks and progressive academics. The

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conference consisted of plenary discussions anda number of workshops on trade, finance, theenvironment, labour and agriculture. Focusstaff served as resource persons in a number ofthese workshops and brought their experienceof the region to international panels. Focus alsopublished a collection of Walden Bello’s articleson free trade, neoliberalism and internationalfinancial institutions, and the WTO for theseevents.

Focus played an active role in planning andorganising the Peoples’ Forum 2000, a parallelcivil society conference during the ADB’sannual general meeting in Chiang Mai in May2000. The Forum was organised by the ThaiNGO Co-ordinating Committee and attractedactivists, academics, NGOs, labour unions,farmers’ and fisher’s networks, indigenouspeoples’ groups and women’s organisationsfrom across Asia. Focus staff made presenta-tions in plenary and workshop sessions, andalong with Thai NGOs, provided backgroundsupport to citizen’s groups protesting thenegative impacts of ADB projects and sectoralpolicies. Focus also prepared publications inThai and English titled Creating Poverty, theADB is Asia, which provided critiques of theADB’s overall policies and projects. Theseefforts were also extremely helpful for Focus toidentify its own strategies regarding researchand advocacy on the ADB, which are describedin the following section.

In an effort to initiate greater discussion aboutgender differentiated impacts of economicglobalisation, Focus organised a workshop ongender and macroeconomics in Bangkok, inJuly 2000. The workshop was timed to coincidewith the launch of the UNIFEM report, TheProgress of the World’s Women, in Bangkok.Dr. Diane Elson, the co-ordinator of the report,was also the main resource person at the Focusworkshop. The workshop was attended byNGOs, academics and government representa-tives mostly from Thailand, but with someparticipants from the Lao PDR and Vietnam.Focus took this opportunity to translate selecteddocuments and information materials ongendered impacts of economic globalisationinto Thai. Following from the workshop, theThai women’s network has set up an informalworking group on women and globalisation and

plan to monitor the national budgetary processas well as social sectoral policies in Thailandfrom the perspectives of women. The Vietnam-ese delegation expressed interest in expandingsuch workshops to Vietnam and discussions areunder way for suitable activities in the comingyear.

Focus supported the Jubilee 2000 movement fordebt cancellation since its inception, and joinedthe Jubilee South network in November 1999.Focus was elected to serve as a member of theAsia Pacific Co-ordinating Committee and incollaboration with other members of theCommittee, organised the Asia Pacific Assem-bly on Debt and Development in Bangkok,October 2000. The primary aim of the Assem-bly was to bring together the diverse groupsinvolved in debt issues in an attempt tostrengthen a region wide movement against debtfinanced development. The Assembly wasattended by a variety of peoples’ organisations,citizens’ groups and NGOs from across theAsia-Pacific region, and consisted of educa-tional sessions as well as strategic planningsessions. Focus staff served as resource personsin both plenary and workshop sessions, and alsoprovided overall organising support to theAssembly. Focus also prepared a specialpublication on debt for the Assembly, TheTransfer of Wealth: Debt and the Making of aGlobal South, which consists of broad critiquesof debt creating development policies, specificdebt relief programmes and discussions ofregion-specific debt situations. The finaldeclaration and action plans that emerged fromthe Assembly are currently being finalised, andit is anticipated that region-wide campaigns ondebt and related issues will be intensified in thecoming years

The above activities have underscored to Focusthe importance of truly democratising access toinformation about development, economicglobalisation and related issues to people atvarious levels and capacities in the region. Theexperiences of Focus staff in conferences,workshops and seminars have been that Focus’analyses are both current and useful, even ifsome audiences (such as government officials)may not accept them in their entirety or areunable to act on them directly. The materialsproduced by Focus—whether papers, presenta-


tion notes or publications—have been widelyappreciated by activists, academics, governmentofficials and members of the press. A feedbackoffered by many, which Focus has takenextremely seriously, is that Focus must producemore materials about these issues more regu-larly, and also try to orient materials for morespecific audiences, such as community levelorganisations and government policy makers.Another important lesson that Focus has learnedfrom its capacity building efforts in the region isthat more empirical work needs to be done onthe specific issues that Focus is engaged in, inorder to give our work greater substance andcredibility.

Perhaps the most valuable result of Focus’capacity building efforts have been the widen-ing and strengthening of our relationships withpartners at different levels and from variousbackgrounds, whether non-governmental orgovernmental. We have developed solidarityand lasting friendships with a number oforganisations, networks and individuals throughour activities, and learned how we can make ourwork more meaningful to the wide variety ofpeople who are working towards alternativeforms of development that are socially, eco-nomically and politically just. These lessonswill most certainly shape our capacity buildingefforts in the coming years.

Research and advocacy

This year, Focus was able to intensify itsresearch and advocacy work in the mainlandSoutheast Asia region in part because ofstronger networking with other groups andorganisations, but equally important, because ofwelcome additions to its team. Chris Adamscame to Focus in April 2000 as a visitingresearcher from Community Aid Abroad inMelbourne, Australia. He has been workingwith Shalmali Guttal and Joy Chavez ondevelopment issues in mainland Southeast Asia,particularly, the ADB’s involvement in infra-structure development in the region. Jacques-chai Chomthongdi joined Focus in July 2000and has been working with both the Paradigms,as well as the Micro-Macro Issues LinkingProgramme on regional financial issues.

A joint study by Save the Children Fund UK(SCF UK) and Focus specific to the Philip-pines—The Micro Impact of the Asian Crisis(Focus on Filipino Households and Children—was completed in this past year. The studyreport was finalized, and was subject to the firstof a series of roundtable discussions on child-hood and children’s rights co-sponsored by theSCF UK Philippines Office and the Universityof the Philippines’ Center for Integrative andDevelopment Studies – Psycho Social TraumaDepartment (UP CIDS-PST) in November,2000. The report is now undergoing pressworkand will be released in late March, 2001. A briefsummary of the report was also published in theNovember 2000 issue of the Child Rights andInformation Network (CRIN) Newsletter (IssueNumber 13 on Children and Macroeconomics)in November, 2000. A Monograph titledHousehold Adjustment and Child Welfare:Lessons Learned from the Asian FinancialCrisis, was also completed in December, 2000for publication by the UP CIDS-PST in early2001.

As already mentioned above, the planningprocess for the Peoples’ Forum 2000 during theADB’s annual general meeting, as well as theactual conference helped Focus to identify andconduct more focussed research on thoseaspects of the ADB’s policies and operationsthat we consider critical and where we think wecan make significant contributions. Thefollowing issues were identified by the Focusteam as our main areas of study on the ADB:the ADB’s shift from project to policy lendingand its implications for national and sub-national sectoral reform; the ADB’s programmeon sub-regional economic cooperation (includ-ing the Greater Mekong Sub-Regional Coopera-tion, the South Asia Triangle, etc.); the ADB’sincreased emphasis on expanding the role of theprivate sector in physical and social infrastruc-ture, and its accompanying co-financinginitiatives; and the ADB’s internal contradic-tions in its operations and governance struc-tures. Focus staff prepared briefing papers oneach of the above, which were published in aFocus publication: Creating Poverty, the ADBin Asia, as well as in the Focus electronicbulletin, Focus on Trade. Focus staff alsopresented critiques of the ADB’s operations,overall policies and relationships with other

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international financial institutions (IFIs) in anumber of conferences and workshops in theAsia region, including Australia. Such focussedresearch will continue in the coming year andresearch issues will be added and/or deleteddepending on their currency and importance.

Focus has become more involved with thenewly re-organised NGO Forum on the ADB,and will continue to collaborate with organisa-tions and networks in both Southeast and SouthAsia in conducting research and advocacy onthe ADB. While collaboration with existingpartners such as TERRA, the AMRC and theThai NGO network continues, new partnershipshave been initiated with organisations workingon debt and power sector reform across Asia.Such cross-regional perspective is proving to beextremely helpful to us in sharpening ouranalysis in the Mainland Southeast Asia region.In June, Focus joined the Mekong Social andEnvironmental Analysis Network (MSEAN)coordinated by the AMRC, which bringstogether representatives from governmental andnon-governmental policy institutes in theMekong riparian countries to examine the roleof infrastructure development in the sub-region.Focus also participated in a regional meeting ofactivists, peoples’ movements and NGOsworking on water resource issues and willcontinue to work with this new network: RiversWatch East and Southeast Asia.

