a portal on Southern civil societies HOME ABOUT CONTACT ESPAÑOL Directory NGO sites This site Directory In-depth Reports Campaigns News Books Tools & Services Advanced search Wsis IFIs

In depth I  World Social Forum (WSF) World Social Forum global day of action - 26th January 2008 For 2008, a Global Call for Action promoted by many international networks was launched inside the WSF asking social movements and civil society worldwide to mobilize together in the week culminating on January 26, 2008. [see more]   print    send   Correct  ADD YOUR COMMENT >> World Social Forum global day of action 26th January 20088 "The great strength of the World Social Forum lies in its novel character. It is an initiative of the emerging planetary civil society that aims to value the practices of civic struggle and participation in different societies, and to give a global dimension to the proposals that are born of them". Cándido Grzybowski The first and fundamental result of the Forum is the event itself. The World Social Forum (WSF) was created to provide an open platform to discuss strategies of resistance to the globalization model proposed at the annual World Economic Forum at Davos (1). Firmly committed to the belief that “Another World Is Possible” the WSF is an open space for discussing alternatives, exchanging experiences and strengthening alliances among civil society organizations, peoples and movements.. (2) Following the first global meeting held in 2001 in the city of Porto Alegre, Brazil, the Forum was turned into an ongoing global process and adopted a Charter of Principles (3), as its main document. The first three editions of the Forum were carried out in Porto Alegre; in 2004, the WSF moved to Mumbai, India, returning in 2005 to Porto Alegre, while in 2006 a Polycentric forum took place in three different places: Caracas (Venezuela), Karachi (Pakistan) and Bamako (Mali). In 2007, it will be held in Kenya with the aim of evaluating what has happened with actions proposed by social movements in previous forums, in order to find out whether they are already underway and make their results visible. General political issues as well as discussions on the WSF’s future and the methodology of annual events are discussed at its International Council (CI). Within the WSF process, different international Regional and Thematic Social Forums are carried out, being activities that have strengthened social entities, increasingly giving more space so that issues to be debated are handled by organizations and movements themselves . According to Grzybowski (4), "It is impossible to understand the Social Forum without linking it to the growing wave of public protests against globalization, as it happened in recent years in Seattle, Washington, Prague and Nice. The people behind the Forum are those who become actors in struggles, movements, associations and organizations, however small or large, local or national, regional or global. It is this global convergence of diverse networks and movements that creates and sustains the World Social Forum". Forum : space or movement? However, such a massive process is not without tensions. These are expressed broadly among those who believe that the most important thing is to keep it as an open space for reflection and debate, avoiding the risks of politicization, or among those who believe that it should be turned into a movement with increased organic character, that would produce a final document to make certain position official. In this sense, in the 2005 Forum, several intellectuals release a 12-point document (Porto Alegre Manifesto). According to its drafters, the twelve proposals included in the Manifesto aim to “give sense to another possible world. If applied, they would allow citizens to at last seize back control of their future”. Whitaker expreses a different view: "For me, there is no doubt that it is fundamental to ensure at all costs the continuity of the Forum as a space and to not yield to the temptation of transforming it now or even later, into a movement. If we maintain it as a space, it will not prevent nor hinder the formation and the development of movements —to the contrary it will ensure and enable this process. But if we opt for transforming it into a movement, it will inescapably fail to be a space, and all the potentialities inherent to spaces will then be lost". (...) "The great challenge for the continuity of the Forum process therefore, and for it to fulfil its vocation of being an incubator for more and more movements and initiatives, is to multiply such spaces across the world that are genuinely open and free, without focussing attention only on specific proposals. We must hope that nobody, however inadvertently, contributes to ‘closing down’ the Forum to such a point that it disappears as an open space". (5). In this special report we provide information about the WSF process as well as analysis and in-depth views on the nature and scope of this global event. (1) The World Economic Forum at Davos gathers large multinational corporations, national governments, the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and the World Trade Organization. (2) "World Social Forum: Origins and Aims", by Francisco Whitaker (3) Charter of Principles (4) "World Social Forum: Something new was born in Porto Alegre", by Cándido Grzybowski, Sociologist, Director of IBASE and member of the Organizing Committee of the World Social Forum. (5) "The WSF as open