The World Social Forum (or WSF) is an international forum designed to bring together from all around the world civic organizations sympathetic to anti-globalization ("Another world is possible"). Addressing the major concerns of civil society in relation to globalization, this event presents itself as a social alternative to the World Economic Forum held annually in January in Davos, Switzerland. The wsf 2008 or the foro social mundial 2008 (forum social mondial) as it is called in Spanish was however held globally by thousands of autonomous local organizations. Visit http://wsf2008.net/ for more information.
Aim of the Forum
The first WSF was held in 2001 in Porto Alegre, Brazil. Since the meetings of 2002 and 2003, social forums at all scales are governed by the principles of the Charter of the World Social Forum, whose main principles are opposing the neo-liberal globalization that currently characterizes, opening to all current ideological alternative projects and the absence of political parties as such.
The social forums do not issue final statements, but are open spaces for discussion of ideas and project development. A manifesto was drafted in 2005, however, without any official status: the Manifesto of Porto Alegre, support proposals to debate. The Forum is organized by the “International Council“, which in 2005 brought together some forty NGOs and associations, and that continues to grow.
Forum Guidelines
Following the first World Social Forum in 2001, organizers have developed a "charter of principles and guidelines for the organization of forums in 2002“. As explained in the book “Changing the world“, manual of Chico Whitaker co-founder of the WSF, the charter became the basic document of the forum. It provides a truly unique nature, compared to other instruments, to fight for "another world". Visit http://www.wsf2008.net/ for more details about the charter’s use in the world social forum 2008.
