Key Decisions and Issues - Locating the Polycentrics on the Map The World Social Forum International Council (IC) held a meeting in Barcelona during late June. Decisions were taken on the venues for the main social forums in 2006 and WSF 2007. As had been decided before, the WSF 2006 will be organized as a decentralized event whereas in 2007 there will be a centralized WSF event in Nairobi, Kenya. The somewhat clumsy term “polycentric” has become a common way to refer to the process in 2006. The polycentric events in 2006 will take place in three different localities as simultaneously as possible: Karachi (Pakistan), Bamako (Mali) and Caracas (Venezuela). There had originally been a plan to organize an event in Morocco, but it seems that the Moroccans will organize a march to the Bamako forum. Vivid discussions took place on the timing of the events. After the Barcelona meeting, there has existed some ambiguity about whether the decision to organize the three events “during the same period” means that they should be organized during the same dates. It is possible, but yet to be decided, that the Bamako forum might take place some days earlier than the other two. In addition, another Asian polycentric event might take place somewhere in South-East or East Asia later the same year. Most of the European activists involved in the European Social Forum (ESF) process were sceptical of merging the European Social Forum with the polycentrics, and the Nordic consultation process had decided not to host a full-scale polycentric event in 2006. One of the key problematic issues identified by the ESF activists is the “closed” nature of the WSF decision-making structure, as compared to the “open” assembly model used in the ESF . In Barcelona, a rather lively debate emerged on a proposal to reform the composition of the IC. Neil Coleman from Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) presented a “road map” to reform the IC, The proposal, drafted in the Expansion Comission of the IC, consisted of reviewing the status of all IC members and adapting clearer criteria for inclusion of new organisations to the IC. Other issues of debate included a day-long political debate on the state of the world and strategic choices by the WSF and the meetings of different commissions in September 2005. The next plenary meeting of the IC is plenned to be held in Nairobi around March 2006. June 20, morning and afternoon - Debating Strategy (For background documents for this part of the meeting, please see: "http://www.forumsocialmundial.org.br/dinamic.php?" \t "_blank" pagina=ci_barcelona_estra_i ) This session was dedicated to political debate around the next steps the forum should take and people's visions of the main challenges to be tackled in the future. The session was structured so that every speaker had three minutes to speak apart from those who had submitted papers for the session and had six minutes present their contributions. The discussion itself went on at a rather general level. For a more in-depth view on the issues on the table please see the background documents. The problems identified in the debate ranged from peace/war, women's rights and neoliberalism to international institutions, lack of solidarity, fragmentation of social struggles, difficulties of the WSF to push structural solutions forward and lack of common thinking among the movements. for alternatives to be taken forward by the movements proposals varied from struggling for democracy and big international campaigns to presenting the WSF itself as a form of new politics or combating US hegemony. Proposals to be taken forward included peace, taking the world hegemony, maximum visibility for the movements' campaigns, increase youth participation in the WSF process and having a referendum at the WSF about the big campaigns of the movements. Overall in this session, the different views on whether the WSF should take stands or not were clearly there in the background. NIGD contributed to the debate via Teivo Teivainen who had co-authored a paper with Virginia Vargas. In the discussion, Teivo also raised the problems of the term 'neoliberalism' both from historical and practical perspectives and suggested the debate should concentrate more on capitalism. The proposal received some response in informal discussions after the session. 21st June, morning - Presenting the Polycentrics In this part of the meeting each of the hosts of the polycentrics presented the situation and facilities for the events planned. The cultural programme and especially the opening and closing ceremonies for each polycentric forum got a lot of attention and were significantly emphasised. Participants from Venezuela gave their presentation first. It raised little debate as the event had already been discussed in the IC. The Venezuelan presentation mainly consisted of listing the steps taken and shedding some light on the priorities chosen. Official approvement by the Venezuelan government had been granted. Also a facilitating group for the Caracas forum had been established with participation of local movements, but also the Brasilian secretariat. Also, broadcasting the event through TELESUR, establishing relations with the international festival of the youth and students in Caracas and an own website (the same goes for the other polycentrics) were on the list of next steps. The Pakistani presentation went mainly through infrastructural issues. Some IC representatives raised the issue of relations with the Musharraf government and general feeling was the presentation did not tell much about the content of the event. The Pakistanis admitted that, regardless of their efforts, little response from the government had been received. Especially the issue of Indian participation at the event was seen problematic. The organisers would continue efforts to solve the issue. For the other Asian Polycentric event, a decision on the whereabouts of the event will be taken in consultation meeting with the local groups likely to take place in Bangkok in August 2005. The venue will, however, be in South-East or East Asia and the probable timing will be between May and July 2006. For Mali, the presentation concentrated again much on infrastructure. The main issue raised in the debate was whether the event would be held simultaneously with Davos and the other polycentrics. The Mali representatives had given a few week time frame for the event. This issue seemed to have been left a bit hanging in the air although the presenters said timing wasn't going to be a problem. The Morrocans have reduced their plans to a North African gathering and a caravan to the Mali event. The idea of having a separate North African Social Forum received criticism as it was seen likely to be a rather small gathering of 200 to 400 participants. For the Nordic Social Forum, the consultations will continue, but nothing is planned for 2006. The Nordics feel they are not ready to host a full scale polycentric event. As for the definition of a polycentric forum, no clear consensus was reached on whether the polycentric events could only take place simultaneously or whether they could be scattered all year long. General feeling was that polycentric forums can happen all year long, even if the tree main events will take place in January. 