space",pdf. "From The World Social Forum: challenging empires" Editors: Jai Sen, Anita Anand, Arturo Escobar, Peter Waterman. Versión en español share:   print    send   correct  ADD YOUR COMMENT >>  Official web site  Debate and discussion documents  Books  Related information  Thematic  Regional  All the Forums   News Up-to-date current affairs information. Wed Sep 06 2006 Consultation towards WSF 2007 is closed Fuente: WSF Wed Jul 12 2006 Workshop on the WSF      Official web site World Social Forum World Social Forum (WSF) 2007 - Nairobi The 7th World Social Forum -to be held from January 20 to 25, in Nairobi (Kenya)– faces now the challenge of being even more linked to concrete actions to build “another possible world”. WSF 2007 Consultation Workspace This electronic space has been created to start preparing the 7th World Social Forum - to be held from January 20 to 25, 2007 in Nairobi (Kenya). The first step on the process towards WSF 2007 is a preparatory consultation on actions, campaigns and struggles in which organisations / networks / entities participating in the WSF process are engaged. World Social Forum 2008 - Global Call for Action Jan. 26, 2008 - Act together for another world!    Debate and discussion documents WSF 2009: dilemma's of decision-making on the periodicity of the forums Source: Network Institute for Global Democratization Teivo Teivainen The International Council of the World Social Forum (WSF) decided in its meeting in Parma in October 2006 that the next coordinated worldwide WSF event after the Nairobi's in January 2007 will take place in 2009. There will, at least in principle, also be more room for preparing regional, national, local and thematic social forums in 2008. As regards the WSF decision-making mechanisms, the Parma decision gives new hope for the possibilities to reach consensual positions through a learning process. Previous attempts to decide on the periodicity of the forums had resulted in a stalemate, contributing to the frustrations of many key participants of the WSF process. November 2006. The WSF as open space Chico Whitaker The Forum faces a positive crisis three-fourths of growth three-fourths that demands a deeper look at some of the issues in its Charter of Principles.1 To avoid destroying its potential, some of these ambiguities have to be overcome before the process moves towards irretrievably crystallised, concrete orientations. To contribute to this debate, I explore here three themes that have become fundamental for the continuity of the Forum process. Pdf format. Autonomous politics and its problems: thinking the passage from social to political Source: Choike Ezequiel Adamovsky According to Adamovsky, the current emancipatory movements can be said to be in two opposite situations (somewhat schematically). The first one is that in which they suceed in mobilizing a great deal of social energy in favor of a political project, but which they do in a way that makes them fall into the traps of “heteronomous politics”. By “heteronomous”, I refer to the political mechanisms by means of which all that social energy ends up being channeled in a way that benefits the interests of the ruling class or, at least, minimizes the radical potential of that popular mobilization. The second situation is that of those movements and collectives that reject any contact with the state and with heteronomous politics in general (parties, lobbies, elections, etc.), only to find themselves reduced to small identity-groups with few chances of making a real impact in terms of radical change. March 2006. Peter Waterman's articles and analysis Peter Waterman Compilation of articles and analysis on the World Social Forum phenomenon by Peter Waterman. Among his books are "Globalisation, Social Movements and the New Internationalisms", and (co-editor) of "World Social Forum: Challenging Empires" published online by Choike. Global civil society in the global political arena Source: Centre for Global Studies Lisa Jordan The emergence of global civil society can be interpreted as a response by citizens to rapidly changing conditions of governance and community in an increasingly interconnected world, or — in a word — to globalization. Globalization has spread wealth, opportunity and new possibilities across the globe. However, it has also unraveledmany of the social and cultural contracts that states and citizens have painstakingly built over the past centuries to advance social goals and protect groups from the abuse of their rights—through rules, standards and regulations that decide how the costs and benefits of change are distributed within and between societies. PDF format. Social movements set to assert their presence at WSF Nairobi 2007 Source: Pambazuka Onyango Oloo Social movements in Kenya, "want to see the WSF being transformed into a space for organizing and mobilizing against the nefarious forces of international finance capital, neo-liberalism and all its local neo-colonial and comprador collaborators," writes Onyango Oloo. Whether this will be achieved is a practical question which will be put to the test in Nairobi this coming January. (Onyango Oloo is the National Coordinator of the Kenya Social Forum). December 2006. World Social Forum: just another NGO fair? Source: Pambazuka Firoze Manji The World Social Forum, which took place in Nairobi, Kenya for the first time in Africa, was supposed to be a forum for the voices of the grassroots. But Firoze Manji writes