The ICF partnered Caux Initiatives for Business at the Caux Conference Centre in Switzerland from 11 to 15 July with the theme of ‘Globalisation - As If People Really Mattered.’

ICF participants comprised 41 persons from 14 Countries, including Magnus Linklater, columnist with The Times of London; Senator Jara Moserova of the Czech Republic; Donna Osipov, Executive Director of the Moldavian Independent Press Association; Louise Sea1s, Managing Editor of the Richmond Times Despatch (USA); Prof Stephen Ward of the School of Journalism at the University of British Columbia; Graham Turner, feature writer for the Daily Telegraph of London; and Danko Plevnik, writer for the Croatian daily, Slobodna Dalmacija.

A main event was the dialogue between Ignacio Ramonet, Director of Le Monde Diplomatique, France’s highly influential political monthly, and José Maria Figueres, a former President of Costa Rica and now Managing Director of the World Economic Forum of Davos. They presented two radically different approaches to globalisation, but succeeded in finding some areas of common concern, particularly in the urgent reduction of world poverty and of the wide gap between the rich and poor of the world.

Bernard Margueritte, the ICF’s President, reported on the progress of the previous year, and speaking of the future, said, “we will continue to work on our conference programme. In 2004 we should have a Forum in India in the Spring and another one in the Fall in Senegal. That will improve our involvement in the African continent and develop a new one in Asia. The Lebanese Forum will be realised at last, and in 2005 we shall have a new US Forum (this time in Boston). We are a1so preparing a conference in Latin America, ensuring the true ‘globalisation’ of the ICF.”