The People’s Charter for an Eco-Social World

Development of the Charter

The People´s Global Summit was initiated by 26 diverse global organisations representing hundreds of millions of people. We represent different faiths, philosophies, rights movements, workforces, generations, traditions and cultures. We have gathered with people from across the world, bridging movements for justice, to create new ways to work together for sustainability and quality of life for all.

The People’s Global Summit recognises that the pledges made by governments since the founding of the United Nations – the pillars of peace, development and human rights – have facilitated crucial steps forward but have not yet been realised. Challenges are at crisis point. Rights have been eroded. Inequalities and fractures have grown. Poverty sits alongside extreme wealth. Nature has been degraded, leading to climate warming and environmental destruction. Millions of people have been displaced as a result, adding to the millions more displaced by conflict and violence. The governments that made these commitments have prioritized competition over collaboration and sovereignty over solidarity. They have not yet served the people they represent.

The Charter is initially submitted as an invitation and call to action to the world’s leaders at the United Nations High-Level Political Forum and General Assembly.

We, the people, have come out from the silos that divide us, to work together and, with everyone, to co-build a new eco-social world. We invite you all to join us in co-creating policies, practices and actions based on inclusion, intergenerational respect, mutual understanding, a celebration of our differences and agreement on our shared futures.

The People’s Global Summit recognises the inspiration given by the community-led social and ecological movements and seen in indigenous wisdom worldwide. Young people and future generations are co-creators and co-builders of this movement for an eco-social world.

The People’s Charter for an Eco-Social World

The People’s Charter for an Eco-Social World comes from the People’s Global Summit, ‘Co-Building a New Eco-Social World: Leaving No One Behind’, held online on 29 June – 2 July 2022. It is a living document and reference point that will grow as the world’s populations share their solutions to our joint challenges, so all people can live with confidence, security, and peace in a sustainable world. The People´s Global Summit will continue to promote and support local and global action to unlock the means to co-design and co-build a new eco-social world. Together, we will bring our local and global expertise from working in communities and populations where transformative change has taken place.

Values of the People’s Charter

1. The People’s Global Summit sees the following interconnected, diverse values as a basis for forming a holistic, inclusive framework for our everyday relationships and actions. These are reference points that will be added to for the development of our shared futures in this living Charter:
   • Buen Vivir[1], love and care for people and the planet, responsibilities and holistic rights[2].
   • Respect, dignity, harmony and social justice
   • Diversity, belonging, reciprocity and equity
   • Ubuntu[3], togetherness, accountability and community
   • Solidarity, equality, inclusion and collaboration.

2. Acting on these values requires us all to rethink and to challenge ourselves in every aspect of our lives – our work, where we live, our business environments, our relationships with each other and our planet’s sustainability. Stemming from our interdependency with each other and the planet earth, we have an obligation to work together to ensure and sustain the future of our planet for this and future generations. Education to rebuild the relationship between nature and the planet is key to achieving an eco-social world.

Implications for our sustainable shared futures

3. Co-developing reciprocity: When people feel valued in reciprocal relationships, they can create joint ownership of positive change through new structures at all levels – individual, local, national, regional and global.
4. Co-building peace: People do not want war and violence in their lives. Preventing war and violence is facilitated through the development of trust and mutual respect for diversity. This is achieved by working with and in families, communities and countries until everyone is confident enough to understand their own and others’ rights, responsibilities, resources, challenges and strengths.
5. Co-living with nature: This Charter affirms that the rights of oceans, sky, rivers, animals, plants and land are inter-linked with the rights and responsibilities of people. Respect for the ecosystem and the regeneration of nature is essential for a balanced eco-social world to protect our mutual sustainability.
6. Co-creating social justice: Organic community systems have provided support between family, friends and co-workers for generations, through promoting mutual responsibility between people and their environments. State-funded formal social systems have largely been created to respond to individual needs after a crisis has occurred. The strength of organic, community-based, preventative systems should be integrated with state systems to enhance human and planetary flourishing.
7. Co-realising equality: People are wondrously different but equal in rights. No one should face discrimination for who they are, and everyone should have the opportunity to develop their full capabilities and live fulfilling lives.