As anticipated, Focus intensified its work ondebt in the region, as well its linkages withgroups such as the Alternative DevelopmentInformation Centre (AIDC) in South Africa,who are playing coordinating roles in similaractivities in their respective regions. In prepara-tion for the Asia Pacific Assembly on Debt andDevelopment, Focus prepared position paperson the debt situation of the SEATEs, the HighlyIndebted Poor Countries Initiative (HIPC), debtin Southeast Asia following the Asian economiccrisis, micro- and farmers’ debt, new forms ofpublicly guaranteed debt, and the effects oftrade liberalisation on debt. Many of thesepapers were collated and presented in the Focuspublication The Transfer of Wealth: Debt andthe Making of a Global South. Others werepresented at the debt Assembly as well as inother workshops and conferences in the region.Focus will continue its research on debt in the

region along with advocacy about alternativestrategies for development financing that are notdebt creating or inducing. Focus will alsocontinue to strengthen collaborative research,advocacy and capacity building activities ondebt and development with local, regional andinternational groups within the Jubilee Southnetwork, as well as in other networks.

Another set of issues that were not specificallyplanned for, but which emerged as an importantarea to monitor are the poverty reductionstrategies advanced and promoted by the IFIsand OECD donor countries. Although themajor donors and lenders to the region havealways highlighted poverty alleviation as acentral aim of their development assistanceprogrammes, by the end of 1999, it was clearthat the World Bank, the IMF, the ADB and theOECD were attempting to integrate theirrespective poverty reduction strategies throughpolicy coherence with trade and investmentliberalisation, and privatisation programmes.Given Focus’ ongoing examination of theimpact of liberalisation, privatisation andderegulation in the region, we decided to directefforts towards examining the implications ofthese strategies on transition countries in theMainland Southeast Asia region.

To date, Focus staff have prepared briefingpapers on the poverty reduction strategies of themajor donors and lenders to the region, whichhave appeared in Focus’ publications, and havebeen presented at regional and internationalconferences. In September, Focus staff partici-pated in the OECD’s expert consultation onpoverty reduction organised in the Netherlands,and offered both a critique of, and alternativesto the economic growth oriented approach topoverty reduction. This approach, while wellintentioned, does not fundamentally challengethe historical and structural factors that entrenchpoverty. Focus has also decided to monitor thepoverty reductions processes led by the WorldBank and the ADB since they will constitute thepillars around which future grants and credits tothe region will be determined.

A global initiative that Focus engaged in fromthe Southeast Asia regional perspective is theWorld Commission on Dams (WCD). TheWCD was established in late 1997 as a multi-


stakeholder process to examine the overalldevelopment effectiveness of large damsthroughout the world. In 1998, Focus wasinvited to join the WCD Forum, a referencegroup of about 70 local, national and interna-tional agencies, whose task was to monitor theoverall quality and direction of the Commis-sion’s work and process. As a Forum member,Focus staff reviewed and provided inputs to anumber of thematic studies on the social andeconomic impacts of large dams, and the publicparticipation and decision making processes thathave characterised large dam projects. Focusstaff also made a submission on public partici-pation at the Southeast Asia hearing of theCommission held in Vietnam in February, 2000,and have worked with the International Com-mission on Dams, Rivers and People (ICDRP),a broad based civil society network monitoringthe work of the WCD. An extremely importantaspect of Focus’ engagement in the WCD hasbeen to facilitate and support the inputs ofpeoples’ movements in dam affected areas intothe WCD study process, as well as provideinformation and updates about the WCD’s workto local-regional organisations and networks.Here, Focus has been particularly active withthe Assembly of the Poor in Thailand (inrelation to the Pak Mun dam) and the NarmadaCampaign in India. The WCD recentlylaunched its final report globally and regionally,and Focus was active in assisting regionalmovements of dam-affected peoples and otherconcerned NGOs in presenting their analyses ofthe WCD’s final report. Focus will continue towork with local, regional and internationalmovements and civil society organisations intracking the implementation of the WCD’srecommendations by governments and interna-tional institutions.

Focus expects to expand its research andadvocacy work to include Burma in the comingyears. Focus staff have increased contact withBurmese democracy groups based in Thailand,as well as selected international groups who areinterested in supporting research on alternativedevelopment strategies for Burma. Key areas tobe taken up initially will include: private andpublic investment in Burma, project financingtrends and arrangements, and the impacts of theabove on resource tenure regimes. In addition,greater attempts will be made to show the

empirical links between food and livelihoodinsecurity of ordinary people with increasedinternal militarisation within the country. Therole of external financing agencies will be alsobe scrutinised in relation to domestic and bordermilitarisation, and appropriate advocacystrategies will be developed through consulta-tion with the Burmese democracy movement.

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Thailand RegionalProgramme

T his year for Focus in Thailand can be char-acterized as the year of all out effort to put intopractice Focus’ overall policy of integrating thework under the Regional and Global ParadigmsProgram and the Micro-Macro Issues Linking Pro-gram as well as the Thailand Program strategy ofalliance-building and joint action with NGOs andacademic institutions on national policy issues.Two international events provided perfect oppor-tunities for the Thai civil society to become di-rectly engaged in learning about and analyzinglinks between local development issues and theglobal drive for trade and investment liberaliza-tion, as well as in advocacy work both at the na-tional, regional and international levels: the tenthUnited Nations Conference on Trade and Devel-opment (UNCTAD X) which was held in Bang-kok in February and the Annual Meeting of theAsian Development Bank (ADB) in Chiang Maiin May.

On the micro-level, the concerns of smallfarmers on their chronic indebtedness resultingfrom government export-oriented agriculturalpolicies and the initiatives of the people of KudChum community to deal with household debtand joblessness by launching their own commu-nity currency provided concrete capacitybuilding and advocacy opportunities fordeglobalisation.

Capacity building and advocacy

UNCTAD XStarting with a presentation of Focus analysesthat UNCTAD, as a democratic forum of 190member countries, has the potential to counter-act the WTO trade negotiations in the interestsof developing countries and their people, Focusconvened a consultative meeting with keyleaders of the NGO community and activeacademics and solicited their interest in workingtogether in order to push the UNCTAD agendafurther. As a result a “Civil Society WorkingGroup on UNCTAD X”, comprising representa-tives from 15 NGOs, including Focus, and 4academic institutions, established itself towardsthe end of 1999 with the objectives of promot-ing public awareness of the impact of tradeliberalization and facilitating broad-baseddialogue on issues concerning trade and devel-opment policies.

The Working Group, with RaevadeePrasertcharoensuk, Secretary-General of theNGO Coordinating Committee on Develop-ment, at the helm, worked almost full timeduring the 2-months period from mid December1999 to mid February 2000. 3 national levelconferences were organized which wereattended in all by over 500 grassroots repre-sentatives, government officials, academics,


students and NGO workers and the local press.Presentations and discussion were conducted ona variety of issues under the conference themesof “From Seattle to Bangkok: UNCTAD X”,“Thailand’s stakes in UNCTAD X”, “Free Tradein Agriculture and Thai Farmers”. Recommen-dations from these fora were compiled by theWorking Group and formally presented to theThai government delegation to UNCTAD X in aspecially-requested meeting chaired by theForeign Minister.

Apart from attending the international NGOPlenary Caucus to deliberate on civil societyinput into UNCTAD, the Working Group alsocollaborated with international organizations,notably the International South Group Networkand the International Council of Social Welfare,to convene a 3-day civil society forum entitled“Alternatives to Neo-Liberalism” in order toprovide learning opportunities for Thai NGOs,people’s organizations and academics on globalissues involving the impact of neo-liberalglobalization such as public debt cancellation,the Agreement on Agriculture, core labourstandards, human rights instruments as guidingprinciples, etc.

The Assembly of the Poor decided to organize adaily demonstration in front of the conference inorder to ensure that their point of view againstthe current so-called free trade was taken noteof by the international delegates. This helpedattract a great deal of attention. Focus staff’srole in facilitating their meeting with interesteddelegates and press conference constituted oneconcrete aspect of our micro-macro issueslinking task.

