A. Introduction

Today, humanity faces an unacceptable situation of poverty and destruction, worsened by the lack of vision and commitment to the common good by those who run and control governments and corporations around the world. For this reason, politics without ethics, wealth without equity, consumption without responsibility, knowledge without values, business without morality, science without conscience, religion without compassion, rights without responsibility, technology without good living, information without wisdom, power without limits, development without sustainability, justice without freedom, and freedom without justice, continue to prevail.

The crisis we face today has multiple sides and a complex character which is not limited to the imbalances of the financial system: there is a widespread crisis of government legitimacy, a values and education crisis, in addition to an energy, environmental and population crisis.

Having applied its prescriptions and neoliberal financial structure for over 30 years, the Washington Consensus has failed. It has failed to meet the sustainable needs of the world population and has led to this crisis, exacerbating almost every existing problem, such as poverty and inequality, and producing a new and heightened concentration of power and money. It has proven to be oriented more towards safeguarding the profits of large companies than to distributing benefits equitably among all persons.

This insatiable quest for profit above all else, promoted by big business, governments and institutions, is destroying cultural and ecological diversity, which are the basis of our species and life on Earth, and has violated cultural heritage and indigenous wisdom, expropriating the ancestral land and resources of the most weak and marginalized in our societies.

Most governments do not fulfill their promises to defend and protect their people and meet their legitimate needs; they have become slaves of businesses. Unethical business has been protected and has legalized unfair and irresponsible economic practices while repressing and criminalizing protesters demanding justice and civic accountability. The submission of states to the "market forces" cannot and should not continue to determine the fate of the world.

The crisis caused by this ruling consensus has increased by millions the number of human beings suffering from hunger and endangers the future of the planet. Inequality, waste, intolerable burden on ecosystems, the loss of species, pollution and resource depletion, crime and violence are the result of forms of government, production and trade which are harmful to the majority of the population.

Despite the enormous differences between countries and social strata, we are all affected, one way or another, by this situation, and we are all complicit in this "involuntary genocide", be it by act or omission. We have some responsibility in this crisis, but we also have the irrevocable commitment, the creative resources and potential, with our actions, to turn it into an opportunity for deep transformation. We face the historical challenge of undertaking the overhaul of human society.

Given the ineffectiveness of the Washington Consensus to promote development, given the breach of commitments to the Kyoto Protocol and other intergovernmental summits such as the Millennium Development Goals, civil society, communities and the world population in general, have the option of either taking a leading role in transforming the existing order or letting the situation continue to worsen.

The Barcelona Consensus (BC) is a collective civic response to this crisis and opportunity, and is the result of a participative process. It was extracted from the proposals made and assessed throughout 2010 by men and women from diverse cultures and disciplines/professions, from all regions of the world Its final compendium presents objectives and proposals for the world we desire, and indicates ways to make it a reality.

This new consensus attempts to stimulate reflection, will and action and to strengthen the emerging intercultural, cross-sectional worldwide community composed of individuals, groups, associations, federations, etc., who share the unshakeable conviction that now is the time for a great civic mobilization to achieve this transformation. This community disavows the disempowering coercive force of weapons and wealth, and seeks the empowerment of peoples, communities and individuals instead by placing as its overarching objective a decent life for every human being, a life that is in harmony with the Earth.

The BC is proposed as an initial basis for generating new consensuses on proposals and actions, and on new and renewed socio-economic models, fueled by the contributions and experiences of the global civil society. We intend to work together to create an inclusive, regenerative and life-affirming future. We have no other choice. Now is the time to act.

For this reason, we make the commitment to move toward our shared objectives.

B. Commitment to promote transitions

The main factor leading us to propose an intercultural consensus on the transformation of existing social systems is the quest for the welfare and total development of human beings, at both individual and family levels, within their community and society, in all regions of the world and respecting other cultures, ecosystems, and the rest of the beings with whom we share the Earth.

The priority objective that should guide all decisions is to ensure that in a living and finite world, 100 percent of the world's population has adequate resources for the sustainable coverage of their needs, starting with the most basic ones.

We cannot live peacefully or feel satisfied as long as we cannot say that everyone has the material and cultural means for a dignified life, to be nourished, to be educated, to prevent and cure of diseases, to feel respected, to collect and generate relevant information, to ensure life and the natural environment for future generations, to participate as equals in the collective decisions, etc.

If we agree that this is the mobilizing goal, we need to plan and agree on transitions to encourage all habits, laws and institutions that promote this objective. The need to remedy the unnecessary suffering of people and the destruction of the conditions for life on the planet is urgent. Measures to begin benefiting the poorest and the marginalized must be introduced. Public resources should be used to save people and nature, not to save banks and businesses that generated the crisis and benefited from it.

To undo impediments and facilitate sustainable resources, all laws and concessions that favor only the rich, big business, large farms and monocultures need to be repealed, and the expropriation of indigenous land and peasant communities must be stopped; deep agrarian reforms are needed to ensure people's food sovereignty, patents on seeds and practices that are destroying the seas must end, etc.

We already have the material conditions, the media and the communication technologies that can enable the reorganization of society at all levels. There are already thousands of people and groups who by their actions and experiences are the embryo of another society. Small acts and efforts can make big differences but they need to combine with other efforts to enable the promotion of a major transition which results in a gradual and visible improvement of living conditions, forms of coexistence and social ties, giving a new sense of community to individual evolution.

