LOS ANGELES, Nov. 21, 2011 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- In response to the recent G20 Summit's Cannes Declaration, the WorldShift 20 Council has issued its own WorldShift 20 Declaration positing alternative, longer term and more effective remedies to the world's problems, applying a more holistic and humanistic perspective. The sweeping WorldShift 20 (WS20) recommendations were announced by Dr. Ervin Laszlo, esteemed scholar, prolific author, systems philosopher, and founder of the global think-tank Club of Budapest, which is sponsoring the WS20 initiative under the auspices of the Giordano Bruno GlobalShift University.
The WS20 initiative is multi-dimensional and is a longer-term solution. WS20 maintains that global leadership must recognize today's world as fragmented, with growing gaps between rich and poor, alternative values and a "deepening disconnect between human life... and the rhythms and balances of the Earth's life-sustaining ecosystems."
A fundamental transformation is needed, according to the WS20, to reestablish the world's balance by recognizing humankind as more than an economic and financial system. The Council warns that measures falling short of a broad scale transformation are simply "fixes" that may translate at best to short-term stability but lead to "recurring and progressively worsening instability" in the future. It notes that "band-aid solutions applied to this structural malady are not enough. The malady itself needs to be addressed."
WS20 identifies a number of major elements that comprise the global crisis including financial instability, climate change, nuclear weapons, and population growth – all of which require immediate action. Accordingly, WS20 proposes numerous urgent steps necessary to resolve these pressures, including:
- Re-Orienting the Public Sector – a thorough transformation of current governmental structures, "country by country and community by community. Dysfunctional institutions of the United Nations, IMF and World Bank need fundamental and urgent reform based on partnerships between governments, NGOs and civil society..."
- Reform the Global Financial System – "We are not in a period of 'delayed recovery' as (world) leaders maintain. Instead we are in imminent threat of... a catastrophic breakdown of the entire system. We are at a point where attempts to moderate the ravaging of the global economy is like trying to placate a virus whose infection is destroying its host." Only a fundamental transformation of the dominant financial structures and institutions can avert a continuing series of deepening crises, according to WS20.
- Institutional Reform – Properly fund and empower the United Nations, including restructuring the General Assembly to reflect a broader representation of civil society (50% of countries and 50% of institutions and regional community representations) and include IMF, World Bank and WTO reforms. Overhaul the Security Council and add two more globally representative groups – specifically Environmental Security and Social-Economic Councils.
- Economic Reforms – Establish new economic measures to incorporate the health of the environment as well as people; inspire monetary innovations to provide the needed diversity to stabilize the global monetary system. "... there is an urgent need to shift to a mature 'invisible' form of capitalism. This means shifting from a global economy of speculation, delocalization of production and war ($4 billion per day on armaments while nearly 30,000 human beings die of hunger) to an economy for global sustainable development... ," among other issues.
- Need for Globally Conscious Leadership – "The G20 leaders represent some 2/3 of the people on Earth and yet they remain in the grip of elite interests, lagging behind the search for justice and sustainable well-being..."
The WS20 Council proposes that G20 leaders augment their responsibilities by appointing an independent body of ethical and insightful individuals to examine the world's structural instability and recommend specific measures to effect positive systemic change on behalf of all humanity. This body should not report uniquely to the G20 governments or to any government, but make its findings widely known to the people of the world. It is to represent the "basic human interests of every man, woman and child."
The WS20 will formally present its proposal to create an Independent Advisory Council (IAC) to the Mexican Presidency of the G20 in view of placing consideration of the Council's report on the agenda of the June 2012 Los Cabos Summit of the G20. The G20 would have no other responsibility for the IAC except to endorse its creation and to place consideration of the report on the agenda of the next Summit of the G20.
"The world's people have awakened... they are divesting themselves of dictatorships and hierarchies, they are raising their voices and forming networks and alliances throughout the globe," states the WS20 Declaration. "The G20 leaders need to ask a paramount question: 'What good is it to be rich in a sick world?' The cure exists, individuals who have the integrity and the wisdom to identify the cure exist... The leaders of the G20 could be the catalyst of an urgently needed worldshift." The Council's statement further adds, "A wave of change is coming, and leaders will either enable the people to ride its crest or will be swept aside." If real progress is to be made toward building a peaceful, equitable and sustainable world, there is no alternative to this approach," states Dr. Laszlo.
For further information about the WS20 Declaration, visit www.worldshiftcouncil.org, www.clubofbudapest.org and www.giordanobrunouniversity.com