Have those Gramscians got everywhere?
http://www.worldbank.org/html/extdr/openletter.htm
August 17, 2001 Dear Messrs. Dahaner, Azcarate, Ambrose and Weissman:
On behalf of World Bank President James Wolfensohn and IMF Managing Director Horst Kšhler, thank you for your letter dated August 8.
We welcome your interest, as you state in your letter, in "educating the public about how the global economy works". One of the unfortunate results of the violence and disruptions that have occurred around recent international meetings is that they have curtailed opportunities for pursuing dialogue and cooperation among representatives from developing and developed country governments, international institutions, civil society organizations and the private sector. Public and media attention have too often focused on the protests themselves rather than on the issues.
The Bank and the Fund believe that civil society has a critical role to play working with international institutions and governments to address the challenges of globalization, economic development and poverty reduction. We remain committed to meaningful dialogue with civil society as part of our everyday work.
There are numerous examples of this, such as the support our institutions provide to work with governments in engaging their publics in the formation of national poverty reduction strategies, consultation on major policy issues and working together in partnership at many levels. We also will continue our dialogue with civil society at the Annual Meetings, as in previous years. At the 2000 Annual Meetings in Prague, we held discussions with approximately 400 NGO representatives who attended the Meetings. Informed public discourse on the global economy is clearly needed. But this will only be possible if the parties involved focus on the issues and facts, renounce violence, treat different points of view with respect, and adhere to the principles of promoting a serious, civilized, and constructive dialogue. In the past, there have unfortunately been a number of instances where this has not been the case.
If you agree on these principles, then we look forward to identifying opportunities for discussion with representatives of your groups as part of our dialogues with civil society. We have asked Carolyn Reynolds of the Bank (creynolds at worldbank.org) and Simonetta Nardin of the Fund (snardin at imf.org) to work with you in this regard.
Sincerely, Mats Karlsson, Vice President, External Affairs and United Nations Affairs, World Bank Thomas C. Dawson, Director, External Relations, International Monetary Fund
-------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <../attachments/20010821/a944dd53/attachment.htm>