A Year Full of Work Before Porto Alegre 2003

Lewis Machipisa

With tears and chants, the World Social Forum II ended today at Porto Alegre's Catholic University Campus.

While thousands of participants emotionally shared the feeling - repeated over and over again through loud speakers - that this world has a chance to be different, if people wish so, Carlos Haddad, of the WSF's Brazilian Committee reminded everybody of the tasks ahead before the next appointment, Porto Alegre 2003.

The United Nations Financing for Development Conference, to be held in Monterrey, Mexico, next March, was one of the cornerstones of the year's tight schedule in the struggle against neoliberalism, he said.

At the lively and colourful closing ceremony marking the end of five days of intense debate and cultural exchange, the message was that all it would take is the kind of attitude build up at the WSF for the poor to rise above oppression unleashed by neo-liberalisation.

Fortified by the forum's slogan, 'Another World is Possible', the more than 5,000 civil society groups represented at the assembly resolved to strengthen their will to campaign against foreign debt, war and the attempt by transnational corporations to dictate the economic agenda.

The WSF II was attended by more than 3,500 journalists, from 467 newspapers, 195 magazines, 188 radio stations and 110 television channels.

Vandana Shiva, founder of the India-based Research Foundations for Science, Technology and Environment said there was a history of governments using the failure o of commitments made at earlier conferences such as the 1992 Earth Summit as an excuse to push the globalisation agenda rather than attempt any reform..

Normally relegated to the periphery, African delegates said they were going back happy that they managed to put their concerns at the very top of the forum's agenda.

'Compared to the last WSF, there has been more participation by Africa and that in itself has got Africa speaking for their continent and not leave it to northern NGOs to talk about the region,' said Charles Mutasa, of Zimbabwe-based African Organisarion on Debt and Development (AFRODAD).

'It has been an opportunity for the voice of Africa to be heard in the world and we have been able to present our issues on debt, gender and trade unions,' noted Mutasa.

The African group called on their governments to develop and enforce national and regional regulatory systems to control capital movements. It also demanded that the developed countries take seriously their responsibility to control the capital market and create ways of increasing international liquidity to help finance the development of Africa and other developing countries.