Author: Kenya Times Editor
Date: January 21, 2007
Source: Kenya Times http://www.timesnews.co.ke/21jan07/editorials/edtorial1.html

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The 2007 World Social Forum (WSF) has finally kicked off in Nairobi, fetching another golden chance for the civil society and development partners to interrogate policies believed to be injurious to the global economic outlook.

The forum, made possible through efforts of an international council will discuss various injustices and the widening wealth gap as the two main stumbling blocks to the attainment of growth, equity and better livelihood.

With a theme of “People’s Struggles, People’s Alternatives,” WSF brings together some 80,000 delegates from all over the world and will be the climax of a series of attempts to fight, through negotiations, for a new world order cognizant of economic needs and people’s cultural diversities.

This is the first time however that the conference is being held in Africa in its seven-year history. It has traditionally been held in Brazil and once in India.

Critically, it is good news that the social forum will among other things amplify Africa’s struggle for economic and social growth amid the continent’s quest for donor support in excess of over US$80 billion to comfortably meet the 2015 projection for the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

As the conference kicks off, our position is that it will take action and not mere rhetoric to redeem the world from the doldrums of poverty, civil strife, disease and poverty which hitherto threaten the world economy with total failure.

Conferences like the WSF, needless to say, must hinge on workable policy frameworks and nothing less than a well thought out support and aid arrangement which can suffice for all struggling economies.

In the past, conferences of similar magnitude have been held both in Kenya and elsewhere and huge capital and financial resources spent with no reflections made of them in life and practice. A repeat of this trend is unpleasant and should be avoided at all costs.

With various experts at its helm, the forum should equally explore the widest possible array of ways of weaning Africa and other developing continent from the tendency of over reliance on support and aid, which come with inconsequential conditions.

It should equally spotlight on Africa and her rich heritage of natural wealth and her role in the quest for another possible, more progressive global human society.

At the talks progress, participants must be privy to the fact that failure to address global economic imbalances will forever derail efforts by developing countries in their bid to scale new growth heights and improve standards of living.

Similarly, we believe that it is time participants took chance to build on propositions of what kind of world they would like to live in and how possible it can be to attain the desired and ideal world.

Other vital topics which should be explored at the forum include, just trade, common goods for common life, dignified work, demystifying and defeating HIV/AIDS pandemic and discussions on a free debt world, debt cancellation and repudiation.

The forum, we hope, will also provide an opportunity for slum dwellers and marginalised communities to engage policy makers in discussion on issues affecting them.

And Government representatives from across the globe should take part in the deliberations not as mere delegates and spectators but as think tanks interested in results that will improve governance structures, resource allocation and utilization and improved freedom margins. As the talks get underway, this paper wishes the WSF delegates a fruitful and eventful forum.