The Pathway Forward

8. The last time the major world powers came together to construct global values for a peaceful world was at the end of World War 2. It resulted in different zones of influence with a predominance of global north perspectives. The ambition for the United Nations when it was established – to create conditions for peace, development and rights ‘in larger freedom’ – has not been achieved. This agenda is still failing as the most potent global actors – whether large transnational corporations or the governments of major world powers – have frustrated efforts to deliver peace, equity and sustainability for all. Today, it is time to recognise that when people co-design and own change, through active involvement at local and global levels, the world can become sustainable and equitable. We resolve to continue co-creating, with people from all communities of the world, the solutions to make the world fairer, safer and more sustainable. We invite you all to join us in making this happen!
9. Actions we can do together: This summit has confidence in the strength and intelligence of inclusive public decision-making leaving no one behind. We recognise the sustainable change has resulted from mass movements where diverse populations have worked together for common interests. We also recognise that underneath all political actions are cultural templates and worldviews that need to be considered within the framework of decision-making for our shared futures. From the People’s Global Summit, we have formulated five actions that centre on everyone’s lives, that recognise the strength and assets in all communities. These we can co-design and co-build together through local people’s assemblies, national governments and global institutions:
   • Ecological integrity: From exploitation to recognising the rights of nature for sustainable co-existence
     People’s assemblies and governments, globally, nationally and locally, need to co-build new cultures that are sustainable and respectful to ecosystems and environments. In the transition to an eco-social world all public subsidies to the fossil-fuel industry must stop now.
   • Economic reform: From measuring economies by profit to sustainable wellbeing societies
     People across the globe want collective wellbeing to be the ultimate goal of social development. The economy is an important factor but should not be dominant in developing a sustainable eco-social world. The United Nations, world leaders and people’s assemblies must co-build new frameworks and progress indicators that address the integration of markets and wellbeing
   • International solidarity: From national introspection to global cooperation
     To co-build a balanced eco-social world for our survival we need to ensure equitable distribution of vital resources and to respect our diverse cultural and social roots, recognising that national interests are secondary to global fairness and sustainability. Refugees, displaced peoples and migrants are calling now for immediate meaningful dialogue and action with governments and international bodies to safeguard their futures and security.
   • Employment and work: From being undervalued to being recognised with dignified working conditions
     Unions and social movements have called for international standards of labour, living wages, decent working conditions and valuing of the contributions of unpaid workers on which our communities depend. This has been reinforced by global agencies as a key method for eliminating poverty but has not yet been implemented. Unions and social movements need to work with governments, public services and the business sector in implementing fair practices and agreed international standards to secure sustainable and fair markets that will foster recognition and respect in people’s lives.
   • State social protection: From reactive public spending to public investment in wellbeing
     In response to the global pandemics and intersecting crises, communities and professionals have renewed their focus on a process of co-building social protection systems, health, education and other social services to co-design preventative and responsive support systems that fulfil the rights and meet the needs of people. Governments, realising their duties and responsibilities, need to join and invest in this new strategy to support communities now and be better prepared for future crises.

This People´s Global Summit will continue to promote and support local and global people´s assemblies to unlock the means to co-design and co-build a new eco-social world. Together, we will bring our local and global expertise from working in communities and populations where transformative change has taken place. Together we can build hope and new systems that foster peace, confidence, and security for everyone.

This Charter is for everyone to own, a living document which can be interpreted and used in local contexts and cultures, while retaining its core values and aspirations.

[1] Buen Vivir – an indigenous social movement from South America that describes a way of life and a form of development that sees social, cultural, environmental and economic issues working together and in balance, not separately and hierarchically as at present.
[2] Holistic Rights recognize individual human rights, (dignity and fundamental freedoms), social human rights, (civil, economic, and political), cultural rights, eco-system rights, and the broader rights of nature.
[3] Ubuntu – an indigenous African philosophy based on people’s interdependency and interconnectedness with their environment: ‘I am because we are’.