One World Trust
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The One World Trust is an independent research organisation with charitable status based in London, United Kingdom. It promotes education and conducts research into changes required in global governance and powerful organisations to achieve the eradication of poverty, injustice and war. The Trust develops recommendations on practical ways to make them more responsive to the people they affect, and how the rule of law can be applied to ensure access to opportunity and participation for all. The organisation shares its findings with political leaders, opinion-formers and the wider public to help improve policy and practice for accountable policy processes and political decision-making at global level, in Europe and in the UK.
Established in 1951 in support of the All-Party Group for World Government, the Trust continues to have a close relationship with the UK Parliament. The Trust also is an NGO with Special Consultative Status with the United Nations Economic and Social Council.
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[edit] Governance
The Trust’s work is overseen by a Board of Trustees[1]. There are currently ten trustees with Lord Archer of Sandwell, PC as President, and Dr. Wendi Momen JP leading as Chair. The Trust is also supported by a group of Vice-Presidents acting as Patrons, and members of different project related advisory panels.
[edit] Funding
The Trust’s work is funded by donations and bequests from individual supporters and through grants. Funders include the Ford Foundation, the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust, the James Madison Trust, the Konrad Adenauer Foundation, the Baring Foundation, the Polden Puckham Charitable Foundation, the Funding Network and the Allan and Nesta Ferguson Charitable Settlement. The Trust also derives a limited level of income from consultancy work.
[edit] Transparency
As part of its commitment to accountability the Trust has developed an Information Disclosure Policy[2] to provide stakeholders with an opportunity to identify what information they can access, including Trustee meeting minutes, strategic plans and financial accounts, which are all posted online.
[edit] Sphere of Activity
The One World Trust works primarily the area of accountability of global institutions, the role of parliament in the oversight of external policy of government, and global responses to threats to peace and human security.
[edit] Accountability of global institutions
The Trust conducts research and advocacy to improve the accountability of global organisations. Through its Global Accountability Framework the Trust promotes conceptual understanding, cross sectoral learning, and organisational change. The Framework breaks up the concept of accountability into four dimensions: transparency, participation, evaluation, and complaint and response mechanisms. Using indicators developed for these dimensions, the Trust seeks to capture organisational capacity to be accountable based on the principles and values that underlie an organisation’s policies and systems.
Based on the framework, the One World Trust produces reports on the accountability of global institutions. In December 2006, the Trust published the 2006 Global Accountability Report[3] that assessed the accountability of thirty global organisations from the inter-governmental, corporate, and non-governmental sectors. Alongside these reports, the Trust also works with national and international NGO umbrella groups to strengthen civil society capacity to hold international actors to account.
[edit] Role of parliaments in the oversight of external policy of governments
The Trust’s Parliamentary Oversight Project, running since 2003, examines how the British Parliament holds the British government to account for foreign policy development and decisions. The project specifically focuses on the systems and practices in place for UK approaches to international organisations like the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, the World Trade Organisation, the European Union or key countries such as the USA. This includes the way Britain responds armed conflict. The project conducts research on loopholes in Parliamentary controls and undertakes advocacy to implement reforms.
In collaboration with Democratic Audit and the Federal Trust for Education and Research, the One World Trust published Not in Our Name: Democracy and Foreign Policy in the UK, which looked at the checks and balances between Parliament and the UK government in the formulation and oversight of foreign policy. The three organisations created the website myforeignpolicytoo.org to advocate the opening up of the development of British foreign policy.
[edit] Global responses to peace and human security
The Trust's work on peace and human security revolves around four initiatives to foster international accountability and response to grave human rights abuses in particular in the context of armed conflict and raise awareness about global challenges to sustainable development. Undertaking its own research and advocacy the Trust works in particular on (a) the Responsibility to Protect to encourage international political agreement on global frameworks for conflict prevention and resolution; (b) the role of global citizens in shaping global conflict prevention policy and action, and (c) International human rights accountability and transitional justice in support of the International Criminal Court (ICC) to strengthen access to justice and redress for survivors of grave human rights abuses including war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide. Through its Global Responsibility lecture series the One World Trust provides parliamentarians and others in the policy community with the opportunity to access key viewpoints on issues of global human security and sustainable development.
