Sao Paulo, June 13-14, 2000

On the 13th and 14th of June, 2000, the Cry of the Excluded organized a
meeting in Sao Paulo with various other continental dynamics. The aim of
the gathering was to initiate a process for exchange of proposals, the
search for common ground, and creation of a joint agenda, and to develop
strategies for action, communication, and reflection, which will permit
mutual reinforcement and lend greater impact to mobilization around common
themes.

The meeting was attended by representatives from the Cry of the Excluded,
the World Women's March, Jubilee 2000, the Hemispheric Social Alliance, the
Forum Against Racism, Xenophobia, and Discrimination, the US Coalition for
Amnesty and Dignity for Undocumented Immigrants, the Continental Front of
Communal Organizations, and the Latin American Coordination of Rural
Organizations. Also present was a delegation from the international
movement ATTAC, which is organizing the World Social Forum.

The invitation sprang from the understanding that not only is there an
interdependence between the general proposals of the continental
initiatives, but also that the antidemocratic character of the processes of
regionalization and globalization, led by the market and the financial
sector, tends to marginalize and occlude any alternative proposals.
Despite this, citizens' dissatisfaction in the face of the neoliberal
approach is beginning to gain public expression, as in the recent
demonstrations in Seattle, Washington, and Windsor.

The meeting, then, recognized the urgency of finding common aims among the
continental dynamics, as a starting point for strengthening proposals of
bottom-up globalization, based on the development of solidarity, on
cooperative actions with a stron communication component, and on
strengthening the alternatives to neoliberalism.

Identification of common goals for action:

Following the presentation of the continental initiatives, the following
priorities for action were identified:

The struggle against exclusion in all its categories:

- the struggle for employment and for better working conditions, - access
to land, - food sovereignty, against hunger - forced migration and
immigration, - access to public services: education, health care, and
documents, - civil security: racial, gender, police or daily violence, -
access to information, political power, and the decision-making process, -
access to housing, - the fight against privatization

The external debt:

- non-payment of the external debt, - demand for payment of the social
debt, - the struggle against the concentration of wealth and for its
redistribution

The fight against violence:

- eradication of sexual violence and violence against women in general, -
promotion of equal education for both sexes, - respect for human rights,
including economic, social, and cultural rights.

Racism and xenophobia:

- denunciation of structural racism - promotion of a culture of peace which
respects diversity - the fight against discrimination against migrants and
immigrants - promotion of pluralism and ecumenicalism

Poverty:

- combat neoliberalism as the principal cause of the increase in poverty -
demand the eradication of poverty as an emergency priority

Afterwards there was a review of specific and sectoral struggles, and of
the points for a common agenda, bearing in mind the previously mentioned
themes, their interrelatedness and complementarity. The emphasis was on
the fact that cooperation in shared causes and a single struggle against
neoliberalism advances the construction, in coalition, of a world which is
inclusive, participatory, pluralist, just, and solidary.

The meeting concluded with agreement on a shared agenda of events.