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DEVELOPMENT ALTERNATIVES GLOBAL – DAG
LEARNING, THINKING AND ACTING GLOBALLY
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DAG's Objectives
DAG’s principal aim is to contribute to maintaining and further developing the conceptual and policy advances that have emerged over the last four decades by providing a nexus for intergenerational dialogue and cross-fertilization. It aims to keep alive and advance a genuine systems approach to the global challenge of sustainable development. Such an approach was attempted primarily at the conceptual level, at the two Earth Summits - UNCED at Rio de Janeiro in 1992 and UNCSD at Johannesburg in 2002. However, it continues to meet resistance and practical obstacles and is the cause of heated debate and disagreement.
Neoliberal globalization, and the associated economic, social and environmental crises, including climate change, have given much greater urgency to the key issues of how to manage and govern the emerging global system, what to do about consumerism and the co-existence of mass poverty and marginalization alongside waste and opulence, how to cope with the growing scarcity of vital natural resources, how to harness the growing S&T potential for the global public good, human security and well-being, in particular in dealing with the energy, development and environment complex. These all point to the need for a systems approach and restructuring of the world order on a cooperative and equitable basis, and for a corresponding organizing paradigm and a global vision.
In sum, DAG aims to enter the global battlefield or market of ideas, exploring conceptual, explanatory and policy frameworks in relation to policy and action in the society-economy-environment nexus. In particular, DAG aims to contribute its small part to the need to counter the traditional intellectual and institutional asymmetry in the global arena, in which a few developed countries have dominated the analytical and prescriptive domain, thereby exercising inordinate influence over thinking, multilateral discourse, negotiations and action, using this dominance to protect and advance their own interests and strategic objectives.
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