Focus on the Global South (Focus) combines policy research, advocacy, activism and grassroots capacity building in order to generate critical analysis and debates on policies related to neo-liberalism, militarism and corporate-driven globalisation, while strengthening just and equitable alternatives. Established in 1995, Focus’s work is centered in South-East Asia, where it has active projects in Thailand (through its office in Bangkok, which are its headquarters), India (through the New Delhi office) and in the Philippines (through the Manila office).
Working in ‘solidarity with the Global South,’ Focus’ knowledge producing practices bring together a range of actors from governments to social movement groups (with which it has strong local and national connections), in order to develop, deepen and share analyses of ‘power patterns and new experiences of social transformation,’ and which can become the basis for wide-scale collective and transformative mobilizations.
Focus divides its labour among five main campaigns or programs:
- Trade and Investment (the original Focus concern, which investigates the nature and implications of free trade agreement and negations in the Asia-Pacific region),
- Social Movements (engaging with social movements and frontline communities to help mobilize for social change)
- Climate/ Environmental Justice (providing analyses of the ecological crisis, concentrating on promoting and strengthening alternatives to address how booming Asian’s economies can shift their present trajectory toward a more equitable and environmentally stable path),
- Land, Water Forest (aimed at defending the Commons and halting the rapid exploitation and commodification of natural and intellectual resources)
- Deglobalisation ( Focus’ flagship campaign, spanning practically all its programs, concentrates on monitoring the financial crisis and the policies of the International financial institutions, and finding alternatives to a global economy centred on the needs of transnational corporations).[i]
In its efforts to generate critical analyses of such processes and promote debate, Focus deploys a wide range of knowledge producing practices, which include research and analysis, conferences and seminars, social forums, study programs, direct action and parliamentary testimonials, joint campaigns and media.[ii]
Although Focus is based in the Global South and connects strongly with local movements and national political processes, it continues to produce knowledge for a global public and is conscious of the need to make links between local and national movements with regional and international platforms. As virtually all of the staff at Focus are activists, they take seriously the need to be grounded locally, but connected to and active in global politics.
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Endnotes
[i] See http://focusweb.org/issues, accessed February 17, 2015
[ii] See http://focusweb.org/content/who-we-are, accessed February 17, 2015