During the whole period, there was an over-whelming response in the local Thai andEnglish media, both print and electronic.Articles, news items, interviews and livedebates appeared almost daily on the subject offree trade and the WTO and the forces andimpact of globalization in general. The NGOstatement to UNCTAD was translated into Thaiand published in full in a progressive daily“Manager” with free copies made available tothe hundreds of Thai delegates and participantsat the conference venue. The Civil SocietyWorking Group definitely achieved its objec-tives of raising public awareness the negative

The Asian Development BankThe NGO-Coordinating Committee took a moreconfrontational stance when it came to dealingwith the Asian Development Bank. Smallfarmers in the Northern Region, who weremembers of the 10 watershed conservationgroups, reacted strongly against the pressurefrom the ADB for the government to imposeuser fees on water use for agricultural purposesas part of their Agricultural Sector Reform LoanProgram. NGO-COD therefore moved to utilizethe ADB Annual Meeting held in Chiang Mai inMay to advocate against the trends towardscommodification and corporatisation of naturalresources and social services, especially healthand education, which were apparent in theCountry Assistance Plan of the ADB.

The Thailand program and the Southeast AsianTransition Economies Program of Focusworked together to link the mobilization of theThai NGOs and 38 local people’s organizationsagainst the ADB with the existing region-wideNGO Forum on the ADB, which normallyorganized an NGO meeting alongside the ADBmeeting to provide input into ADB program-ming. The resulting “People’s Forum 2000”was a vibrant exchange forum with a widerange of activities. Members of the NGOForum on the ADB gave presentations on the

Demonstrations by Assembly of the Poor in front of theUNCTAD X conference venue

side of globalization and the need to re-thinkseriously about trade and financial liberalizationpolicies.

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ADB’s past record in Bangladesh, Pakistan andthe Philippines; ADB plans for the Sub-regional Economic Zones and the energy sectorwere analysed by Towards Ecological Recoveryand Regional Alliance (TERRA) and Focus; ameeting was set up between ADB ExecutiveDirectors and 200 affected residents of theKhlong Daan District on the disputed WasteWater Treatment Project funded partly by anADB loan; and finally the 2,000 participants’demands were formally presented to the VicePresident of the ADB who was sent by thePresident to attend the session in response to theinvitation of the Forum’s host organizations.

Focus Thailand’s main input for the majorityThai participants at the People’s Forum was acompilation, translation, and dissemination of1,000 copies of an 80-page dossier containingbackground materials on the ADB and critiquesof various aspects of its policies. Focus staff, asin the case of the UNCTAD X, played a liaisonrole between the Thai protesters outside theADB meeting venue and the regional membersof the NGO Forum on the ADB that attendedthe various workshops hosted by the ADB.

Gender and macroeconomicsThe Thai Program and the SEATE Programjointly organized a 2-day workshop on Genderand Macroeconomic Policies in June in coop-eration with the Centre of Political EconomyStudies of Chulalongkorn University. The well-known feminist economist, Dr Diane Elson, inher capacity as UNIFEM advisor, kindlydonated her time to act as key resource personin the workshop. There was a good responsefrom women’s rights activists among the NGOsand academia and 70 participants turned up tohear Dr Elson’s presentations on“gender bias in macroeconomics”, “the careeconomy” and “gender budgeting” and dis-cussed possible actions in advocating gender-mainstreaming in social and economic policiesin Thailand.

At a later major national-level women’s confer-ence organized by women’s organizations,Shalmali Guttal of Focus was invited to speakon “Women and Globalization”. At this confer-ence, it was agreed to establish a “People’sAlliance for the Advancement of Women” with

the objectives of strengthening the existinginformal networks among women’s NGOs,national-level women’s organizations, commu-nity-level women’s groups and other committedindividuals with some formal structures as wellas broadening the network to include moregrassroots level organizations The goal is toproduce stronger voices in policy dialogue andadvocacy. The concept of “gender budgeting”presented by Dr. Elson is very much on theAlliance’s agenda.

Public debt and farmers’ debtA seminar entitled “Solutions to Public Debtand Farmers’ Debt” was organized in Septemberby Thai Development Support Committee(TDSC) and Rural Alumni and Friends Associa-tion (RRAFA), both key Focus partners, as acapacity building activity for 50 farmersbelonging to various farmers’ groups andcooperatives. Focus Thailand staff acted asresource person on the issues of developmentand public debt and the global campaign ondebt cancellation and also as facilitator in groupdiscussion. For Focus, this seminar was seen asa preparation for participants to take part in theup-coming Asia-Pacific Jubilee South Summitto be held in Bangkok the following month withFocus as host organization.

In the seminar, government officials from theRevenue Department and the Public DebtManagement Office presented the country’spublic debt situation, in which internal debt hasoutweighed external debt, and governmentpolicies of developing a local bond market aswell as increasing the tax base to deal with on-going budget deficits. According to them,nationalization of private debt was the result ofa law that guaranteed 100% recovery of allprivate deposits “which no other country had”.The Deputy Manager of the Bank for Agricul-ture and Agricultural Cooperatives, the majorcreditor for farmers’ debt, presented BAAC’spolicies and criteria on debt cancellation andrestructuring on a case by case basis, to whichfarmers responded that out of 30,000 casesproposed by the Northeastern Assembly ofSmall Farmers only 67 received debt deferment.


Farmers’ debt as a result of export-orientedagricultural development policy and externaldebt that was tied up with policyconditionalities became the main concernsexpressed by the Thai participants in the Asia-Pacific Jubilee South Summit later in October.A strong statement was made by VeeraponSopa, an ex-farmer and representative of theCoalition of Farmers for Debt Cancellation, thatany consideration of the issue of debt anddevelopment in Asia has to include agriculturaldebt which affects a very large number of Asianpopulation. He has agreed to join the coordinat-ing committee of the new Asia-Pacific Coalitionon Debt and Development, of which Focus isalso a member.

Thai community currency systemsproject (TCCS)The Thai Community Currency Systems Project(TCCS) project has, for the last two years,explored ways to implement a CCS in Thailand.It works as follows: those who want to becomemembers of the CCS go to the community bankwhere they can open an account. They canwithdraw community currency, interest free,from this account. The money is in the form of anote called ‘Bia’, named after a seashell used ascurrency before the introduction of metal coins.These notes carry pictures of culturally andsocially significant events designed by localschool children, symbolising the fact that thismoney does not carry just a monetary value. Bywithdrawing ‘Bia’, money has been createdwhich can then be used with whomever wantsto accept it. It should be noted that the ‘Bia’ canbe spent by villagers who are not members ofthe system (who do not have an account),however, it can not be spent outside the commu-nity. It is unlikely that somebody who livesoutside the community, would actually acceptthe ‘Bia’ unless she is a regular visitor.

The CCS organisers, believe that communitymembers will be able to rely on ‘Bia’ for theirexchange of local goods and services, therebyreducing national currency expenses anddependency on credit. Furthermore, the ‘Bia’will circulate within the community, creatingmore economic activity, as opposed to thenational currency which leaves the communityvery quickly in its search for higher profits. In

effect the use of ‘Bia’ stops the leaking ofresources from the community. If villagerschoose to increase their use of ‘Bia’, an incen-tive will have been created to support localeconomic activities. This would make invest-ments in, for example, herbal production andindigenous knowledge more likely.

It should be stressed that the CCS organisers donot seek to isolate the pilot villages from theouter world. CCS are a tool to increase bargain-ing power in trade relations with other marketsby first strengthening the local economic base.One might suggest that a CCS could be under-mined by free-riders (cheaters), but experienceso far has shown that social controls preventthis from happening. Nevertheless to preventproblems in the initial phases the organisershave decided that a credit limit be imposed onthe amount members can withdraw from theiraccounts. By turning this argument on its head,a strong case can be made that the co-operationand trust which the process of establishing aCCS engenders is vital to the accumulation ofsocial capital.

The community started to use the currencysystem for the first time in March 2000. Its useattracted much attention from the mass media.Some, particularly government officials, fearedthe use of bia might violate the law or could bea danger to national security. The Bank ofThailand concluded that the use of Bia KudChum violated Article 9 of the Currency Act of1958 and Article 9 of the Commercial BankingAct of 1962. As a result, the Bia Kud Chumworking committee was forced to suspend theuse of bia and decided to change the name ofthe system from ‘bia Bank’ to the ‘CommunitySelf-Reliance Development Group’. They alsosolicited the help of the Law Society of Thai-land to support them in submitting a request tothe Minister of Finance to review their case.