21st June, afternoon - The Commissions This is a partial report of the commissions in which we were mostly involved a) Content and Methodology The WSFTOOLS working group of the Methodology Commission had prepared a document on that was adopted by the IC. The main content of the document consists of adopting a same kind of database as in Mumbai for all three forums. The events would have separate event tools for registration, schedule setting etc. but also a common preparation tool to better link the forums and the events organised within them. All registrations made in the event tools would be automatically registered in the common preparation tool. A liasson person has nominated for each polycentric event. Also another document regarding the common orientation of the polycentric events was adopted. It consisted of ten points, eight of which had been defined in Utrech, including consultation process regarding the themes of each forum, having a wall of proposals, having an opening ceremony of celebrative nature, creating a social territory (meaning: being coherent with the "another world is possible" principle in terms of solidarity economy, appropriate food, using open software etc.) and creating window spaces between the polycentric events. In addition to these, two other documents were presented but not adopted. These were the report of the subcommission on the presence of heads of states/ governments at the polycentrics and a document on equality policy of the WSF. Both of them were considered as contributions to the ongoing discussions on their topics. b) Resources The resources commission report, adopted by the IC, summarized the financial situation of the WSF and outlined a few proposals for the way ahead. The total amount owed to external parties by the WSF is USD 1.25 million. In order to tackle the deficit, hopes are now put on the Brazilian government, that has promised USD 600 000 but not provided it yet, and the Brazilian Bank for Development, with which negotiations are still going on but have been very promising. Smaller grants are hoped for from different organisations. It was decided that a letter would be sent to all participating organisation of the WSF 2005 to ask for a contribution of USD 200 or more. For the 2006, a decision was taken that fund raising and other resource acquiring will be handled in a decentralised manner. Each forum will take its main responsibility for this. In some areas, such as applications to international funding agencies and translation, the international secretariat might however have a role to play. The resources commission has developed a generic budget form that the polycentric events are asked to use. In terms of fundraising, at the institutional level the commission will start looking the for the possibility of establishing the WSF as a legal entity to provide technical support in financial management. The resources commission also suggest that, over time, internal funding should be emphasised in order decrease dependency from governments, private sector and foundations. c) Strategy The discussions of the strategy commission related much to the overall debate on the WSF process and it sees itself transversal vis-à-vis the other commissions. A four point working programme was adopted for the commission. The points are: 1. Map the strategies of neoliberalism, social movements and civil society, the WSF and other forums. 2. Generate input of the commissions to the IC debate on problems, alternatives, WSF charter of principles, interlocution with the other forums (like education etc.). 3. Preparation of sections of strategic discussion in IC meetings by compiling ideas, organising debates and arraging follow-up of the discussions. 4. Identifying campaigns of the movements and facilitating or catalysing them. -Process of consulting the campaigns (in addition to the wall of proposals) in contact with the reality of the movements. -Proposing plenaries for the WSF process and events. d) Expansion In the Utrecht meeting of the IC in April 2005 the Expansion Commission had been given the task of drafting a “Road Map” aimed at the restructuring of the IC. The starting point of the work was that the existing composition of the IC “does not meet the test of representivity and balance, when measured against a range of considerations”. The commission debated on the road map, which was then presented to the IC plenary. The Road Map had various controversial points, including the one that existing member organizations that want to continue in the IC need to apply for a membership and go thorough a rigorous selection procedure. One of the problems the Road Map, in its initial form, encountered was that in the context of the IC´s organizational culture it was seen as an overly detailed procedural mechanism. The Expansion Commission also debated applications to become new IC members. The inclusion of new members has traditionally been a complicated issue for the IC. It was finally decided by the commission, and later accepted by the IC plenary, that six organizations be accepted as new members immediately. In the case of most of the other applicants, the problem was that some of the relatively elementary information that had been asked of the applicants was missing. This was also true of Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam, whom NIGD had recommended. The new members of the IC, accepted in Barcelona, are Palestinian Grassroots Anti-Apartheid Wall Campaign – Palestine; National Network of Autonomous Women’s Groups – India; Coligação para a Justiça Econômica – Mozambique; The International Federation Terre des Hommes (IFTDH) – Switzerland; Solidarity Africa Network in Action – Kenya; and Réseaux Sous-régional sur la Dette et les DSRP – Mali and Niger. Source: NIGD. http://www.nigd.org/docs/WSFICBarcelona2005