Definition of Mundialization

Mundialization - The declaration of specified territory - a city, town, or state, for example - as world territory, with responsibilities and rights on a world scale.

Mundialist Manifesto

(Adopted by the World Council for Mundialization June 22, 1995 at the Ninth International Meeting on Mundialization in San Francisco.)

Firstly, people say that the 21st century will be an age of cities and towns and, in other words, an age of regional governance.

If the 20th century were referred to as an age of confrontation, including war, with emphasis on national identity induced from nationalism, language and law within the framework of a taller wall of national boundary, we may say that the 21st century will be an age to enlarge comprehensibility and affinity. These characteristics are integral aspects of urbanization-lessening, as they do, incompatibility between peoples and nations.

Therefore, the mundialization movement will undoubtedly be expected to play its role of strengthening and enhancing such forms of governance.

Secondly, the power of governance, which can flexibly and swiftly respond to natural disasters, has proven to be much more effective at the municipal, or grassroots, level. In particular, the mundialization movement could address effectively the aggravated dangers to our ecological systems as well as the recurrence of terrorism and the like. Accordingly, the movement will be expected to function as the core of a new form of governance in the 21st century.

Thirdly, overpopulation of cities is an even greater challenge to be met in the 21st century. It is an especially troubling problem in the developing countries, home to more than a billion severely impoverished people, many of whom are persistently migrating to cities and towns.

The United Nations Decade for the Eradication of Poverty, which begins following the International Year for Eradication of Poverty in 1996, has been acknowledged by the world's heads of state. However, the social development required for eradicating poverty will never occur without partnership between municipalities and NGOs. It is expected that the mundialization movement should continue to disseminate this fact all over the world.

Fourthly, because of the continuing increase in the proportion of the aged in society, the advancement of health, medical care and welfare will become ever more needed facets of governance provided by municipalities. It is now obvious that these problems cannot be solved by central government alone.

Finally, just as mutual aid and neighborly love are essential in human society, so too "global ethics" are required in order to organize a new form of governance inclusive of the Earth, international organizations, states, regions and individuals as a whole. Cities and towns must be regarded as common spaces, regardless of race and nationality. And due to their inherent absorbing characteristic, they should become places of even greater affinity, as well as being expressive of the ethics of civil solidarity.

It is clear the world is now seeking global governance based on an ethical background in the mundialization movement.

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