SALIENT POINTS AND WAYS FORWARD

Amidst this gross and rising inequality of 62 people owning as much wealth as 3.6 billion of the poorest people in the world, amidst massive unemployment and work informalization which is becoming structural. Workers’ families have barely any access to affordable, accessible and quality public services – like universal health care, free education up to the college level, decent public housing, a living requirement of water and power, and reliable public transportation, among other public essentials

We need to answer the plea, can we achieve a dignified life for all? People, as human beings have the inalienable right to essential services. These are public goods and part of our social commons. They are vital to life, to the dignity and development of individuals and society as a whole. Their provisioning must therefore be guaranteed.

Yet, the World Bank and IMF continue to impose conditionalities that cut public spending and require privatization of public service financing and delivery. Inequitable trade agreements lock in privatization and expose our governments to the risk of costly arbitration in one-sided international tribunals. States continue to retreat from their obligation to guarantee and finance decent public services.

However, a movement to reclaim public services is sweeping Europe and gaining momentum in Asia. Inclusive people’s platforms and unions, academics, local officials, parliamentarians and policy-makers have taken up the challenge of reversing the privatization of public services and returning them to public ownership and democratic control. International campaigners and scholars have joined with Philippine counterparts in Manila to share insights and experiences.

Together, we have deepened our understanding of the mounting evidence that reveals the failed promises of privatization. We affirmed that effective and accountable public services are a powerful tool to promote greater equality, build social cohesion and improve living standards for all.

We shared documentation, including the 835 examples of municipalities that have benefited from replacing privatization by democratic and participative delivery of public services. We have been inspired by those and other alternatives.

This conference has been a great learning experience, and our exchanges have strengthened our advocacies through the sharing of best practice, strategies, tactics and lessons learned. We have identified new initiatives to build a more powerful movement to reclaim public services.

Our discussions have stressed the following:

• We will continue our vigorous and -wide ranging campaigns that will enable us to generate the broadest public support and understanding of our agenda.
• We will widely disseminate our messages and alternatives through the social and mainstream media, and seek to encourage campaigns are covered by in the media.
• The Asia-Europe Peoples Forum will disseminate the Final Statement, papers and video clips through the social media and key outlets in mainstream media, and target relevant state agencies at the national, regional and global level.
• We will continue our painstaking lobby work to grow more advocates among legislators and policy-makers, and unite all groups reclaiming public services through building broad coalitions at the national, regional and global level.

In our discussions, we were inspired by Jeremy Corbyn who urged the immediate social ownership and democratic control of public services, a vision which will require great change in societies and a major social struggle world-wide. Our effective cooperation at the regional, inter-regional and global level is more important than ever.

But the real battleground for reclaiming public services is in the streets, workplaces, communities and villages. In addition to our research, lobbying and movement-building, we will also need to act strongly and directly, through litigation and legal reform, civil disobedience and strikes, national consultations and massive protests, consumers’ actions and boycotts, pickets and marches, among others.

There will be change in national and global policies only when we have strong social movements that embrace the fight for social, economic and ecological justice across countries and across continents. So we will promote broader and stronger forms of organization and mobilizations that can create the compelling pressure from below to reclaim the state, and support our key goals to:

• Introduce legislation, with constitutional underpinning if possible, to ensure that people’s rights to public services are institutionalized and insulated from market forces and political patronage;
• Finance public services by building the political will to enforce real progressive taxation and abandoning unjust tax policies which allow the mega-rich to hide their wealth through tax havens and illegal money flows;
• Abandon the policy of using PPPs, and use public finance to finance infrastructure and public services;
• Establish public ownership and democratic management of public services, including mechanisms for people’s participation and oversight;
• Foster public-poor-partnerships that enable impoverished communities to participate fully in the planning, implementation and oversight of projects.

Lastly, we recognize that rebuilding public services is not an isolated campaign. It is closely linked with struggles for decent work, land and food sovereignty, just trade and climate justice. It is part of the transformative change towards an alternative development paradigm for people and planet, within a more enlightened socio-economic system that, as Naomi Klein characterized, “closes deep inequalities, strengthens and transforms the public sphere, generates plentiful, dignified work and radically reins in corporate power.”