Global Forum On Modern Direct Democracy

The 2018 Global Forum on Modern Direct Democracy focused on local democracy and the role of cities in addressing today’s challenges. At the forum in Rome, a global charter of democratic cities was presented. We invited cities all over the world to sign on to this charter and join a network of cities that commit to practicing and promoting democracy and citizen participation at the local level.

Our Activities

We aim at producing a new vision and a new charter for what democracy should mean in our cities. We educate our community by providing quality resources and PDF documents so that they can not only promote democracy but also protect their own rights. All the resources and documents are described in the following sections.

PDF Verification Forms

Nearly every business, big or small, relies on some verification form to keep track of their customers and employees. Verification forms can come in many different shapes and sizes, but their purpose is always the same – to ensure that information is correct and up-to-date. One of the most common forms is employment verification used to confirm that a person is currently working at this or that company. This document can also include such details as the employee’s position and salary. Another popular form is a verification rental form used by landlords to confirm their potential tenants’ identity, employment, and rental history. Check other essential verification documents below.

PDF Application Forms

Whether you are looking for a job or you’re a returning student, you will face the need to complete an application form. Here we have some employment templates provided by different companies and organizations, including Victoria’s Secret, Vallarta Market, and Weis. Also, some types of businesses have a system in place for handling customer and client data. They use application forms to collect information from potential customers or clients. Look through the following templates to find the ones that may be useful for you.

PDF Claims

If you want to receive particular benefits, for example, health coverage or life insurance, you may be required to complete a claim form. Claim forms are usually easy to fill out and ask for information such as your name, date of birth, contact information, and policy number. Be sure to have all of this information readily available when filling out the form. Once you’ve filled out the form, you’ll need to submit it along with any supporting documentation. This could include photos of the damage, police reports, or repair estimates.

PDF Requests

Request forms can be used for anything from customer service requests to IT support tickets. These forms are helpful when a person needs to request payments from a bank or records from a school. Knowing how to fill out a request form correctly is essential for processing your request as efficiently as possible. Whether you need to obtain your college transcript or get an X-ray for your patient, select the appropriate template and prepare your unique document.

PDF Reports

Report forms play an essential role for different organizations and companies. They help keep track of what is happening in the business and can be used to track progress. There are many report forms, and each one serves a specific purpose. For example, you should use a workers’ compensation injury report to record workplace injuries and ensure that the injured employee gets the appropriate medical care. Report forms can also be helpful for a law enforcement officer document specific facts about a crime or accident. The documents’ benefits are hard to underestimate. So, if you need to report something, do not hesitate to use the templates provided below.

PDF Forms for Vehicles

There are specific requirements for registering and operating motor vehicles in every state. Most states provide various forms that must be completed to register a car, truck, or motorcycle. Some of the most common forms are an application for a certificate of title, registration application, and vehicle tax form. In this section, you will also find such templates as a vehicle appraisal form to estimate your vehicle before the sale, a certificate of ownership to prove that you are the vehicle’s owner, and an incident report to document a vehicle accident and damage, if any.

Wells Fargo PDF Forms

Wells Fargo is a worldwide financial services corporation headquartered in San Francisco, California. It proposes banking, investment, and mortgage products and services. We’ve outlined this section separately, as the company provides a wide range of legal forms you may use if you decide to take advantage of its services. You will find an authorization form, power of attorney, direct deposit form, and beneficiary form.

State-Specific PDF Forms

It’s necessary to always check your state’s laws before drafting any legal document since the filling and signing requirements may vary from state to state. For your convenience, we’ve assembled some widely-used state-specific forms and templates here. They tend to cover all of the requirements relevant to this or that state, so you’ll save time looking for and complying with them. The following templates include residential lease agreements, tax return forms, and work permits.

Other PDF Forms

In order to keep your business and personal life running effectively, you may need to submit various forms to the government or other regulatory organizations. There are different types of forms available in this section that can make this process much more manageable. Do not hesitate to use them if you need to prepare your document quickly and accurately.

Speech of Co-Presidents

Dear Democracy – Loving People All Over the World,

Welcome to Rome and the 2018 Global Forum on Modern Direct Democracy.

We are grateful to be hosted by the government and the people of this city, known through history as the world’s greatest crossroads of humanity. But we are here to talk about how to build a better future for democracy, not about the past.

We are here to re-also examine what we think about democracy. Nowadays, it is fashionable to say that democracy is declining. However, this is true only if you look at the representative democracies of national governments in specific countries. Direct democracy is growing in several nations worldwide; indeed, direct transnational democracy is practiced in Europe. And our local governments—our cities, the government closest to the people—also see their democracies growing and innovating.

Many of you, people attending this free and public forum, has been engaged in the challenging and fascinating experience of expanding direct and participatory democracy. This year, Italy became the first country to have a national minister and ministry for direct democracy. And the city of Rome, in pursuing progress in direct and participatory democracy, is becoming a leader in the global surge of local democracy.

