As the year 2009 begins, the world faces severe and parallel crises -finance, food, climate, energy, and looming social tensions. Bridge Initiative International (BI) sees a unique prospect for a bold and unprecedented change process that cuts to the “heart” of long-standing issues around global governance. This links to BI’s ongoing and truly bottom-up change approach (O-Change). The process promises to open ways to address the core issues about the future of the public sphere in the twenty first century.

This Action Plan results from years of BI work to mediate among stakeholders directly concerned about globalization. It takes its inspiration from a recent breakthrough with the CEB High-Level Committee on Programmes (a body of the international system that brings together all UN agencies and international financial institutions in a search for coordination and coherence).. This breakthrough is the outcome of seven years of mediation efforts and it immediately followed a quite constructive Bridge Initiative Plenary Event in May 2008 which paved the way for a more pro-active approach between stakeholders in a context where international institutions and governments had generally been playing down multi-stakeholder dialogue on issues and solutions.

While the election of Barack Obama does lead to a more multilateral and multipolar drive for global governance, it can in no way suffice to change the course of things. A truly multi-stakeholder – in other words, more open - world would be necessary. The number of organized actors – NGOs, associations, trade unions, private sector, local authorities – that are knocking on the door of the system is rapidly increasing. But a new phase of globalization permitting non-state actors to come together as stakeholders is not yet in sight.

Interestingly, Civil Society forces themselves – whose past warnings about the dangers of market fundamentalism do bring them more credibility today- have not yet found a joint dynamic to express their views in this crucial moment. Between the moderates and the radicals, the grassroots organizations and the “gatekeepers”, the thematic global coalitions and the national platforms, between conventional political organizations and the spontaneous youth, the search for minimum unity is uneasy.. In terms of strategy, they are facing a number of questions. How can they design their own way to be more in tune with people’s hopes, demands and needs? How can they become a strong enough player in the field of participatory democracy to be able to hold economic and political powers accountable? How can they adequately make use of the new public sphere and be part of bottom-up approaches which would give them more legitimacy?

Throughout the planet, participatory processes have become vital to generate a sense of global citizenship and to share democratic practices. Similarly, multi-stakeholder spaces have become essential as the appropriate way to find sustainable and renewable answers to the tremendous challenges of today and others still to come. It is our belief that Bridge Initiative International’s three folded plan can play a role in achieving such goals and in finding new entry points between the players so that the notion of “change” has a real meaning for all.

For seven years - and as an indirect consequence of a January 2001 satellite dialogue that linked actors at the World Economic Forum (Davos) and the World Social Forum (Porto Alegre) - Bridge Initiative International has worked to develop what some see as a "unique" dialogue space between globalization stakeholders: international institutions, civil society at large, and quite often governments, local authorities, the private sector and media.

BI has worked on two dimensions:

• Developing “exploratory mediation” processes around issues which annual plenary meetings identified as potential points of agreement;
• Organizing and moderating public debates or events among stakeholders with the aim of informing citizens about the issues at stake.

Up to 2006, implementation had ups and downs but overall met considerable success. Mediated dialogues on agriculture and trade, water, reform of the multilateral system, the role of the media or civil society in the Arab world brought the parties together and they moved towards better understanding of their respective positions. On global governance and reform of the multilateral system, there was agreement in 2005, to work through a joint platform between representatives of international institutions and not so moderate CSOs. BI, however, decided not to pursue this, recognizing that the potential signatories were not really willing to “travel” with it.

Public debates organized by BI in many parts of the world at World Social Forum conferences or during official meetings and summits had an impact. And in 2005, during the Millennium plus 5 Summit in New York, BI launched and co-organized a special Civil Society Forum: OPEN UN.

In 2006, however, we identified something akin to “dialogue fatigue” among the Stakeholders. Whether through BI or through more official conferences, the players were now meeting quite often and it seemed that little fundamental progress was being achieved in terms of genuine new agreements. Looking back, progress can be discerned. Many issues that were taboo or simply missing from official agendas were increasingly taken into account by the “Powers that Be”, whether pressured by civil society or convinced through dialogue. International taxation, climate change, multilateral system reform, ending export subsidies – all these issues did find their way onto official agendas.

In 2007, Bridge Initiative paused to reflect on its long term strategy, even as it was pursuing long term projects, such as the Olympiads for Change, and pursuing contacts and discussions with all the parties.

A broad new strategic framework emerged by spring 2008. To spark change, BI would work to bring together:

• A very specific dialogue process with international institutions at the heart of Global Governance.
• A public bottom-up process over 4 years with the Olympiads for Change.
• An effort to advance real change on the nature of the public sphere.

That framework provided the grounding for the first Bridge Initiative Plenary meeting since December 2005, in Paris on May 22-24, 2008. The Plenary meeting endorsed the new strategy and strengthened it with the active involvement of participants. A follow-up meeting subsequently worked as a build-up towards a renewed role for BI in relation to stakeholders. This new strategy aimed to build on BI’s two main strengths: a genuine expertise about global governance and in the relationships among stakeholders, whatever the issue might be; and an awareness of and expertise in the role of the public sphere, specifically where globalization is at issue.