Author: Nation Editor
Date: January 28, 2007
Type of article: Editorial
Source: The Daily Nation - only available online by registration and paid subscription fee

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The motto of the just-concluded World Social Forum in Nairobi was “Another world is possible.” Indeed that phrase is what the WSF is all about. 

The whole reason for the Forum’s existence is to create a world different to the one preached at the World Economic Forum at Davos in Switzerland. The WSF is held annually by members of the anti-globalisation brigade as an alternative to the meeting in Davos.
 
At the Forum activists share and refine strategies on how to organise against the excesses, as they see them, of the capitalist society.

The meeting in Nairobi marked the first time that the Forum has been held in Africa -- the world’s poorest, yet potentially the world’s wealthiest continent. 

The WSF was initially convened in the Brazilian town of Porto Alegre by various local civil society groups in 2001. It has also been held in the Indian city of Mumbai in 2004. 

The WSF meeting in Nairobi was expected by many to promote the voices of the common people and particularly those of Africa and the global South in general.

While, indeed, there were many different voices at the event, in the final analysis there were inequalities of representation with the global South having fewer representatives as opposed to over-representation of the North.

This led inevitably to a questioning of the bona fides of such lopsided representation. It seemed that while another world is possible, for now, it would remain the same old world where citizens of the global North continue to patronise those of the global South.

However, on another level, the WSF did manage to bring together an assorted bunch of activists from the worldwide civil society movement.