Though the community currency has beenformally suspended; however, the villagersdecided to informally (with out the approval ofthe authority) circulate the bia again in the laterpart of 2000. Even though the use of bia is stillvery limited, it has shown that it is a tool topromote an alternative community-based self-reliant economy. Some villagers started to shifttheir consumption patterns from using the baht

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(national currency) only to buy products fromoutside the community to bia and buy goodswhich are locally produced.

Though several meetings and discussions, thevillagers, the Board and the core group decidedthat an action research project on the use of thecommunity currency system or the bia isneeded. So that, a larger group of people canhave a better understanding of this communitysystem; also, the strength and weakness of thissystem in the rural context can be identified.Moreover, the research project would allow theuse of bia which without violating the law.

Asian regional conference on sustain-able agricultureFocus was involved in the planning and organis-ing of South East Asian Regional Conference onSustainable Agriculture in collaboration withthe Asian Partnership for Human Development(APHD). There were around 40 farmers andNGO staffs from several South East Asiancountries participated in this conference. Thisevent provided the opportunity for people at thegrassroots level to exchange experiences and tobuild up their capacity in analysing the linkagebetween globalisation and their lives.

Field research and capacitybuilding

Three years after the financial crisisFocus staff revisited the Three Northern Thai-land communities in order to study changes thatmight have taken place within the space of twoand a half years after the first field study reportwas written about them at the beginning of1998. The overall picture showed that situationcontinued to worsen.

Net income from baby corn, a major export cropof Mae Tha area, continued to fall due to fallingprices and rising costs. There was morecompetition among school leavers for limitedjob openings at the Lamphun Industrial Estate.Farmers who went into debt to send theirchildren onto secondary or higher level educa-tion could expect lower returns on their invest-ment or none at all.

As a result of the field study, it was felt thatcommunities like Mae Tha, which has been intransition from an agrarian system of productionto suppliers of food for export agribusinesses aswell as labour for export manufacturers in theprovince, could benefit from micro-macroissues linking activities in order to strengthentheir capacity to deal with the changing situa-tions and develop their own activities andprogram to resolve their problems more effec-tively.

The first workshop on community analysis was,therefore, organized in Mae Tha community byFocus, in cooperation with the Office of Thai-land Research Fund for Development, a govern-ment institution, and facilitated by Dr UthaiDulayakasem, an external consultant. This wasattended by the women’s group, youth group,alternative agriculture group and formal com-munity leaders, numbering 40 participants. Inanalyzing the community situation, the work-shop concluded that there has been a netoutflow of all types of resources from thecommunity, be they natural, social, human andfinancial. The decentralization process of thegovernment has also meant that the communityhas been even more controlled by administra-tive rules and regulations mandated by thecentral government; the few remaining deci-sions at the sub-district level can made only bythe elected sub-district council members.Community-wide consultation and directparticipation in planning and implementingcommunity projects has become a thing of thepast. It was decided that the Office of ResearchFund for Development would work with theyouth group to conduct further participatoryresearch into the situation of household debt andits impact on their capacity to work together fortheir own well-being.

The social agenda working groupThe Working Group, comprising several NGOsand Three academic institutions based atChulalongkorn University and Focus, whichwas born in 1998 out of concerns about theeffectiveness of government policies andprograms to alleviate the impact of economiccrisis on the disadvantaged groups in society,this year joined forces with the “Civil SocietyWorking Group on UNCTAD X” to look into


the human impact of globalization in general,and then with the NGO-COD to monitor thesocial sector reform program of the AsianDevelopment Bank.

Towards the end of the year, the Working Groupheld a meeting to assess the country situation interms of social policies and review the workinggroup’s role and potential in promoting policydialogues between NGOs and people’s organi-zations and government agencies. It wasdecided that the Working Group should con-tinue with an emphasis on monitoring theimplementation of the recommendations thatcame out of the UN General Assembly SpecialSession or Social Summit Plus Five. RaneeHassarungsee, who works half-time for Focus,will work part-time with the Working Group asa coordinator to plan and administer programsof the Working Group for next year.

The NGO members of the Working Group, i.e.Foundation for Women (FFW), The Foundationfor Children’s Development (FCD), AromPongpangan Foundation (labour issues) andThai Development Support Committee (TDSC),participated in the process of drafting the“People’s Agenda” organized by the NGO-COD, which culminated in a large multi-sectoral national conference in December tolaunch the Agenda in public. The WorkingGroup would therefore also take up policyissues arising out of contradictions between thePeople’s Agenda and the National Economicand Social Development Plans in order to planfield research to gather information and toorganize a roundtable discussions with academ-ics and government officials on such issues.

Information disseminationFocus continued to contribute an article everymonth to the newly-improved NGO newsletter“Prachathat” that analyzed the links betweenmicro and macro issues, such as debt, poverty,social development and capital controls, etc. Itturned out that this monthly commitment ismore than other Thai NGOs can afford. TDSChad problems filling the allotted space to issuesof political ecology, agriculture and localwisdom because the responsible NGOs couldnot produce the expected amount of writing ona regular basis on top of their normal work load.

As a result, the publishing of each newsletterwere delayed. This problem was being dis-cussed among the contributing NGOs in orderto seek more practical and viable solutions.

On Focus part, other channels for informationdissemination, were already utilized more thisyear. Three articles were published in Thai in alocal newspaper “Matichon” and“Pacharayasara” magazine. Three Thai lan-guage issues of Focus Files were published anddistributed to participants in the above-men-tioned capacity workshops and seminars. Focusstaff also made presentations in a few seminarsat the invitation of NGOs as well as governmentagencies.

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India Programme

M icro-macro linkingprogramme

Economic and financial liberalisation

Andhra reform programmeMonitoring and capacity BuildingSince 1998, Focus-India Programme (IP) hasbeen working with Centre for EnvironmentConcerns (CEC) and its network of organisa-tions in the southern Indian State of AndhraPradesh in the area of capacity building,advocacy and analysis, to mobilize people forcritiquing the macroeconomic as well assectoral reform processes that have beenundemocratically thrust on the people and moreso the marginalised in Andhra Pradesh by theirState Government in coordination with theWorld Bank and other bilateral/multilateraldonor agencies. Carrying this process forwardin the year 2000, representatives from CEC andvarious mass-based groups in Andhra Pradesh,participated in the National Consultation:“Globalisation, Liberalisation and Privatisationin the Indian Context – Possible Directions forCollective Action” organised at Mumbai duringthe months of July and August. During Decem-ber 2000, Focus-IP along with Prayas-EnergyGroup, Pune, organised a workshop:“Understanding Power Sector Reforms inIndia”, where activists from Andhra Pradesh

were invited to share their critique of reformprocess in the power sector with activists fromthe states of Maharashtra, Haryana, MadhyaPradesh, Tamil Nadu and Gujarat. This eventalso provided these activists to share theirconcerns with regulators from the CentralElectricity Regulatory Authority and the StateRegulatory Commissions of Andhra Pradeshand Maharashtra.

Capacity building workshop on MDBs &processes of globalisation, liberalisation andprivatisation

Building capacities of activists and analystsfrom organisations serving different constituen-cies at different levels for critiquing theneoliberal framework and the socioeconomicand political impacts of policies based on thesame at the multilateral, regional, national andsub-national levels, has been the thrust ofactivities under this head. During the year 2000,Focus-IP undertook several such initiativesindividually or with the help of other organisa-tions and also piggybacked such activities withits other major events including the NationalConsultation of July-August, 2000. Some of theefforts include


• Address to a gathering of students at theTata Institute of Social Sciences on variousdimensions of globalisation in February2000

• Unraveling various issues pertaining toglobalisation and the functioning of themultilateral development banks at aworkshop organised by CRY (Child Reliefand You) for its partner organisations.

• Activation on NGO Working Group onMDBs in collaboration with CEC, Founda-tion for Public Interest, Society for Partici-patory Research in Asia (PRIA), Youth forUnity and Voluntary Action (YUVA) andFocus-IP.

• Conducting sessions at a refresher courseattended by around 30 lecturers from socialwork institutes located in different States,at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences.

• Presentation on the impact of liberalisation,globalisation and privatisation on employ-ment and employment opportunities at theworkshop organised by ‘Anubhav Shiksha’for students and activists.