that, despite the diversity of voices at the event, not everyone was equally represented. January 26, 2007. From WSF 'NGO trade fair' to left politics? Source: Centre for Civil Society - CCS Patrick Bond A mixed message -combining celebration and autocritique- is in order, in the wake of the Nairobi World Social Forum. From January 20-25, the 60,000 registered participants heard triumphalist radical rhetoric and yet, too, witnessed persistent defeats for social justice causes -especially within the WSF's own processes. February 2007. About the World Social Forum in Nairobi François Houtart The Nairobi Forum has helped to integrate more Africa in the general trend and also for the non Africans to get a better understanding of the African situations. It allowed understanding that Africa is not the forgotten continent or the marginalised one as commonly thought, but well the most integrated continent inside the process of globalization, as a periphery of global capitalism. It has been the opportunity of discovering the profound suffering of the misery of many, but also the extraordinary capacity of survival of the African people, their sense of hospitality and their joy in spite of the hardships of existence. Many have been impressed by the importance of religion in their cultural expressions and for their social commitments. February 2007. OpenSpace: reflections on WSF 2007 Source: OpenSpace Forum OpenSpace Forum published different authors' analysis and thoughts on WSF 2007, its future and the world social movement. Critical reflections on WSF Nairobi 2007 Source: OpenSpace Forum Onyango Oloo, National Coordinator, Kenya Social Forum The author's reflections are developed on these issues: Absorbing the Deluge of Local and Global Criticism; Internal Sluggishness at Accountability and Report Back; Deconstructing the Myth of The Monolithic “Organizers”; The Participation of Kenyan Social Movements in WSF 2007; The Opaque Tendering and Recruitment Process; Celtel & The Corporate Branding of WSF 2007; A Word About Home Stays and Solidarity Accommodation; Logistical Snafus and Programming Nightmares; Dealing With Constructive Criticism and Resolving Conflicts; The Roles of SODNET, Kenya Social Forum & WSF 2007 Organizing Committee; The Way Forward. March 19, 2007. Women's bodies, gender analysis, and feminist politics at the Fórum Social Mundial Source: Journal of International Women's Studies International Unions embrace the World Social Forum: opportunities and… limitations? Peter Waterman The International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) has issued a statement that publicly endorses the World Social Forum’s Day of Action, 2008. Although the ITUC and its forerunners have increasingly attended events of the WSF at both global and lower levels, attendance has not previously been marked by such an appeal. The event now being promoted intended to take place locally but worldwide, substitutes for the customary five-day event concentrated in specific Third World cities. December 2007, pdf format. Is the World Social Forum approaching a point of crisis? Source: CACIM Jai Sen A note towards a debate on the WSF's Global Day of Action in January 2008 and on the future of the Forum. By Jai Sen, on behalf of CACIM, November 2007. Debate on the future of the World Social Forum Chico Whitaker Chico Whitaker answers CACIM's call for World Social Forum evaluation. "We can evaluate the WSF as CACIM proposes with two different attitudes: wishing WSF disappears (“folding up its tent”) or wishing its continuity. If we are not convinced of its utility, and consider it a waste of time –some see it now even as an obstacle to gain efficacy in the struggle to overcome neoliberalism- we have only to identify what we can profit of this already eight years of experience, and enter directly in a new stage of struggle. But if we see the WSF process as something helpful, we must on the contrary identify its virtues and strengths -as well as its weakness- and think how to reinforce it". By Chico Whitaker, January the 9th, 2008.    Books The World Social Forum: challenging empires Source: Choike The first book on the WSF to be published in English from the South. An anthology of essays on the theory and practice of the WSF, edited by Jai Sen, Anita Anand, Arturo Escobar and Peter Waterman; published by The Viveka Foundation. Are other worlds possible? Can the World Social Forum help us to conceptualise and actualise a new politics? Can this new politics be free from violence? Can the experience and knowledge of great movements such as the movement for the environment, and the women’s movement, contribute to the creation of a new politics? How can such a politics be sustained? In countering the ‘old’ politics as represented by the power of nations and States, and more recently of global capital, people’s groups and movements have attempted to create alternatives of their own, and to forge a new politics. Can these processes be seen as other forms of globalisation –as what has come to be known as ‘alter globalisation’? The essays in this book offer the reader different and complex ways of understanding the processes that have helped to shape the World Social Forum and the new politics that seems to be emerging, and what all this represents, for life, society, and politics more generally. January 2005. A political programme for the World Social Forum? Source: CACIM - India Institute for Critical Action - Centre in Movement