April 30, 2014

The AEPF Working Group of the Asienhaus drafted some general thoughts about „AEPF might look like“ and five texts elements (teaser) to initiate the debate, which are related to some of the thematic clusters of the Save the Date-Message. We do hope that this is useful for the further debate on the announcements of the Thematic Clusters.

Cheers, Uwe

Some thoughts about AEPF and how an AEPF11 might look like

People from Asia and Europe come together. There are activist from social movements, from civil society organizations, from people’s organizations and scientists, regardless of origin, age, gender, color or music taste. They discuss equally common issues, they agree on common struggles, they learn from each other and listen. In the end, they define common goals and make plans how to collaborate in the future. We think this is more or less what a perfect AEPF is about.

In the last AEPFs we discussed a lot, but the perspective to work on common issues was often missing. Only few new initiatives started at AEPF, the main focus was on sharing a status quo or a vision of a single person or organization. The main reason for this, in our opinion, is that most of the panels and workshops were presenting a “how it is”, a status quo, in the fields of trade, environmental, social or human rights issues. There were only few workshops intended to iniative “follow ups”. The result was, that many country cases were presented, but only a few workshops really worked out “how we will work together in the future on the issues”.

As a result, most of the workshops and panel discussions were quite similar to the panel discussions and workshops held already two years before. The issues were often the same, so were the organizations and presentations / lecturer. We missed to think about some important questions: What do we want from our partners in Asia / Europe? Which struggles are really common struggles in the hosting country, in Asia and in Europe?

The AEPF was more or less a showcase for organizations presenting the issues they are already working on. But how can we attract more social movements from Asia and Europe? In times of social networks and mailing-lists, the sharing of information is less important than twenty or even ten years ago. Panels and workshops focusing on the same issues and on the present situations are dispensable. Such panels and workshops are often “praying to the converted”, most of us know already that situations regarding social, environment and human rights issues are getting worse.

We think, we should change the setting up of the AEPF. We should focus on some new questions. One starting point could be to focus on how we are working and how we want to work together:

What are lessons learned in our struggles over the last years?

What are results of civil society engagement – positive AND negative?

What did we learn from our successes and failures?

What can others in Asia / Europe learn? For a common, future work, what do we need from our colleagues in Asia / Europe?

Where are common struggles?

Where are connections in our fights to Asia / Europe?

What might be a common vision?

For an AEPF11 that matters! Also in the time until AEPF12.