WORLD SOCIAL FORUM: Lack of Sponsorship Undermines Mali Gathering

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Joyce Mulama

NAIROBI, Jan 14 2006 (IPS) - Plans to send a large contingent of Kenyan campaigners to the African leg of the World Social Forum (WSF) may be undermined by a lack of funding.

This year’s WSF takes place in the Malian capital of Bamako from Jan 19-23, marking the first time such an event is happening on the African soil. Two other WSFs are expected to take place later in Caracas, Venezuela, and Karachi, Pakistan.

Since 2002, the social forums had been held in the Brazilian town of Porto Alegre, save for 2004, when it was moved to Mumbai, India.

WSF provides a space for civil society groups, mainly from poor nations, to advance an alternative thinking under the slogan ”another world is possible”.

Since this year’s event was brought to Africa, many Kenyans thought they would take advantage of the proximity to attend. But this hope has waned and the number of those expected to attend has dropped due to inadequate resources, including a prohibitive airfare. It’s cheaper to fly to Europe, than to Mali, from Kenya.

”Our partners had a lot of interest to sponsor people who could not make it to the forum on their own. Unfortunately, only a few people have managed to get sponsorship,” Onyango Oloo, the coordinator of the Kenya Social Forum (KSF), the local chapter of the WSF, told IPS.

Of the 22 officials from KSF seeking to travel to Mali, only 15 of them will now be able to do so.

The number of Kenya’s participants is likely to go up slightly when other organisations, some of which are affiliated to the KSF, raise funds through their respective networks. IPS could not establish the exact number of those who will follow KSF officials to Mali.

Despite these shortcomings, the Bamako gathering is being regarded as a positive event. ”We are seeing Bamako as one of the build-up steps, as a preparation for the 2007 WSF expected to be held in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi,” said Oloo.

Campaigners expect a range of issues, including trade disparity between rich and poor countries, HIV/AIDS and corruption, to be discussed in Bamako.

The Kenyan team is also expected to raise the plight of the workers at the country’s Export Processing Zones (EPZs). ”We will be asking about the benefits of EPZs to Kenya, the quality of the jobs and whether they promote or violate human rights,” Steve Ouma, assistant executive director of the Nairobi-based Kenya Human Rights Commission (KHRC), told IPS.

”EPZs have the potential of promoting humans rights. But they have instead become a tool of access to the Kenyan market at the expense of human rights,” Ouma, who has conducted surveys on EPZs, remarked.

The working environment at the EPZs is marked by lack of maternity leave for women, long working hours without breaks, poor sanitation and lack of sick leave.

Since 1990, when they were introduced in Kenya, the EPZs have been at the centre of criticism over their alleged disregard for the workers’ rights. The investors, most of them in the textile, enjoy a string of incentives, including a 10-year tax holiday, and the freedom to move funds in and out of the country, unhindered.

According to Ouma, who visited the EPZs in Athi River near Nairobi last week, remuneration is still low, with most of the workers getting a salary of 68 dollars per month. This is considerably low in a city where a one-bedroom mud-house fetches more than 15 dollars a month in rent in Nairobi’s sprawling ghettos. Negotiations are underway to increase the salaries.

But the government maintains that the EPZs have done more good than harm. Information from the website of the Export Processing Zones Authority says the over 40 zones across the country have created job opportunities, employing close to 40,000 workers. The industry contributes 10.7 percent of national exports.

Apart from concerns about the EPZs, Kenyans will also raise the plight of the minority Yaaku people in Bamako.

The Yaaku claim that they are being assimilated into the Maasai community. While the Maasai are nilotics, the Yaaku are cushites, with totally different way of life. They reside in the Mukogodo forest in Laikipia in Kenya’s Rift Valley province.

According to the Yaaku Peoples Association (YPA), the Yaaku population is less than 4,000. They are threatened with evictions by their more powerful 400,000-strong Maasai neighbours. The Yaaku also fear that since the forest they occupy is gazetted as government land, authorities may decide to kick them out of it.

”We are not identified as a tribe in Kenya and there are no records to this effect. We do not have any other place to call our land in case we are asked to leave the Mukogodo forest. We are going to use the Bamako forum to let the world know of our existence and our plight,” said Jennifer Koinante, coordinator of the YPA.

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