World Social Forum

Even though the WSF is above all a process, its most visible expressions have been the two massive events organized in Porto Alegre, Brazil, with tens of thousands of participants from all over the world. In the first one, held in January 2001, the criticism of global capitalism was of fundamental importance. In the second edition of the WSF, held in February 2002, the emphasis shifted towards formulating alternatives.

In the program of the next global WSF event in Porto Alegre on 23-28 January 2003, strategies of social transformation will play a prominent role. The Bangkok meeting of the WSF International Council has debated and constructed a tentative structure for the program, which will be further developed and open to suggestions from movements and organizations around the world. (WSF Bulletin 2002) NIGD is a member of the International Committee of the World Social Forum. The fifth meeting of the IC took place in Bangkok in August where the five Thematic Areas of WSF III in January 2003 in Porto Alegre, Brazil, were decided:

• Democratic Sustainable Development

• Principles and values, human rights, diversity and equality

• Media, culture and counter-hegemony

• Political power, civil society and democracy

• Democratic world order, working against war and for peace

The working group composed of IC members will detail the recommendations for the Thematic Areas and for proposed sub-areas – which may make up the panel debates – by the IC’s forthcoming meeting in November in Florence, Italy. Teivo Teivainen of represents NIGD in the working group on the fifth thematic area. At the moment, NIGD is preparing this work.

NIGD also closely follows the work of the Indian Working Group advocating the transferral of the WSF process from Brazil to India.

NIGD at WSF I, II, III and IV

NIGD has organized workshops and seminars at all three WSF I (2001), WSF II (2002),and WSF III (2003) events. In 2001, the topic was global democracy and in 2002 the workshop was more specifically related to the framework of the project on evaluating global democracy initiatives, within the frame of the North-South Dialogues-process. This work was continued at WSFIII. In 2003, NIGD's Strategy for Global Democratization was finalized.

Finnish Social Forum

During the past year, NIGD has been following the work in Helsinki on setting up a Finnish WSF committee. It has been decided that for now, the interim Finnish WSF Committee will continue and future discussions may eventually lead to the setting up of a formal Committee.