Press release – Vientiane, Laos, October 2012 – Asia-Europe People’s Forum gathered 1000 citizens in Vientiane (Laos): “We demand a people-centered world not a system based around deregulation of markets and increasing power of multinational corporations”

At the 9th Asia Europe People’s Forum we focused on developing strategies and demands to the governments which meet at the 9th ASEM meeting in Laos in November.

Over 1000 citizens from Asia and Europe joined together from 16th to 19th October 2012 in Vientiane at the 9th Asia Europe People’s Forum. The AEPF9 tackled four

major themes, Universal Social Protection and Access to Essential Services; Food Sovereignty and Sustainable Land and Natural Resource Management; Sustainable Energy Production and Use; and Just Work and Sustainable Livelihoods.

Preceding the 9th Asia-Europe People’s Forum we held three preparatory workshops in South and South-East Asia. In Laos, 16 Provincial level consultations. These brought together the reflections, aspirations and visions of the Lao people from a wide range of civil society organisations.

The AEPF brought into sharp focus the drastic inequalities, injustices and poverty experienced by people across Asia and Europe. What is often presented as a ‘financial crisis’ is in reality part of a series of interlinked crises – food, energy, climate, human security and environmental degradation – that are already devastating the lives, and compounding the poverty and exclusion faced on a daily basis by millions across Asia and increasingly across Europe.

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