Jai Sen and Madhuresh Kumar with Patrick Bond and Peter Waterman (Compilers) The World Social Forum is widely celebrated as an 'open space' that has no clearly defined political programme of its own (other than its Charter of Principles) but rather provides a relatively free and undirected space for all those interested in exchanging ideas and experience about the state of the world, or in developing their own programmes, to do so. Over the past some years however, there have been several initiatives that have either directly proposed or otherwise implied that the WSF (and more broadly also, the emerging global justice movements) needs to have a clear political programme. The Reader 'A Political Programme for the World Social Forum?: Democracy, Substance and Debate in the Bamako Appeal and the Global Justice Movements', brings together some of the more important documents about the WSF process and the history of social movements, including the Bamako Appeal itself. January 2007 (pdf version).    Related information The World Social Forum Bibliography A bibliography on the World Social Forum and the global solidarity and justice movement. By Jai Sen and Peter Waterman, with Madhuresh Kumar, December 2003, pdf format. World Social Forum Information on de WSF provided by the Network Institute for Global Democratization (NIGD).    Thematic II World Social Forum on Migrations - June 2006 Official web site. II World Social Forum on Migrations Source: Choike To improve the conditions of displaced persons; migrants, refugees and stateless persons. World Social Thematic Forum Cartagena de Indias, June 2003. World Education Forum The World Education Forum is a space for dialogue among all who, in this globalized world, implement education projects of popular trend, which defies neoliberalism, be it in the public, governmental or not, community or research spheres. World Education Forum - Buenos Aires 2006 World Forum for Alternatives The World Forum for Alternatives is an international network aiming at supporting the international convergence of social movements and other actors of the Civil Society from below. It build spaces of reflexion and coordination, puting at the disposal of social movements and ONG, tools of information and analysis about globalization of resistances and contribuiting to the difusion of the informations about the existing international struggles. World Social Forum on Health The World Health Social Forum is an integrated site into The World Social Forum, this one is orientated by a plurality of principles, diversity and unit, there is not convectional character no governmental o party lines. It aims to dialogue with the civil society witch is committed on fighting for health human rights, to go against to a neo-liberal sense and practice that defines it as a product in the field of services, turning it into a profitable product.    Regional European Social Forum - ESF This web site is an open space to facilitate the ESF process that was embodied in Firenze 2002, Paris 2003, London,2004 and Athens,2006. African Social Forum First Americas Social Forum - July 2004 Source: Choike The First Americas Social Forum (ASF) took place in Quito, Ecuador, from July 25 to 30, 2004. The ASF programme is grouped in five thematic axes: The economic order, The violent face of the neo-liberal project, Power, democracy and the State, Cultures and communication and Indigenous peoples and African descendents. Gender and diversities have been transversal themes. Asian Social Forum Caribbean Social Forum Midwest Social Forum Border Social Forum Reflections on the 2007 U.S. Social Forum Source: Americas Program, Center for International Policy (CIP) Laura Carlsen and Katie Kohlstedt Attending the U.S. Social Forum held in Atlanta, Georgia June 27-July 1 was an adventure. The first social forum for the United States, it was also one of the first in a series of regional events aimed at decentralizing the mega World Social Forum that started in Porto Alegre, Brazil. Short on preparation and organization but long on enthusiasm, the event stirred the interest of activists all over the world. Many wondered what kind of grassroots energy could be mustered to seriously confront the many threats posed by Bush administration policies—including unilateral force, preventive strikes, climate change denial, homophobia, and rollback of women's rights. July 2007.    All the Forums World Social Forum (WSF) 2001 Source: Choike World Social Forum (WSF) 2002 Source: Choike World Social Forum (WSF) 2003 Source: Choike World Social Forum (WSF) 2004 Source: Choike WSF 2004: News and reports from Mumbai Source: Choike World Social Forum (WSF) 2005 Source: Choike WSF 2005: News and reports from Porto Alegre Source: Choike World Social Forum 2006 - Karachi World Social Forum 2006 - Bamako Source: Choike World Social Forum 2006 - Caracas Source: Choike World Social Forum 2007 - Nairobi Source: Choike World Social Forum 2008 - Global Call for Action Jan. 26, 2008 - Act together for another world! World Social Forum global day of action - 26th January 2008 For 2008, a Global Call for Action promoted by many international networks was launched inside the WSF asking social movements and civil society worldwide to mobilize together in the week culminating on January 26, 2008.

Choike is a project of the Third World Institute supported by Hivos www.choike.org | Contact | Phone / Fax: +598 (2) 412-4224 | Dr. Juan Paullier 977, Montevideo URUGUAY