From Nairobi to Davos: Reflections on the World Social Forum and World Economic Forum
Release Date: 14 February 2007
By Kumi Naidoo, CIVICUS Secretary-General
In late January 2007, the seventh World Social Forum was held in Nairobi, Kenya and the 37th World Economic Forum was held in Davos, Switzerland. CIVICUS, the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC), Amnesty International and the Arab Network and Development (ANND), were some of the civil society groups that participated in both events. In this week’s column I will reflect on the World Social Forum and next week’s column will focus on the World Economic Forum.
CIVICUS had several members and partners and some ten staff attending and participating in the World Social Forum. We were responsible for organising three events, all of which were well attended and met the objectives we had set for ourselves.
The first workshop was on the growing threats to democracy generally and civic space specifically, particularly given the ill-conceived manner in which the so-called “war on terror” is being waged. It was telling that almost all delegates from all regions and from various different parts of civil society all felt that there were real concerns regarding the shrinking of democratic space. Sometimes the “war on terror” is being used as justification for racial and religious profiling, introduction of detention without trial and house arrest legislation, for “extraordinary rendition” which is nothing short of torture by proxy and so on. These concerns were also explored during a press conference CIVICUS organised, where Hollywood actor Danny Glover, two Nobel Peace Prize winners, Jody Williams and Shirin Ebadi, as well as Sylvia Borren of Oxfam NOVIB joined me in condemning growing threats to global activism. For more information on the press conference, please visit www.civicus.org/new/media/CIVICUS-WSF-WEF-PRESSRELEASE_post-press-conference30January2007.doc.
This workshop also discussed a possible campaign to develop a Global Civic Charter that would capture civil society’s demands regarding freedom of association, assembly and expression. CIVICUS received very useful commentary that will help us in developing this proposal further. For more information on this effort please contact CIVICUS Civil Society Watch Manager, Clare Doube at clare.doube@civicus.org.
The second workshop was on “Civil Society Accountability”. This workshop drew on the initial results from the Civil Society Index Project and tackled the importance for civil society organisations not to take for granted the trust that we enjoy with many national publics. It also reflected on strategies for enhancing civil society’s accountability and acknowledged some of the political complexities in taking this work forward. For example, the challenge of accountability for a small community based organisation that does not employ full time staff is very different from an international NGO which works in several countries around the world. Notwithstanding these challenges, participants felt it was important that civil society rise up to meet this challenge. For more information on the International NGO Accountability Charter please visit www.ingoaccountabilitycharter.org or e-mail diana.eltahawy@civicus.org. For more information on Civil Society Index, please e-mail index@civicus.org.
The issue of accountability will be explored further at the CIVICUS World Assembly to be held in Glasgow, Scotland, from 23-27 May 2007. As well as addressing civil society accountability, participants will also explore ways to hold governments, business and the media to account. For more information on the World Assembly please visit www.civicusassembly.org.
The third event that CIVICUS was involved in organising was an open forum for the Global Call to Action against Poverty, whose small global support team is hosted by CIVICUS. The purpose of the forum was to have GCAP campaigners from all the diverse constituencies share their achievements during 2006 and to launch mobilisation plans for 2007. The spirit of this forum was positive, energising and served as a useful launch for this year’s activities which included continuity to push developed country governments to meet their 0,7% of Gross National Income for development assistance and a major improvement on the quality of aid, debt cancellation, trade justice and also pushing developed and developing countries on gender equality, democracy, public accountability, anti-corruption, human rights and specific demands to address poverty, pertaining to health, children and youth, education, the environment and so on.
In addition to the open forum, GCAP presence included a widespread array of workshops and activities that were organised, in part by the GCAP global support team based at CIVICUS, and a diverse GCAP-WSF taskforce. Some of the many highlights included two compelling performances of a poverty requiem as a political and artistic manifestation of voices against poverty, as well as a GCAP documentary film programme featuring films against poverty. For more information, please visit www.whiteband.org.
There are several overlapping commitments and interconnections between civil society organisations that were present in Nairobi. For example, some have been actively involved in CIVICUS, GCAP and the World Social Forum since its inception. GCAP itself was launched in 2005 at the World Social Forum at Porto Alegre and most of its supporters see itself as part of the WSF community. Yet others are involved in one specific movement and see WSF as a critical meeting point to make connections with other movements.
The World Social Forum will not meet in 2008 but will instead organise popular mobilisations during the World Economic Forum and 2008 will serve as a year of consolidation. This fact, and the fact that while the number of participants is still impressively staggering, it had dropped from close to 100 000 to less than 50 000, and differing perspectives of what the WSF should be and do, have raised questions about the future of the WSF. Articles published on the WSF ran under headlines such as: “World Social Forum: Dying or more Alive than Ever”, “From a World Social Forum to a World Social Movement” and “The World Social Forum: From Defense to Offense”. In the latter article, Immanuel Wallerstein wrote that the WSF had matured and evolved more than even its participants realize. He notes the ongoing debate about whether the WSF “should continue to be an open space that was inclusive of all those that want to transform the existing world-system and, at the same time, permit and encourage those who wanted to organise specific political actions to do so, and to organise to do so at the WSF meetings”.
Along the same lines, Mario Osava, writing for IPS, correctly notes that: “The WSF is a response to the need to overcome the dispersal of the diverse initiatives and efforts that make up society, and to make international connections between them, without using traditional mechanisms of representation via elections or unions. It is developing new ways of doing politics and creating a more participative kind of democracy. Thus, the WSF may change its methods, how it organises its meetings and even its name and its key ideas, but global civil society will no longer be able to do without a forum for representatives from all over the world to articulate and energise their struggles, exchange experiences and reflect together.” From various conversations with activists from around the world this depiction of the WSF is still seen as its biggest strength. The diversity represented in the Forum can be described as the most inclusive of the peoples of the world and in sharp contrast to the World Economic Forum.
As Osava and others note, the WSF is still a relatively new actor on the world stage. Its organisational style is diffuse, but at particular moments it can reach a consensus that has mobilising power, such as the 2003 demonstrations against the war in Iraq. It is here to stay, and it plays a role in democratisation. And it is searching for the best ways and means to empower participants and get their voices heard.
There are now pressures to convert the WSF into a political instrument that would adopt resolutions and action plans. As Osava notes, many activists and “even members of the WSF International Council are calling for decisions and action, arguing that the current formula is causing immobility”.
However, the core goal of the WSF is probably to strengthen connections and mobilise civil society in order to build not simply another world but a more just world, and this implies huge challenges. If one compares the press coverage received by the World Economic Forum, in number terms a much smaller event, and the WSF, it becomes clear that alternative ways of communicating with people around the world are needed.
I would recommend that it will be important to follow the debates that will take place within the International Council of the World Social Forum in the coming months since key decisions about approach and purpose are now on the agenda. This, I believe, should not be seen as a crisis, but rather a normal evolution of an historic broad-based movement whose diversity is both its greatest source of strength but at the same time its greatest challenge as well.
For my colleagues and I at CIVICUS we found the experience inspirational as well as productive. We connected with members and partners who were participating and learnt from the various workshops, panels and exhibitions. We agreed with much that we saw - from feminist dialogues that were seeking to elevate gender equality to the centre stage, to the attempts by our colleagues from Zimbabwe to mobilise support from WSF delegates for their struggle to protect democracy and human rights in Zimbabwe. Of course, no one going to the WSF agrees with every sentiment expressed but such is the beauty of the space, you do not need to. But even for those perspectives one disagrees with, you learn from the exposure that is rarely found in any other convening space of civil society.
Next week, I will reflect on the World Economic Forum and will offer some points of comparison between the two forums.
