Global Interdependence and the Need for Social Stewardship

a Rockefeller Brothers Fund Publication

PREFACE

On October 7-8, 1996, at the Pocantico Conference Center of the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, the Fund joined with the World Bank to host an unusual gathering of foundation executives, leaders of major humanitarian and environmental NGOs (nongovernmental organizations), and officers of large multilateral institutions. The meeting was entitled "Building a Constituency for Global Interdependence," and its agenda reflected a deep sense of shared concern about the apparent waning of public and political support (in the United States but also in other developed nations) for the policies, programs, and agencies of cooperative international engagement. Despite considerable talk about the globalization of the economy and the unifying effects of communications technology, there has been a growing and worrisome tendency on the part of governments, the general public, and private funders to withdraw or withhold their support from international development, exchange, and capacity-building initiatives that reflect the reality and implications of global interdependence. A serious lack of funding, commitment, and vision, the resources on which effective cooperative engagement depends, now threatens to undermine the capacity of nations and peoples to collaborate in building a just and sustainable global community.

The U.S. retreat from international cooperative engagement has been widely reported. Once the world leader in aid to developing nations, the United States now ranks at the bottom of the list of donor nations in the percentage of gross national product devoted to foreign aid. In recent years, the United States has also failed to honor its commitments to such multilateral agencies as the United Nations and the International Development Association (the branch of the World Bank that provides low- and no-interest loans to the world's poorest countries) and has shifted its aid priorities, to a large extent, from long-term development assistance to short-term disaster relief. But the origins and extent of this retreat are poorly understood. Why, and among whom, is commitment diminishing? Has commitment waned for all forms of international engagement, or only for some? What can be done to reverse this trend? These questions were at the heart of the October 1996 Pocantico workshop.

In a lively and open discussion, participants reviewed what is known, guessed, and still unknown about the nature and causes of reduced support for cooperative engagement. The public's lack of confidence in public institutions, including governments and international agencies, received extensive attention. NGO leaders then offered practical case studies of constituency-building in their own areas of interest: health, women's rights, environmental conservation, humanitarian aid, and emergency relief. Participants explored the potential differences between constituency-building on behalf of specific issues or causes and constituency-building on behalf of cooperative engagement more generally. A variety of strategies to bolster public and policymaker support for international cooperation was proposed and vigorously debated, with an emphasis not only on increasing financial support but also, and primarily, on changing the climate of opinion. Central to this discussion was a consideration of the need for renewed political leadership if the climate of opinion is to be altered in any meaningful fashion. Implicitly and occasionally explicitly, the gathering posed the question of how a group of foundations, NGOs, and multilateral institutions might work collaboratively, drawing on their respective and complementary strengths, to help build a broader understanding of global interdependence and a stronger commitment to cooperative engagement.

This meeting cannot be said to have produced a consensus, either on how to define the problem or on how to try to solve it. The discussions at Pocantico did, however, illuminate the need for more nuanced information about the beliefs and perceptions of Americans regarding their country's role in an interdependent world, and about the efforts that are already under way by NGOs and other organizations to educate various audiences about the challenges and opportunities presented by global interdependence. Above all, the meeting illuminated the need for a new conceptual framework for cooperative engagement in the post-Cold War era;a framework that would not only guide U.S. foreign policy and galvanize political leadership on behalf of international engagement, but also inform broad public education efforts on global issues and encourage greater public involvement and trust in the cooperative engagement process. These are needs that a collaboration of concerned foundations, NGOs, and multilateral institutions might well seek to address by engaging in some shared thinking and by developing some shared resources. It is this possibility which is now being explored?through informal conversations and meetings of a smaller working group?by the participants in the October 1996 workshop.

The paper that follows draws in part on the rich array of ideas voiced at Pocantico to describe one possible and persuasive new framework for cooperative engagement. It begins by explaining the need for cooperation if interdependent nations are to advance their common interests in three areas: economic growth; military security; and what the authors call social stewardship, which involves the promotion of health, social stability, and human potential. The United States, the authors argue, has fallen far behind in this last arena. The second section of the paper traces the history of political and public support for social stewardship and discusses its current falling-off. In so doing, the paper provides valuable new information on American attitudes toward cooperative engagement generally and social stewardship in particular, suggesting that the constituency-building challenge is a complex one, involving not so much a lack of awareness about global issues, but rather the low priority assigned to those issues and the absence of a compelling policy context in which to address them. The third section begins to lay out messages and methods (including reform of the vehicles for cooperative engagement) that might help generate a renewed commitment to social stewardship among policymakers and opinion leaders, key constituencies, and the general public. Finally, the authors argue for a model of cooperative engagement in which social stewardship, economic growth, and military security are seen as mutually reinforcing expressions of American interests and values.

In its effort to articulate the importance of social stewardship and locate it in an overall framework for international involvement, and in its emphasis on the need for leadership as well as constituency if support for cooperative engagement is to be increased, this paper can certainly be seen as an outgrowth of the October 1996 Pocantico meeting. Many of its particulars, though, have been drawn or developed from other sources and subsequent discussions. In presenting this essay to the public, then, the Rockefeller Brothers Fund and the World Bank are not reporting on a particular workshop. Instead, we seek to convey something of the underlying concern and conviction that brought a diverse and sometimes divergent group of organizations together around a single issue; to offer a first example of the kinds of information and resources such a group might work together to provide; and to help spark a much larger conversation about the purpose, principles, and agents of American engagement overseas.

for the full text, visit the Rockefeller Brothers Fund site at www.rbf.org/publications.html.