I guess that was directed at both of us. I can clarify a couple of things.
First, I would tend to share the opinion of those who are conservative about democracy export, if you like, as a foreign policy priority, because that's not what I'm arguing. My basic assumption is that if one wants to encourage democratic development, then one basically seeks to sow seeds at the ground level. That's why I'm emphasizing the importance of linkages, civil society to civil society, and the strengthening of citizens groups at the community level.
That's what we're about in the Social Watch, but it's not just that. There are thousands of networks engaged in this activity. What is particularly urgent about that is strengthening the capacity of groups then to question, to inquire, to hold accountable what their authorities are doing.
For example, if you look at the last ten years with regard to African non-governmental organizations, the ability of those organizations to support and to question their governments on such issues as trade negotiations at the WTO has grown incredibly. This is largely through interaction with groups in Asia, North America, and Europe and the support of non-governmental funding agencies, Oxfam or others, that are engaged in it.
So that's basically my orientation. When I used the word “urgent”, it was more with regard to the reform of global governance, where we've seen the expansion of the mandate and the writ, if you like, of organizations like the WTO with no equivalent expansion of democratic accountability, only quite indirectly in the sense that agreements are made that touch people's lives but people don't have any access to.
The question we were wrestling with in the Helsinki process was how do we change that? One way was to try to shorten the link between people like you and those at the international level, not just through informal associations but maybe some formal ones.