So what better place is there than the Eternal City to gather journalists, scholars, activists, officials, and citizens to discuss how to make our democracies more democratic?

This is the seventh edition of the Global Forum—after previous forums in Switzerland, Korea, California, Uruguay, Tunisia, and the Basque Country. And the forum continues to be about sharing and comparing. In Rome, people will share the knowledge, scholarship, and experience from their cities and work to identify best practices for democracy.

But the 2018 Global Forum will go even further than our previous gatherings. We will not simply compare and learn. We will produce a new vision and a new charter for what democracy should mean in our cities—and our states, provinces, countries, and continents. Rome’s City Council has officially asked the Global Forum to produce a new “Magna Charta” for the world’s democratic city. Consequently, through discussions, meetings, and reports that will include all forum’s attendees, we will assemble a document that might answer the question of what cities should do – in terms of elections, citizen participation, budgeting, planning, public space, and assistance to citizens – if they want to be considered genuinely democratic.

The draft of the “Magna Charta” that will be produced in Rome is just the first step. Since all roads lead to Rome, Rome’s roads lead worldwide. And over the next year, this draft charter for democratic cities will travel around the planet as we seek more suggestions, additions, and ideas for the document from cities and citizens everywhere. Finally, in October 2019, the Global Forum will gather again in Taichung, Taiwan, to make final adjustments to this charter and launch an International League of Democracy Cities to pursue our common goals.

Today we welcome you in Rome, Italy, and we invite you all to share this journey to greater democracy in every city of the world—especially yours.

Democratically yours,

Joe Mathews and Bruno Kaufmann, co-presidents Global Forum on Modern Direct Democracy

A Global Call to Cities to Join a Democracy Network

To the cities (and local governments of any kind) of the world:

We write you with an invitation – to join a new network of cities around the globe committed to advancing democratic participation.

This new network will launch this September at the 2018 Global Forum on Modern Direct Democracy, a free and public event in Rome’s historic city hall, the Campidoglio. The forum will be the guests of Rome and its mayor, Virginia Raggi, who is helping to lead this new network.

We invite you to come – and send both official and citizen representatives of your city.

Why do we need such a network? Because, with democracy under pressure at the international and national levels, the world’s democracies must become more democratic. And the best way to do that is to connect towns and cities.

Local governments worldwide are taking the lead in protecting and expanding democratic practice and culture. But the citizens and officials who take part in these practices rarely have time to understand best democratic practices and learn from the experiences of other cities as they seek to improve the quantity and the quality of public participation.

This network will create an infrastructure for comparing and identifying the most fruitful approaches to participation and democracy in civic life. This will include online data and meetings, in-person meetings, and staff exchanges.

Joining the network will be a powerful signal of a city’s commitment to democratic participation.

In Rome, our forum, running from September 26 to 29, will include planning for this new network and discussions of important questions. Among them:

At the forum’s end, we intend to produce a draft charter for democratic cities that can be followed online and in post-forum discussions. We intend to further develop the charter at the 2019 Global Forum on Modern Direct Democracy in Taichung, Taiwan.

We have commitments to participate in this network from cities both large and small. The context of participation differs from place to place, but we see the use of similar tools – from referendums to neighborhood councils to participatory budgeting – around the world. The network is open to any city that seeks to be more democratic.

One of the authors of this call, Bruno Kaufmann, has himself long been a local official in Sweden and dedicated himself to local democracy. That included the establishment of democracy centers to assist people in participating in public decision-making, organizing democracy “navigators” to help citizens exercise their democratic rights, and creating youth governments to decide specific issues of particular interest to young people.

Today’s biggest challenges–from climate to inequality to democratic governance–require actions on a global scale. But very few of us spend our days traveling across the globe or even around our own countries. We make our lives in specific neighborhoods within municipalities. So being a global citizen starts with democratic participation in our home communities and cities.

With urban settlements becoming the preferred place of living, acting, and producing across the globe, cities and regions are now quickly evolving into our centers of democracy, the true beacons of people power.

And those beacons will shine more brightly together.

Yours in democracy,

Joe Mathews and Bruno Kaufmann

Co-presidents Global Forum on Modern Direct Democracy

Media

The seventh edition of the Global Forum on Modern Direct Democracy took place in Rome (Italy) from 26 until 29 September 2018. Organizers had 350 representatives from more than 80 countries attend the four-day event in the Eternal city of Rome. The Global Forum on Modern Direct Democracy was attended by a broad spectrum of actors, ranging from academics, over political stakeholders, to activists.

The conference mainly focused on direct democracy and citizen participation at the local level, the importance of cities as drivers of democracy on a global stage, and the opportunities the digital age offers for participation. In a series of workshops and panels, the Global Forum put the spotlight on practical aspects of direct democracy.