Globalization for the Common Good is a remarkable initiative. Inspired by the vision of economist and global activist Kamran Mofid, it finds expression in a series of global conferences (thus far, Oxford, St. Petersburg, Dubai, Kenya, and Honolulu). The gatherings bring together individuals from academe, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), religious groups, government agencies, and inter-governmental bodies. Their purpose is easily stated but enormously complex: to help shape an interreligious and intercultural vision and objectives to direct the advance of globalization so that it can benefit all people, all cultures, and the planet itself. The last two conferences of the group produced strong statements aimed at expressing that vision and articulating those objectives.

The 2005 Kericho (Kenya) Declaration outlined the essential dimensions of Globalization for the Common Good, including the acknowledgement of God, Ultimate Reality, or the One; the investment of Spiritual Capital; the practice of Unselfish Love; the nurturing of Cultures of Peace; the struggle for Justice; the realization of Gender Partnership; the path of Sustainability; and the commitment to Service and Dialogue.

The 2006 Honolulu Declaration offered a detailed set of objectives arranged under three principal rubrics:

1. To champion the highest cultural evolutionary values and aspirations of the early 21st century, in full awareness of their strategic interdependence:
2. To seek solutions to the great challenges facing the planetary community:
3. To contribute to the creation of a global interdisciplinary agenda for the common good.Another conference, another declaration?

But do global conferences do any good? Is there any real power in global declarations
about the way the world ought to be or how nations, corporations, NGOs and individuals ought to behave? This is a question confronted by everyone who has ever worked to bring committed people together to address questions that urgently concern the human community.

Our answer is an enthusiastic but qualified “Yes.”

These gatherings provide new models, new language, and new tactics and global strategies to be employed by those who are actively committed to building a better world. Most important, they facilitate the emergence of new global cooperative networks of activists,
NGOs, religious groups, and governmental agencies working for change.

Just reflect on the impact of the UN World Conferences – including the Rio Earth Summit (1992), the Cairo Population Conference (1992), the almost-legendary Beijing Women’s Conference (1995), the Rome Food Summit (1996), the UN Millennium Summit (2000), or the Johannesburg Sustainability Summit (2002). It is clear what can happen when people with a vision of a changing world gather to share their ideas, their resources, and their inspiration. Each of these events created new platforms for action. Each gave rise to new initiatives on the ground in critical areas of the world. Some, like Beijing, changed our collective global vision. Today, the Millennium Development Goals (established at the UN in 2000 to address poverty reduction, child mortality and maternal health, empowerment of women and girls, HIV/AIDS, environmental sustainability, and other vital global issues) represent a threshold challenge that is being taken up by at least some of the world’s wealthiest nations. Declarations can become more than merely aspirations.

Yes, such efforts make a difference. As energizing and creative as they are, however, periodic gatherings aren’t enough. Active networking is the vital other key. Cultural evolutionary change is partly driven from inside, by the evident failure of older models. For example, new forms of commitment and activism emerge to take issue with religious exclusivism, global imperialism, and the persistent denial of universal human rights. Real cultural value shift, however, spreads through individual and group commitment. The realization of globalization for the common good – as envisioned by the Kericho and Honolulu documents – will demand the spread of new ways of thought, engagement, and action.

Evolutionary psychologists speak a great deal these days about the transformative power of memes, the cultural equivalent of genes. Memes are cultural units (ideas, values, notions of the possible) that are spread horizontally and passed from one generation to the next. The best memes, like concrete visions of globalization for the common good, can spread like life-giving viruses, changing the way we think, broadening our notions of the possible and deepening our sense of shared human urgency. When good people gather to envision a better world, that better world can begin to take shape.

Jim Kenney, Alan Race, Seshagiri Rao

The Kericho and Honolulu Declarations can be downloaded at http://www.commongood.info.

Download the Interreligious Insight Paradigm at:

http://www.interreligiousinsight.org/January2005/Jan05Paradigm.html.

It offers a useful complement to the two Declarations.