• Discussion to a group of activists workingwith the scheduled caste and scheduledtribe communities at Dahiwadi (a village inMaharashtra) elaborating the impacts ofglobalisation, liberalisation and privatisa-tion at the village level

• Staff from Focus-IP and Focus Bangkokaddressed a group of 30 participants fromSouth Asian civil society groups on MDBsand debates surrounding globalisation,liberalisation and privatisation atPROSHIKA, Bangladesh

• Lecture to a gathering of activists attendingthe “National Conference on HumanRights, Social Movements, Globalisationand the Law” at Panchagani, Maharashtraas part of the workshop: “New EconomicPolicy and the Marginalised Communities”organised by Focus-IP

Follow up of the feminist economist workshop

This workshop was organised in January 2000to understand and critically evaluate the genderdimensions associated with impacts of liberali-sation, globalisation and privatisation at theinternational, national and the sub-nationallevels. The report of this workshop was circu-

lated to the participants and other interestedindividuals for their comments. Among theinteresting set of suggestions that emerged atthis Workshop, one was pertaining to create abetter understanding on making the budgets atthe state and national level more gender sensi-tive. It is in the context of this suggestion thatFocus-IP and the Tata Institute of SocialSciences organised a meeting in June 2000 on‘Gender and Budget Analysis’. In order tocreate a public awareness on the impact ofeconomic, social and political processesunleashed as a result of neoliberal agenda, onwomen, especially those belonging to themarginalised communities, Focus-IP had invitedProf. Ritu Dewan, University of Mumbai toaddress this issue at its workshop: “NewEconomic Policy (NEP) and the MarginalisedCommunities” which was organised a part ofthe proceedings of the “National Conference onHuman Rights, Social Movements,Globalisation and the Law” at Panchagani,Maharashtra during December 2000.

Security and conflict

Participation & support to civil society initia-tives in South Asia region

The nuclear rivalry between India and Pakistanthat escalated after the Pokhran experiment (aseries of controlled nuclear explosions in thePokhran Desert) of India in May 1998 andstrong urging of key participants at the SecondCASAP Conference were instrumental inbringing the South Asia region within thepurview of the Security Programme of Focus.The further escalation of tensions between Indiaand Pakistan due the ‘Kargil’ episode (whenIndia and Pakistan came close to war in Kash-mir) vindicated Focus’ decision to address thesecurity concerns of the region in a collectiveand an innovative manner.

The work in this regard has unfolded via theSouth Asia Peace Coalition of which Focus-IPis the secretariat and the National Coalition forNuclear Disarmament and Peace, where we areon the National Coordination Committee. FocusIndia Programme has provided support to thecivil society initiatives and linked with the Pak-India Forum for Peace and Democracy by

35 / an n u a l r e p o r t 2 0 0 0

becoming a member of the same and withsupport from other organizations is workingextensively on the critical concerns of theregion.

Focus-IP with other bodies organised theNational Convention for Nuclear Disarmamentduring November 11-13, 2000 at New Delhi,which provided groups from various corners ofthe country to deliberate on constructing amoral, legal, political case against nuclearweapons. The deliberations ended with theadoption of an Action Plan and Interim Charterand election of the Co-ordination Committee.The Action Plan includes a number of pro-grammes including advocacy and lobbying withpolitical parties, “twinning” of 10 anti-nuclearweapon schools and colleges in India andPakistan, institutionalising a “Nuclear Disarma-ment and Peace Week” from August 4th – 10thevery year, setting up national federation ofradiation victims, besides enhancing the SouthAsian peace movement’s presence in Interna-tional Peace Forums.

New economic policy (NEP) and its impact onnatural resources & marginalised communitieswith a focus on scheduled caste and scheduledtribe and women

This study is an effort to expose the rhetoric that“NEP in the Indian context has actually deliv-ered, irrespective of the socioeconomic andpolitical background of different sections ofsociety”. In order to understand the variousfacets of issues surrounding scheduled caste(SC) and scheduled tribe (ST) communities andmore so in order to reach out them effectively,Focus-IP is collaboratively carrying out thisexercise with Samajik Nyay Pratisthan (SNP),an organisation that works with these communi-ties in different districts of Maharashtra. Tomake the study representative and relevant,Focus-IP and SNP have had several rounds ofdiscussions with activists working on this issuein Maharashtra before putting forward aquestionnaire for surveying around 3000 SC/SThouseholds in Maharashtra. At present, thesample survey and collection of relevantliterature is in progress.

Micro-macro steering group meetings-two in ayear

Such meetings took place in the form of fringemeetings during the National Consultationorganised at the end of July 2000. During thesemeetings, the Bangkok as well as the India staffof Focus could meet the partners of the IndiaProgramme to get a better perspective of theIndian socioeconomic as well as securityproblems. Furthermore it also allowed Focus-IPan opportunity to evaluate its performance interms of identifying issues and analysing thesame from the perspective of the marginalisedclasses.

Regional and global paradigmsprogramme

Economic and financial liberalisation

National consultation

The National Consultation: “Globalisation,Liberalisation and Privatisation in the IndianContext – Possible Directions for CollectiveAction” was organised during July 31-August01, 2000 at Mumbai. Around 70 participantsfrom mass based organisations, peoples groups,voluntary organisations, consumer groups,grassroots outfits and others participated in thisevent.

The programme agenda was formulated with aview to help participants critically evaluate theimpact of decisions being taken at internationalplatforms on policy sovereignty at the nationaland sub-national levels. Hence the first twosessions were dedicated to these issues. Onproviding such grounding, the programme thencentered on issues of national concern, espe-cially in the context of second generationreforms. This was an effort to make participantsunderstand how democratic deficit in decision-making processes at the national level whileadopting industrial, trade, regulatory, fiscal ormonetary reforms negatively impacts setting upof developmental priorities. In terms of lookingat state level reforms from the sectoral dimen-sion, speakers critically evaluated the reforms inthe power sector - a sector that has experienced


Security and conflict

South Asia security conference – follow up andsetting up of CASAP

The South Asia and Southeast Asia PeaceActivist’s Conference was organised on 18th-20th February, Dhaka, Bangladesh. The finalnarrative report of the conference was preparedby the India office and widely distributed. Thekey elements of the outcome of the conferencewere even published in Focus Files and in apartner organisation’s publication Anubhav (inthe English edition).

As a follow up to this activity Focus-IP activelyco-ordinated with other bodies to organise theNational Convention (describe above). After theNational Convention in Delhi on 11th – 13thNovember 2000 some of the participants fromthe South Asia region met to discuss theformation of the South Asia Peace Coalition.This was the first meeting organized after theDhaka Conference in February 2000. Focus-IPis now the secretariat of the South Asia PeaceCoalition and Minar Pimple is an ex-officiomember of the South Asia Peace Coalition. Themeeting outlined the process of the setting up ofthe formal coalition which shall finally takeplace after all the South Asian nations have hadsimilar national conventions as held in Delhiand nominated candidates for the same.

The major activities planned are revival ofSAARC, NWFZ, demanding specific state-ments from India and Pakistan on freezing thenuclear weapons, peace delegation to go aroundthe countries in the region and representation ofthe Coalition at South Asia Peoples’ Summit.Eminent peace activists like Karamat Ali, PrafulBidwai and Admiral Ramdas represented theCoalition at the South Asia Peoples’ Summit.Priority is being given to the peace delegationvisit to the neighbouring countries and theenergies of Varsha Rajan were spent in Decem-ber in organising the same. Admiral Ramdasrepresents Focus in the visit.

Another important dimension that has beenaddressed as a follow up to the Dhaka Confer-ence has been the initiative in the area of‘Gender and Security’, a part of the overalleffort made by Focus to come up with analternative security paradigm.

the most number of reform ‘shocks’. Keeping inview the objective of this event in the area ofcollective action, a two-hour session wasdedicated for discussion on this issue.

It also allowed Focus-IP to carry out a realitycheck with its partners in order to understandwhether Focus-India Programme was moving inthe right direction with respect to identifyingissues and making timely as well as necessaryand sufficient interventions, since its inception.It gave Focus-IP an opportunity to chart out aswell as discuss the relevance its future activitiesand partnerships an decide on a frameworkwhich would help in making its programmessharply focused, people driven and resultoriented, given the accelerated implementationof IMF/WB agenda by governments at nationaland sub-national levels. More so it also pro-vided an opportunity to the staff from theFocus-Bangkok Office to interact with Focus-India Programme partners, researchers andother activists for understanding the differentdimensions of problems that have emerged atthe national and sub-national level sinceneoliberal reforms were launched in 1991.

