UCLG·CGLU · www.uclg.org
| 21
• A partial deficiency in creating and focusing on it’s own autonomous agenda. • Lacking sufficient practical examples that the organisation initiated and performed in terms of its commitments, such as democracy and peace building; protection of human rights in the city; global inter-municipal cooperation and solidarity for a more just and fair world. • Uneven participation in the activities of the organisation, and poor representation of certain localities, countries and regions of the world. • Deficiency in municipal / urban knowledge production and learning capacity development areas. • A major weakness in Gender Equality and participation in the organisation’s governance and affairs. • A partial deficiency in producing permanent and differentiated strategies in areas such as lobbying, resistance and alternative policy developments.
A Provisional Conclusion “I know somehow that only when it is dark enough, you can see the stars.” MARTIN L.KING, Jr
We are living in a world which suffers from serious political, economic, social and environmental problems of a global nature. The main decisions on dealing with such problems have been initiated, taken and put into practice until now by certain world power centers such as powerful or “imperial” states / governments, supranational institutions (IMF, WTO, EU, ...) and by influencial private bodies (financial and multinational corporations, and a monopolistic mass media...) It is obvious that to justify such “global governance” is almost a “mission impossible” from various existential angles, such as legitimacy, justice, democracy, accountiability and morality. To be able to contribute to the creation of an emancipated world society, and to the realization of a genuine universality, a new internationalist or cosmopolitanist movement based on human dignity, global democracy and peace, human rights, economic and social justice and environmental sustainability and cohabitation of “many cultures within one humanity” as well as new ontology of space and spatial justice is a sine qua non today. Unless we tackle this task properly we will not be able to move from this “stony, arid waste land” to the lands or spaces of hope and we will cause further broken promises and stolen dreams. UCLG, with a Century of momentous experience and a noble heritage can and should play a crucial role in this direction.
1913 2013