Pavel Novacek chair of the Central European Node, and Ivan Klinec, chair of the sub-Node in Slovakia, proposed that the "Global Partnership for Sustainable Development" discussed previously in the Global Lookout Study to be on the scale of the "Marshall Plan." They suggested that the Millennium Project help initiate the first steps for this plan.
Jerry Glenn cautioned against using the term Marshall Plan and pointed out that Europe and Japan had industrial and entrepreneurial cultures that could use the money of the Marshall Plan to rebuild, but the poorer regions in Africa are not yet "built"and have little industrial and entrepreneurial values in their cultures. Most villagers cannot separate family money from business money, hence repeating the poverty cycle. John McDonald added that such large financial commitments are not going to happen today. A more likely scale is that of the President of the World Bank's pledge that by 2000, $2.5 billion per year would be spent so that each child in the world can complete a basic education. Norio Yamamoto noted that the effectiveness of the Marshall Plan was measured and thought we should analyze why such a large scale effort is difficult to execute today.
Pavel Novacek wanted to know if the Millennium Project would develop the idea. Henry Cole suggested that we could make another questionnaire to get data and comments. Jerry Glenn thought that the questionnaire could be run from the Central European Node with help from the planning committee.
Ivan Klinec continued the report of the node: there were 14 meetings
of the Vision of Slovak Society; a one day conference "Slovak Republic
and new visions" was held November 1998, 6 scenarios were presented (5
negative and 1 positive). The Node plans to have 15 meetings and a round
table on the Millennium Project and its use by journalists during 1999.
They will also participate in the "5th International Colloquium:
Designing the Future of Europe 1999" and will bring articles about sustainable
development and translate books of interest into English so they can be
presented in July at Nodes Panel at World Future Society (to show different
world perspectives).