Reviewing the performance of the Asian Devel-opment Bank in the Indian context

This is one component of the study beingundertaken by Focus with respect to analysingthe impact of policies of the ADB at the macroas well as at the sectoral level. The aim is toshow that strategies being adopted by the ADBare the same as those propagated by the WorldBank and supported by the IMF with theobjective to strengthen the neoliberal frame-work in the host countries, more so in anundemocratic manner.

The India paper concentrates on exposing howmacroeconomic perceptions of the ADB aboutthe Indian economy have made them come towrong conclusions about various issues includ-ing poverty reduction.

37 / an n u a l r e p o r t 2 0 0 0

Culture and globalisation

Scoping paper on undertaking Hindu right’sresponse to globalisation

After India launched on the programme ofeconomic reforms various anti globalisationorganisations and movements from differentsocial bases have emerged with varying agenda.The most prominent being the SwadeshiJagaran Manch (SJM) belonging to theRashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh family oforganisations. We have witnessed in recentyears some of the secular and progressiveminded social activists joining the ranks withSJM, which is a cause of concern. On one hand,SJM from the Hindu right opposes globalisationwhile the Student Islamic Movement (SIM)opposes globalisation from the Muslim rightperspective. Thus Focus-IP felt that it wascritical to understand this phenomenon in moredepth to arrive at an analysis of emerging socialforces. A researcher has been recruited to workon the issue and produce a paper in threemonths.


Organisation Managementand Development

The year was one of consolidation of manage-ment systems and policies, funding and person-nel. It was also a year of hard work and commit-ment from all our staff, Board members, support-ers and partners. We would like to acknowledgeand thank everyone for their invaluable individualand collective contributions to our work.

Finances

This was the first year of Focus’ 2000-2002three-year work plan. Much of the first half ofthe year was spent in discussions with fundersto set in place a sound financial base for thenext three years’ work. By mid year, more than60 per cent of our core funding for the three-year plan had been secured, and our supportbase expanded. Most funders have agreed toprovide general programme support on a multi-year basis. We believe this reflects their confi-dence in Focus’ programme and we appreciatethe opportunity this provides for long termplanning and flexible and integrated programmedevelopment.

A complete list of donors for 2000 is listed atthe end of this report.

Focus’ finance manager Praphai Jundee visitedour offices in Mumbai, India and Manila,

Philippines to review financial systems andassist in establishing more coherent practicesbetween offices.

Staff

Several new staff joined Focus in 2000, fillingseveral key positions. Anoop Sukumaran camefrom PRIA in New Delhi to manage ourinformation technology and communicationssystems, while Jacques chai Chomthongdi camefrom the Catholic Commission for Developmentin Thailand (CCTD) to work as a researcherlinking the Thai country programme with theParadigms trade and financial liberalisationprogramme. Both have made a significant andvalued contribution in a very short time.

Marco Mezzera relocated from Bangkok toSingapore and is now the principal researcherfor the Cultural Responses to GlobalisationProject.

Parinya Boonridrerthaikul joined for threemonths at the end of 2000 while our administra-tive manager Soontaree was on maternity leave.Congratulations to Soontaree and her family onthe birth of their third child, a boy, in Septem-ber. Soontaree returned from leave at thebeginning of 2001. Congratulations also to

39 / an n u a l r e p o r t 2 0 0 0

At the staff retreat

individuals were invited to join and we arepleased that they all agreed. They are PeterRosset from Food First (formerly a Focusfellow), Binny Buchori from INFID (Indone-sia), Nguyen Van Thanh from the Vietnam andAlejandro Bendana from International SouthGroup Network and Jubilee South, Nicaragua.We warmly welcome them to Focus. Sadly, bothSara Larain from Chile and Charles Abugrefrom Ghana both found it necessary to resignfrom the Board due to other commitments anddemands. We would like to thank them for theircontribution to Focus. We would also like tothank the “old” Board members who continue toprovide greatly valued intellectual, moral andpolitical support and advice to us all.

Board members 2000

Alejandro BendanaISGN, Nicaragua (new member 2000)Amara PongsapichDirector, Chulalongkorn University Social

Research Institute, ThailandBinny BuchoriINFID, Indonesia (new member 2000)Charles AbrugeThird World Network Africa (resigned 2000)Gothom Arya(Chair of Focus Board) National Electoral

Commission, ThailandJosefa FranciscoDevelopment Alternatives for Women in the

New Era (DAWN), PhilippinesLeonor BrionesUniversity of the Philippines, Philippines (on

leave 2000)

Parinya who won a fellowship to undertake ahuman rights internship in Geneva.

Chris Adams took leave from Community AidAbroad (Oxfam Australia) to be a visitingresearcher with Focus and Naina Shakyaworked in Manila on a joint project with Savethe Children Fund UK on the impact of theAsian financial crisis on women and children.

Management, staff developmentand policies

The Focus management team consists ofWalden Bello, Shalmali Guttal and NicolaBullard, while Minar Pimple and Joy Chavezare responsible for managing the Mumbai andManila offices. Praphai Jundee is responsiblefor finances and Soontaree Nakaviroj foradministration.

The annual Focus staff retreat was held at HuaHin in late May. This was probably the mostdynamic and constructive retreat to date, wherewe not only reached agreements on severaloutstanding issues of staff policy and practice,but also built a much deeper understanding andconsensus on Focus’ framework and direction.There was also significant progress on pro-gramme integration and developing synergiesbetween staff, across programmes and regions.

In August, Minar Pimple visited the Bangkokoffice to assist in reviewing all position descrip-tions and staff policy. This culminated in a two-day staff meeting during which many issueswere finalised. Focus now has a staff policyvalid until the end of 2001 outlining salaries andconditions grounded firmly in the principle ofequity between staff and between countries.

Of particular importance was our decision toconsciously and consistently provide opportuni-ties for training and exposure through participa-tion in events and meetings for new and youngstaff.

Focus Board

At the meeting of the Executive Board in June itwas agreed to expand the Focus Board. Four


Mikyung LeeMember of the National Assembly, South

KoreaMuto IchiyoPeoples’ Plan for the 21st Century, JapanNguyen Van ThanhVUFO, Vietnam (new member 2000)Peter RossetFood First, USA/Mexico (new member 2000)Rajagopal P.V.Ekta Parishad, IndiaSara LarrainRenace, Chile (resigned 2000)

Advisers

Dr Victor KarunanSave the Children Fund UK, ThailandDr Martin KhorThird World Network, Malaysia

Executive Director

Dr Walden Bello

Staff 2000

• Aileen Kwa• Anoop Sukumaran• Chanida Chanyapate Bamford• Chirawatana Charoonpatarapong• Chris Adams• Jacques chai Chomthongdi• Jenina Joy Chavez-Malaluan• Marco Mezzera• Marissa de Guzman• Mayuree Ruechakieattikul• Minar Pimple• Nicola Bullard• Praphai Jundee• Raghav Narsalay• Ranee Hassarungsee• Shalmali Guttal• Sonila Shetty• Soontaree Nakarivoj• Varsha Rajan Berry

Anoop Sukumaran

Erratum: Governing Board members also inculdes Kamal Malhotra, Senior Advisor, UNDP, New York

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Prestigious awards go to Dr.Walden BelloBy Akbayan

Dr. Walden Bello, executive director of Focus on the Global South, has been awarded the Suh Sang Donprize for 2001. The University of the Philippines professor and national chairman of Akbayan, thePhilippine political party, evinced surprised at receiving one of Korea's most prestigious awards forcontributions to economic justice. "This was totally out of the blue. I didn't even know I was a con-tender," he said.

At the same time that Bello was receiving the award in Taegu, Korea, on Feb. 23, he was also named therecipient of the Chancellor's Prize for "Best Book" at the University of the Philippines in Diliman, QuezonCity. He received the award for A Siamese Tragedy: Development and Degradation in Modern Thailand(London: Zed, 1998), which was co-written by former Focus staff members Shea Cunningham and LiKheng Poh. The two awards came on the heels of his being named the recipient of the Denver GlobalPeace and Justice Award for 2000.

