Essential Web sites

• Amnesty International
Amnesty International (AI) is a worldwide movement of people who campaign for internationally recognized human rights.

• ATTAC (Association for the Taxation of financial Transactions for the Aid of Citizens)
International movement for democratic control of financial markets and their institutions. It promotes practical economic reforms meant to tame the devastating power of the financial markets, and to favour democratic, transparent economic structures that serve the needs of ordinary people. It looks for alternatives to the dogmatic ideology of neoliberalism

• Greenpeace
Greenpeace is a non-profit organisation, with a presence in 40 countries across Europe, the Americas, Asia and the Pacific. To maintain its independence, Greenpeace does not accept donations from governments or corporations but relies on contributions from individual supporters and foundation grants. As a global organisation, Greenpeace focuses on the the most crucial worldwide threats to our planet's biodiversity and environment

• Médecins Sans Frontieres
Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) is an international humanitarian aid organisation that provides emergency medical assistance to populations in danger in more than 80 countries

• Social Watch
Social Watch is an international network informed by national citizens' groups aiming at following up the fulfillment of the internationally agreed commitments on poverty eradication and equality. These national groups report, through the national Social Watch report, on the progress - or regression - towards these commitments and goals.

• World Social Forum
The World Social Forum is an open meeting place where groups and movements of civil society opposed to neo-liberalism and a world dominated by capital or by any form of imperialism, but engaged in building a planetary society centred on the human person, come together to pursue their thinking, and to debate ideas democratically

Other Web sites

• Arab NGO Network for Development
The Arab NGO Network for Development is a-religious organization consisting of Arab NGOs and national networks active in the fields of social development, human rights, gender, and the environment

• Bretton Woods Project
The Bretton Woods Project works as a networker, information-provider, media informant and watchdog to scrutinise and influence the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF). Through briefings, reports and the bimonthly digest Bretton Woods Update, it monitors projects, policy reforms and the overall management of the Bretton Woods institutions with special emphasis on environmental and social concerns

• Charities Aid Foundation (CAF)
CAF is an international non-governmental organisation which provides specialist financial services to other charities and their supporters

• Citizen Network on Essential Services
The Citizens' Network on Essential Services (CNES) works to democratize national and global governance by supporting citizens' groups that are engaged in influencing policy decisions about basic services: water, power, education, and health care

• Civicus - World Alliance for Citizen Participation
US-based international alliance dedicated to strengthening citizen action and civil society throughout the world

• EUROSTEP (European Solidarity Towards Equal Participation of People)
Eurostep is a network of 19 major NGDOs from 13 European countries. Its two principal aims are first to influence official development co-operation policies of multilateral institution, and in particular those of the European Union; and secondly to improve the quality and effectiveness of initiatives taken by NGOs in support of people centred development

• Forum
International Forum on Development Service. Its aim is to enhance co-operation between a wide range of agencies, including non-governmental (NGO) and state organisations

• Friends of the Earth International
Friends of the Earth International is a federation of autonomous environmental organizations from all over the world. Its members, in 68 countries, campaign on the most urgent environmental and social issues

• Human Rights Watch
Human Rights Watch stands with victims and activists to prevent discrimination, to uphold political freedom, to protect people from inhumane conduct in wartime, and to bring offenders to justice

• Indymedia
Indymedia is an international network of collectively managed means of information. Triggered by discontent with the mainstream media and supported by the widespread availability of media technologies, groups all over the world are creating their own channels of information and distribution in order to bypass the (mainstream) corporate media

• International Civil Society Consortium
The mission of the Consortium is to enhance international cooperation in promoting responsible, democratic, and widely participatory deliberation over public issues around the world. The ICSC member list includes non-governmental organizations, university departments, foundations, journals from different countries

• Oilwatch
Oilwatch is a network of NGOs based in Ecuador. It is inspired by the necessity to develop global strategies for communities affected by oil activities and to support the resistance processes of coummunities that do not want to see their territories affected, to work for sustainability and collective rights

• Participatory Development Forum
Participatory Development Forum is a network of development practitioners, non-governmental organisations, academics/action researchers, private sector representatives, and policy makers. It is dedicated to promoting a philosophy of participation that advocates for people's capacity and right to define and control their own development in order to achieve social justice and equality

• SAPRI (Structural Adjustment Participatory Review Initiative)
In order to analyse the impacts that structural adjustment has had in many developing countries, certain NGOs challanged the World Bank to undertake a review of structural adjustment programmes and to explore new adjustment options in conjunction with CSOs.
Thus, in 1996 SAPRI was developed through consultations between World Bank country teams and a global network of CSOs formed for the exercise

• Save the children
Save the Children was founded in the United States in 1932 as a nonprofit child-assistance organization to make lasting positive change in the lives of children in need. Today it works in 47 other countries in the developing world to help children and families improve their health, education and economic opportunities

• Third World Network Africa
TWN Africa is a Non Governmental Organisation which carries out Research and Advocacy on issues of social and economic policy that advances the needs and interests of peoples of African and other third world countries (especially marginalized social groups), a fair distribution of world's resources, and forms of development which are sustainable and fulfil human needs

• Transparency International
Transparency International (TI) is a non governmental organization that builds national, regional and global coalitions, embracing the state, civil society and the private sector, in order to fight domestic and international corruption. TI elaborates the Corruption Index, sometimes used as a proxy for social capital at a macro level

• World Economic Forum
The Forum is an independent international organization incorporated as a Swiss not-for-profit foundation and has NGO consultative status with the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations. Every year the Forum publishes the Global Competitiveness Report, a valuable tool for shaping economic policy and guiding investment decisions. It is one of the leading monitors of the competitive condition of economies worldwide.

• World Rainforest Movement
The World Rainforest Movement is an international network of citizens' groups of North and South involved in efforts to defend the world's rainforests. Its offices are located in the United Kingdom and Uruguay