The Commitment to an inhabitable world for all involves all of us in the forging or introduction of a new social contract between people, governments and corporations. A new contract to arrange and set off transitions: binding agreements, supported by the necessary resources and well-defined action plans, that could be used to encourage fair and stable local, national and international relationships which are fair, peaceful and sustainable for the world population and the planet. For that purpose:

WE PLEDGE TO UNDERTAKE OR PARTICIPATE
IN A TRANSITION PLAN FOR AN INHABITABLE WORLD FOR ALL
WITHIN THE NEXT DECADE.

We call on every person and every community in every country to freely and consciously take this commitment to implement or participate in a Transition Plan. This will be done in their sphere of action (neighborhood, town, organization, sector…), indicating the objectives, means and deadlines of execution.

With a Transition plan for an inhabitable world for all, each person or group expresses the level of involvement they wish to commit to, through a set of shared objectives (see appendix) and actions to be carried out. 

C1. Review the sustainability levels of our individual and collective needs and actions, evaluating whether the decisions we make are only seeking our own interests with a short-term point of view, or are also seeking:

- to create common benefits.

- to especially favor the most impoverished in our communities and the Earth.

- to respect living things and living conditions on Earth.

- to be universally applicable to all the current inhabitants of the Earth and

- to prevent harm to future generations.

C2. Plan transitions to an inhabitable world for all and find ways not to cooperate, as far as possible, with processes and initiatives which hinder achieving this goal:

• We support the integrated redesign and regeneration of all processes (vital, productive, urban planning, construction, technology, etc.) to ensure that they are sustainable, equitable, balanced, and do not interfere with the inherent ability of nature to sustain life.

Consequently, we wish to stop cooperating - we will not contribute, buy, invest nor research, etc.- with governments, banks, companies and universities that promote unlimited growth and profit as an end in itself.

• We opt for a regenerative economy, socially profitable, in which money is a means of production and distribution of goods and services that seeks the sustainable coverage of the real needs of all persons, not just a privileged portion of society; for a democratization of the economy ranging from businesses to macroeconomic decisions, and the distribution of work and wealth.

Therefore, we wish to stop cooperating – we will not buy, work, nor invest, etc. - with companies and governments that consider money a tool for their shareholders or their personal ambitions, and that do not democratize their organizations and their decision-making on collective matters.

• We act politically as active citizenship involved in all areas hoping to build inhabitable, participatory, equitable, sustainable, and peaceful communities.

Therefore, we wish to stop cooperating – we will not vote, participate, nor obey, etc - with political forces and governments that do not support this urgent transition and continue to create inequalities, unsustainable and war activities.

• We affirm the right to truthful information and communication between people, and for this purpose we support or will create media that disseminates independent, verified, and relevant information to the population, as well as systems that enable us to share the knowledge we need to address these urgent changes.

Therefore, we wish to stop cooperating – we will stop buying, seeing or listening to – with those media outlets used to manipulate, numb and distract the population.

• We are an active citizenship that will not only demand our human rights and civil liberties to the state and businesses, but will also demand transparency and exercise control over both. We assume our responsibilities, strengthening our organization to exercise and enforce our rights and create or reinforce organizations and political and economic networks to advance towards a sustainable, equitable and peaceful good governance and economy.

Therefore, we wish to stop cooperating – we will not vote, deal, or buy – with governments, intergovernmental institutions or companies that violate our rights and liberties, and who deny the equitable distribution of resources, profits and power.

C3. We pledge to participate in different fronts of change, acting via mutually complementary and synergistic processes of transformation:

• For an individual shift of consciousness, reviewing and modifying our individual and collective unsustainable behavior, and facilitating the transition towards consistent lifestyles and habits, sources of happiness and balance.

• For a collective shift of consciousness, building spaces and communities with these new sustainable values and practices that enable the social practice of consistent habits and lifestyles.

• For a political-institutional shift of conscience, exercising our continued civic action to modify institutions, laws and their application in this planetary emergency.

States and international institutions must regain their authority, legitimacy, public trust, creative and material resources, as well as the commitment and skills to achieve these common goals, but with active citizenship and communities as protagonists of the transition.

C4. Immediately implement a new vision and practice of gender equality across the board, in all social relationships and political, social and cultural institutions. Gender equality and social inclusion would be the sine qua non condition and foundation of all relationships, institutions, laws, decisions, and practices.

C5. Re-value collective action as the source of wealth and solidarity that generates prosperity; reaffirm the values of personal initiative, intelligence and creativity as the roots of human evolution.

C6. Develop and participate in the definition of specific strategies that each person and community could implement, to advance towards some of the shared objectives deemed most acceptable or urgent:

• organizing constituent local, regional, global and sectorial processes that support and weave transitions into emerging alternatives that rethink and create new rules and new realities in their various shared objectives.

• participating in social consultations to propose and engage in actions for a common transformation, taking part in those proposed actions that are most widely shared.

• participating in the development, assessment or articulation of alternative global socio-economic models.

• proposing new strategies that impact on achieving an inhabitable world for all.

C7. We promise to deliver this commitment of an inhabitable world for all, to people and organizations, and promote a dialogue within our communities and organizations on the suitability and feasibility of proposals^* which move toward our shared objectives.