The Suh Sang Don award was established to recognize outstanding contributors to global economicjustice. Last year's awardee was Dr. Jagdish Bhagwati, the famous trade economist at Cloumbia Uni-versity. According to the awards committee, Bello was unanimously chosen this year by over 50 judgesdrawn from all walks of life, for his intellectual and activist work aimed at "ending the debt bondage ofdeveloping countries." The award is named after one of Korea's national heroes, who led the nationalcampaign to free the country from debt bondage in the 1920's.

Bello is one of the leading international critics of corporate-driven globalization. Much of his recentwork has been directed at ending the financial subjugation of developing countries and promoting alter-native development models that would be much less dependent on foreign capital. Over the last year, hehas been involved in face-to-face debates with Horst Kohler, managing director of the InternationalMonetary Fund (IMF), James Wolfensohn, president of the World Bank, and George Soros, the financier.In these confrontations and in his numerous writings, he has called not only for cancellation of the debtof developing countries on the grounds that they have been paid many times over but also for the aboli-tion or disempowerment of the IMF, World Bank, and the World Trade Organization (WTO).

Bello, who has a doctoral degree in sociology from Princeton University, first shot into prominence asprincipal author of Development Debacle: the World Bank in the Philippines (1982), which was anexpose of World Bank projects based on 3,000 pages of confidential documents that he and his col-leagues smuggled out of World Bank headquarters in Washington, DC. His Dragons in Distress: Asia'sMiracle Economies in Crisis (1991) was a detailed study of the structural weaknesses of the economiesof Korea, Taiwan, and Singapore that many critics hailed as "predicting" the Asian financial crisis of1997. His 1994 work Dark Victory: the US, Structural Adjustment, and Global Poverty is regarded as aclassic study of the economic and political rationales for IMF World Bank structural adjustment pro-grams imposed on over 90 developing and transition economies.

A recent article in the New Internationalist has this to say of Bello's intellectual influence: "Clear analy-sis and impressive scholarship have made him one of Asia's key progressive thinkers. Insistence onpeople-centered development grounded in ecological sustainability sets him apart from the elite consen-sus in Asia and is beginning to graner public support throughout the region."

Bello's intellectual work has been paralleled by a distinguished career of uncompromising activism. Hehit the news over a year ago, when he was beaten up by the Seattle police for participating in the streetdemonstrations against the third ministerial meeting of the World Trade Organization. Not only is hecurrently the national chairman of Akbayan; he is also executive director of Focus on the Global South,a research, analysis, and advocacy institute based in Bangkok, Thailand, that has become a leadingcenter against corporate-driven globalization. He is also currently chairperson of the board of GreenpeaceSoutheast Asia and a member of the board of the International Forum on Globalization and severalother international organizations.


Informationand Communication

Publications

Focus produces publications in both hard andelectronic format. Many of our publications areavailable on the website in high quality PDFfiles.

The Focus DossierOne of the highlights of the publications in2000 has been the creation of the “FocusDossier” series, booklets produced in conjunc-tion with key international and regional events.Listed below are the dossiers published in 2000.

1. Why reform of the WTO is the wrongAgenda: Four essays on four institutions,WTO, UNCTAD, IMF and the World Bank(February 2000)

2. Creating Poverty: the ADB in Asia (May2000)

3. Prague 2000: why we need todecommission the IMF and the WorldBank ( September 2000)

4. The transfer of wealth: debt and themaking of a global south ( October 2000)

5. Porto Alegre 2001

All the publications are downloadable from theFocus website: www.focusweb.org

BooksAnother major highlight of Focus publicationswas the book

Global Finance: New Thinking on RegulatingSpeculative Capital Markets, Edited by WaldenBello, Nicola Bullard & Kamal Malhotra,released in September 2000 by Zed books.Another book that was published was theReport of the Global Governace ProjectReimagining the Future: towards democraticgovernance, by Joseph A.Camilleri, KamalMalhotra And Majid Tehranian. This book wasproduced in collaboration with the departmentof Politics, La trobe University, Melbourne,Focus on the Global South, The Toda Institutefor Global Peace and Policy Research, Tokyoand Honolulu

Focus ArticlesThe articles produced by Focus Staff or collabo-rators of Focus which came out indifferent publications, including Focus publica-tions, can be accessed at the Focus website.

“Blowback:” a review essay on an academicdefector’s guide to America’s Asia policyby Walden Bello

A World Bank staffer’s odyssey in Kafka’sPrague

43 / an n u a l r e p o r t 2 0 0 0

ADB 2000: senior officials and internaldocuments paint institution in confusionby Walden Bello

All in the family: musical chairs in the neo-liberal establishmentby Chris Adams

Another one bites the dust: collateral damagein the battle for the Bankby Nicola Bullard

Asian Monetary Fund revival?by Kristen Nordhaug

Australia and the Asian Development Bank inthe Mekong regionby Charlie Pahlman

Balancing the power of moneyby Menno Salverda

Can workers beat globalisation?by David Bacon

China: the country the West loves to hateby Nicola Bullard

Civil society as global actor: promise andpitfallsby Walden Bello

Club 51: insecurity and global uncertaintyby Kuan-Hsing Chen

Dangerous liaisons: progressives, the right,and the anti-China trade campaignby Walden Bello and Anuradha Mittal

Davos 2000: an all-American show?by Walden Bello

Davos 2000: global Cconspiracy or capitalistcircus?by Walden Bello

Davos 2000: has Asia really rebounded?by Walden Bello

Euro-American rivalry poses challenge to Asiaand developing worldby Walden Bello

Fallacies of the renegotiation of the Ecuado-rian external debtby Alberto Acosta

From hegemonic insecurity to peoples’ secu-rity: an overviewby Mushakoji Kinhide

From Melbourne to Prague: the struggle for adeglobalized worldby Walden Bello

G-8 summit set for Japanese island that wantsU.S. outby Walden Bello

It’s time for ‘uncivil’ society to actby Nicola Bullard

Jurassic fund: should developing countriespush to decommission the IMF?by Walden Bello

Keeping debtors in place: debt relief under theenhanced HIPC intitiativeby Shalmali Guttal

Malaysian NGOs call on government to rejectlaunching of new WTO round.

Market access for LDCs: public relationsdisguised as developmentby Aileen Kwa

Meltzer report on Bretton Woods Twins buildscase for abolition but hesitatesby Walden Bello

Micro credit equals micro debtby Chanida Chanyapate Bamford

Mr Moore: shallow and defensive atUNCTAD Xby Aileen Kwa

No time for reformby Patrick Bond

Paradigms lostby Nicola Bullard

Paving the way to a new world: let us globalisethe struggle!


Payoff scandal hits ADB-backed powerprivatization in the Philippinesby Walden Bello

People’s conference calls for demilitarisationof Asia Pacific on the eve of G8 summit inOkinawa

People’s perspective of historyby Taira Osamu

Poverty, development and debtby Shalmali Guttal

Private profits at public costby Shalmali Guttal

Public consultation and participation in theNam Theun 2 hydroelectric project in the LaoPDR, submission to the World Commission onDams Southeast Asia regional consultationby Shalmali Guttal

Pursuing an agenda for development: the roleof civil society in the southby Shalmali Guttal

Redefine and practice our peace, our security,if they do theirsby Muto Ichiyo

Reflections in the streetsby Ranee Hassarungsee

Regional currency swap arrangement: a steptowards Asian Monetary Fund?by Walden Bello

Security: a comprehensive approachby Marco Mezzera and ChirawatanaCharoonpatarapong

‘Son of a commoner’ faces the Assembly of thePoorby Wipaphan Korkeatkachorn

Struggle against military bases in Okinawa –its history and current situationby Arasaki Moriteru

Struggle for a basic right to a livelihoodby Sanitsuda Ekachai

Thailand and ASEM: government’s interestsand civil society’s hesitationsby Marco G. Mezzera,Article published on the website of the Heinrich Boell

Stiftung: “ASED: Asia-Europe Dialogue”, 2000

The a la carte undertaking: a new form ofspecial and differential treatment?by Aileen Kwa

The AGM 2000: more losses than victoriesby Chris Adams

The Agreement on Agriculture: changerequires a hero’s journeyby Aileen Kwa

The armadillo and the chameleon: a caution-ary taleby Nicola Bullard

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations: apreliminary autopsyby Walden Bello

The challenge from the Korean peninsula:The North-South summit and the UnitedStates in East Asiaby Samsung Lee

The dirty underside of the land of smiles:power company “guardians” burn protestvillage

The end of imagination: the World Bank, theInternational Monetary Fund and povertyreductionby Shalmali Guttal

The human rights of children and womenunder the U.S. military administrationby Azat Eiko

The IMF’s Asian legacyby Jacques-chai Chomthongdi

The many uses of povertyby Shalmali Guttal

The Okinawa declaration

The Prague castle debate: a few questions for

45 / an n u a l r e p o r t 2 0 0 0

Mr. Wolfensohn and Mr. Kohlerby Walden Bello

The sledgehammer and the nutby Harrison George

The success of being Ddangerous: resistingfree trade & investment regimesby Gerard Greenfield

The turbulent and dismal record of WorldBank structural adjustment lending in thePhilippinesby Maria Teresa Diokno-Pascual

The United Nations shows its true coloursby Nicola Bullard

The WTO: boon or bane for the developingworld?

