Swiss see positive impact of World Social Forum

swissinfo.ch

The seventh World Social Forum (WSF), which met for the first time in Africa, has closed to mainly upbeat reviews from Swiss delegates.

Some were pleased that civil society in Africa had finally been given a voice, but others were concerned by the lack of solutions and innovative ideas on offer at the gathering.

The WSF was launched in 2001 in response to growing mistrust of the annual World Economic Forum (WEF) meeting in Davos, Switzerland, which opened on Wednesday.

This year’s WSF was held in Nairobi, Kenya. The five-day meeting, said to be the largest of its kind, gathered together more than 50,000 representatives from non-governmental organisations and social movements. Among them was a 35-strong Swiss delegation.

“This was certainly the most international of the forums,” said Hans Schäppi, head of Solifonds, a solidarity organisation of the Swiss labour movement.

African delegates, who had not been so well represented at previous forums, were able to take advantage of the Kenyan location to network with counterparts from Europe, North and South America and Asia.

Dialogue

“The Nairobi forum opened a space for African dialogue,” said sociologist Jean Rossiaud, a Green party parliamentarian in the canton of Geneva.

“We will see the results in the future. Basically, the most important things happen between forums.”

During the course of around 100 conferences and seminars, African delegates were able to highlight their problems and projects.

“The fact that the forum was held in Africa is already in itself a success,” said Sergio Ferrari, from Swiss NGO E-changer, which helped organise the Swiss delegation’s trip.

“What other organisation would have the courage to set up something similar in the most rundown continent on the planet?”

Despite this, there were relatively few people from Kenyan civil society at the forum. The organisers had expected around 150,000 people to turn up.

Criticism

For some delegates, however, the number of seminars was excessive and discussion lacked quality.

Beate Wilhelm, deputy director at the Swiss Agency for Cooperation and Development (SDC), said that she had hoped for “more innovative and controversial ideas from those taking part in the forum”.

It was right to discuss concerns over social injustices, but it was now also necessary to “develop possible solutions”, added Wilhelm.

Media coverage was also problematic. The WSF’s head of communications, Roberto Savio, told the forum’s magazine, TerraViva, that there had been gaps in bringing information to the media and WSF followers.

Infancy

Rossiaud said it was important to remember that the WSF was still in its infancy. “A social process needs time, you just need to think of the labour movement. But nowadays we leave in an age of immediacy where many people expect results straightaway,” he said.

Ferrari said he thought that the presence of the unions was the biggest development at the forum, especially as they had clubbed together with NGOs and the left-leaning parties to launch a global campaign for decent work.

Both men believe that the ability to launch and coordinate international campaigns was one of the most positive results at the Nairobi forum.

swissinfo, Andrea Tognina in Nairobi

The future of the WSF

Conceived in response to the Davos World Economic Forum, which is held at the same time of year, the WSF first took place in 2001, in the Brazilian city of Porto Alegre.

Last year the events were split into a series of three meetings in separate countries – Mali, Venezuela and Pakistan. 2007 was the first time the WSF was entirely held in Africa.

The forum will now take a year’s break, with no centralised event planned. But there will still be many demonstrations organised to coincide with the World Economic Forum in Davos.

The WSF will return in 2009 but the location has not been announced yet.