By Gustavo González
QUITO, Jul 30 (IPS) - The World Social Forum (WSF), which will return to Brazil for its fifth session January 24-29, 2005, will introduce profound changes to prevent the ”wasting of experience” and to make the most of what participating critics of neo-liberal globalisation have to offer in the quest for "another world".
Brazilian journalist Antonio Martins -a member of the WSF organisational committee and activist with the Association for the Taxation of Financial Transactions for the Aid of Citizens (ATTAC)- explained the plans to IPS at the first Social Forum of the Americas, which ends Friday in Quito.
Changes will be made in planning the themes to be debated and in the format of the panels and seminars. The WSF will also be moving to a new site, and a greater effort will be made to spread the word on this important global meeting of civil society, said Martins.
The first WSF was held in January 2001, 2002 and 2003 in the southern Brazilian city of Porto Alegre, but the 2004 session was transferred to Mumbai in western India.
Martins spoke warmly of this week's gathering in the capital of Ecuador, saying organisers estimate that 10,000 people from the region attended as well as special guests from other continents. In all, activists from more than 45 nations took part.
He said the fact that the meeting was held in Ecuador, a country with a large, highly organised indigenous population, lent the indigenous movement of the Andean nations greater prominence within the sphere of the WSF, bringing with it a sense of the rediscovery of cultural identities.
This week's Social Form also acted as ”a wake-up call to the risks of the re-colonisation of Latin America” through the imposition of a neo-liberal model of globalisation by means of free trade agreements and the installation of U.S. military bases in the Andean region, he added.
The Quito meeting has also given rise to new ideas for building theories for ”the articulation of ideas of a new world, in which we must combine equality and diversity at the same rate.”
Martins said this Social Forum also introduced methods suited to greater public participation. For example, he saw greater interaction with the speakers in the panels and seminars -another contribution to be taken into consideration when planning next year's WSF in Porto Alegre.
The WSF organising committee will meet in Sao Paulo, Brazil in August to determine specific aspects of the forum, and draw up a list of recommendations to guide preliminary contributions from organisations world-wide.
The idea is to receive proposals on discussion topics until December, while encouraging greater dialogue between civil society organisations with similar interests.
For example, there is great concern in Latin America over bilateral trade agreements with the United States, but Washington is also pushing for free trade deals in Asia.
”So why not also plan for a broader debate and discussion on South-South trade?” suggested Martins.
He stressed that the WSF must preserve its diversity, but at the same time overcome fragmentation and lack of coherence and articulation in the debates and proposals, to avoid the ”wasting of experience.”
The world forum will also be changing site. Martins said the idea is to move from the Catholic University -where the previous meetings were held- to special facilities lying along a two-kilometre stretch of the Guaida river, which runs through Porto Alegre.
The university campus worked well during previous forums, but the space available has become too limited now, and it is too far from the city centre, he explained.
Some of the riverbank facilities will be permanent and will be donated to the city after the meeting. Others will be temporary, but they will all be designed to express the values which inspire the WSF.
”There will be a whole combination of practices in tune with a new world, like food supplied through networks of family farms, as well as sustainability initiatives, like 'Zero Waste' and recycling,” explained Martins.
”Culture will be included not only in performances, but also as another form of expression, where the presence of ethnic groups will be very important,” he added.
Discussions are also underway with the Free Software Foundation (FSF) so that their related platforms can supply all the computer programmes and systems used at the WSF. The global free software movement is opposed to the ”Microsoft monopoly” in the computer industry.
The organising committee also plans to expand Ciranda, a coalition of freelancers and journalists that has produced hundreds of well-organised independent reports at previous editions of the WSF, to radio and TV, because the previous forums have relied heavily on building banks of journalistic materials directed above all at the written press.
Preliminary contacts were made in Quito with the World Association of Community Radio Broadcasters (AMARC), and the discussions will be expanded to other independent or non-governmental information networks.
Chilean journalist María Pía Matta, head of AMARC for Latin America and the Caribbean, underlined to IPS the need to join forces on the information front.
”AMARC has broadcast in previous forums. This time a WSF radio station should be set up, incorporating other organisations, like Ciranda and IPS, and other networks like ALER (The Latin American Association for Radio Education), to produce broadcasts, with shared support,” she said.
AMARC
Free Software Foundation
Ciranda
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