Time for ADB to own up to its responsibilityby Jenina Joy Chavez-Malaluan

Time for the ICFTU to move from anti-social(inter)national partnerships to a real globalsocial partnership?

Tough crowd for IMF, World Bank leaders inPragueby Steven Pearlstein, Washington Post

Towards a just, comprehensive, and sustain-able peace in the Asia-Pacific regionby Walden Bello

Trading the environmentby Shalmali Guttal

Transforming the global financial system: whyit is no longer possible to “square the circle”by Nicola Bullard

Transparency and institutional issues a yearafter Seattleby Aileen Kwa

Truth, postmodernism and historical revision-ism in Japan: reflections on Kokumin NoRekishiby Tessa Morris-Suzuki

UNCTAD and civil society: towards ourcommon goals

UNCTAD security ‘half-baked’by Harrison George

UNCTAD X: an opportunity lost?by Walden Bello

UNCTAD: time to lead, time to challenge theWTOby Walden Bello

Venezuelan elections offer hope of real reformby Mark Weisbrot

Washington and the demise of the “thirdwave” of democratisationby Walden Bello

Washington protests demoralize IMF andWorld Bankby Walden Bello

Who speaks for whom?by Shalmali Guttal

Why reform of the WTO is the wrong agendaby Walden Bello

Will WTO chief be sacrificial lamb?by Nicola Bullard

With friends like this, who needs enemiesby Nicola Bullard

Women and globalisation—some dey issuesby Shalmali Guttal

Women’s response to militaristic security: thecase of Aceh womenby Melani Budianta

Focus on TradeFocus on Trade is a monthly electronic bulletinproviding updates and analysis of trends inregional and world trade and finance, with anemphasis on analysis of these trends from anintegrative, interdisciplinary viewpoint that issensitive not only to economic issues, but alsoto ecological, political, gender and social issues.


The bulletin is well-received and presently hasabout 4,000 subscribers. It is also re-posted onseveral other lists and several articles have beentranslated into French and German for theATTAC network. Focus on Trade is posted onthe website in both HTML and the PDF format,and all back issues can be found on the site.

We are also very pleased that Focus on Trade isnow available in Spanish. This was the initiativeof Gerard Coffey, an activist living in Ecuador,and he now translates the bulletin regularly.Enfoque Sobre Comercio is also posted on theFocus website.

If you wish to subscribe to either version, pleasesend an email to [email protected].

Focus on SecurityFocus-on-Security is an electronic bulletinservice providing analysis, news briefs, andinformation on NGO activities related topressing security issues in Asia Pacific. It has ahighly targeted audience of 500 people. Focuson Security can also be viewed from the Focuswebsite. Visitors can also see back issues of thebulletin from the site.

Focus on PhilippinesFocus on the Philippines is an electronicnewsletter, focusing mainly on Philippine newsand issues brought out by the Philippine officeof Focus on the Global South. Focus on thePhilippines can also be viewed from the Focuswebsite. Visitors can also see back issues of thebulletin from the site.

Focus FilesFocus Files are produced by the Focus IndiaOffice (please see the India report for details)and also in Thai by the staff in Bangkok

The Focus WebsiteThe Focus website underwent a completeoverhaul in September 2000. An attempt hasbeen made to include all of Focus’s work on thewebsite. Printed publications from Focus also

have an electronic version on the website inPDF format, and these publications can bedownloaded free from the site. The Focuswebsite is designed so that web surfers withrelatively older browsers and technology canaccess the web site without losing out on itsinteractivity. The web site will soon incorporatefeatures which would be friendly to text readingsoftware used by surfers who are visuallyimpaired.

The traffic to the website has been increasingtremendously. In the four months September toDecember 2000, the Focus website had 176,965successful hits, an average of 748 per day.

47 / an n u a l r e p o r t 2 0 0 0

General management & Administration

National & Regional Micor-Macro Programme - India

National & Regional Micro-Macro Programme - SEATES

Natioanl & Regional Micro-Macro Programme - Thailand

National & Regional Micro-Macro Programme-Regional/

Global & others

Economic & Fianncial Liberalization

Security & Conflict

State, Markets & Civil Society

Culture & Globalization

Publications and Resources Center

Sub Total

Conference : UNCTAD X Feb'00

Conference : Nuclear conf-Dhaka, Bangladesh Feb'00

Conference : Okinawa conf.Jun'00

Professional Fee

Interest income

Other income

Revenue over Expenses 2000

Opening Balance Jan. 1,2000

Total

Financial Report Period January - December'2000***

Comparison of Revenue, Expenses and Budget

Budget* Exp.Actual Var.fr.Budget Revenue Rev.over Exp

Amount in USD.**

* Budget does not include Labour conference USD. 60,000 Postponed to March 2001

** Exchange rate 1 USD. = 37 BHT. (same rate as used in the Work Plan)

*** Does not include Phillipines funds which are direct through the country

Glossary

Exp.Actual = Actaul Expenditure

Var.fr.Buget = Variance from Budget

Rev.over.exp = Revenue over expenditure

80,254.00 74,305.01 5,948.99 65,274.10 9,030.92

77,354.00 74,210.15 3,143.85 65,276.63 8,933.53

76,058.00 49,949.88 26,108.12 42,166.21 7,783.67

79,301.00 62,606.83 16,694.17 54,135.13 8,471.70

83,390.00 66,900.97 16,489.03 58,300.75 8,600.22

135,527.00 86,747.23 48,779.77 82,375.40 7,371.83

47,137.00 37,113.74 10,023.26 73,767.03 36,653.29

34,128.00 19,572.72 14,555.28 21,213.93 1,641.21

31,013.00 21,250.43 9,762.57 15,684.30 5,566.13

68,835.00 57,897.07 10,937.93 48,919.91 8,977.15

712,997.00 550,554.04 162,442.96 527,113.38 -23,440.66

40,000.00 34,595.73 5,404.27 21,592.85 -13,002.88

60,000.00 48,131.72 11,868.28 30,100.78 -18,030.94

60,000.00 35,032.60 24,967.40 5,289.19 -29,743.41

4,386.88 4,386.88

7,569.72 7,569.72

1,094.84 1,094.84

- 71,166.48

274,518.13

872,997.00 668,314.08 204,682.92 597,147.63 203,351.68


Christian Aid, UKCORDAID (Bilance), The NetherlandsDevelopment and Peace, CanadaFord Foundation, USAHIVOS, The NetherlandsInter Pares, CanadaNOVIB, The NetherlandsOxfam America, USAOxfam Hong KongOxfam Great BritainSolidago Foundation, USAThe United Methodist Church, USATrocaire, Republic of Ireland

We would also like to thank the followingorganizations for supporting the conferencesand specific projects.

Heinrich Boell FoundationInstitute of International EducationThe World Council of ChurchesUNIFEM Bread for AllMac Arthur FoundationUNCTAD

Core Funders 2000

Anoop Sukumaran

Erratum: Core funders also includes Department for International Development, (DFID) U.K.

Documents

Contents...Unfortunately, instead of bridging the gap between the two sides, the debate widened it, since, in response to our requests and demands, World Bank President James Wolfensohn