Ruby van der Wekken

The latest WSF IC meeting took place from 31 March to 4 April 2008 in Abuja, Nigeria, see the agenda.

One of the main items on the agenda was the discussion on the strategy of the WSF. All WSF IC members had been asked for their contribution in a preparatory process to the debate which have been taken up in a collection of WSF IC strategy texts.

So the personal contribution of NIGD member Francine Mestrum, who argues that  "Two elements are of particular importance for the future of the WSF. First, the need for some kind of “leadership”."  "...  objectives are my second point. They must go beyond criticism of neoliberalism and globalisation. What do we want the WSF to be or to do? The other world that we think is possible should be made more concrete, not in the form of a single programme, but as different issues that can be integrated in different programmes or guiding principles for regional and national movements."

A main element in the discussion remains the issue of the WSF as a space or as a political actor. Thomas Ponniah in his article 'The meaning of the USSF' focusses on the example of the US social forum to address the standpoints of both Walden Bello ("The forum as moment") and Chico Whitaker ("The forum as a tool"), in which he concludes among other that "... while Whitaker’s argument has been borne out so too has Walden Bello’s: the facilitators of the Social Forum process have not yet devised a format that will actually enable decisive social change."

Read the report from Abuja by Teivo Teivainen,  in which Teivo reflects on the changes in the WSF IC meetings in the course of its twenty sessions held since June 2001 and in which more on what is envisioned and thought out for the coming years of the WSF process. The next WSF IC meeting will be organized in Copenhagen, Denmark, after the next European Social Forum held in Malmö, Sweden, in September.