WORLD
SOCIAL FORUM:
Will the Bamako Meeting
Tackle Africa's Sore Spots?
Moyiga Nduru JOHANNESBURG, Jan 10 (IPS) - The African leg of the
World Social Forum (WSF) kicks off next week in the
Malian capital, Bamako, with a host of issues on the
agenda: war and militarism, global trade and debt, to
name just a few.
The conference website where these topics are listed
makes no direct mention of AIDS, however, or the need
for good governance in African states -- even though
these are amongst the key development issues confronting
the continent today.
Despite these omissions, activist Vitalis Meja remains
confident that HIV and clean government will be
addressed during the WSF. He works for the Harare-based
African Forum and Network on Debt and Development, and
will be attending the Bamako meeting -- scheduled for
Jan. 19 to 23.
"The focus of the conference will be to criticise the
neoliberal agenda. But that does not mean that the
issues of HIV/AIDS and governance have been dropped;
they will be discussed in a broader prospective," Meja
told IPS. (The term neoliberalism describes a political
and economic philosophy that rejects state intervention
in the economy, and encourages limited restrictions on
business.)
"The issues of HIV/AIDS and governance will always come
up. For example, if there are abuses against women in
Darfur, they will be brought up as part of the
governance issue."
Darfur, a region in western Sudan, has become the site
of one of the world's worst humanitarian situations
since conflict erupted there between two rebel movements
and the government.
Africa shoulders the burden of 80 percent of all global
HIV/AIDS cases, according to the Joint United Nations
Programme on HIV/AIDS.
"The (neoliberal) agenda is not doing enough to
alleviate poverty: all the wealth goes to the rich
nations, impoverishing Africa. As a result, sub-Saharan
Africa is not performing very well in social indicators,
education, food security and health," Meja noted.
"Africa's economic growth rate is 4.6 percent, but on
the ground poverty remains rampant...By September 2005,
we had about 60 percent of people in sub-Saharan Africa
living under the poverty line," he added.
But, Ayesha Kajee of the Johannesburg-based South
African Institute of International Affairs takes issue
with pointing to neoliberalism as being the cause of
most -- if not all -- of Africa's woes.
"It's an easy scapegoat. We have to accept
responsibility where our leaders have failed," she told
IPS. "Blaming all Africa's problems on neoliberalism,
although it has a hand in some of them, is not fair or
accurate. We have to look beyond the neoliberalism
agenda."
"We have to look at instances where a constitution is
being manipulated by a government seeking a third term,
like in Uganda," Kajee added, in reference to President
Yoweri Museveni's decision to change the constitution,
so as to stand for a third-term in office.
Indeed, perhaps civil society would do well to put
itself under the microscope at Bamako, she suggested.
"We have had vibrant civil societies (in Africa) in the
last decade, but they have not passed on enough
information to strengthen local people. Information
empowerment is lacking in Africa -- and that's where
civil societies have failed," Kajee noted, adding that
Asian campaigners might have something to teach Africa
in this regard.
"The good example is Asia where civil society puts the
right information into the hands of local people to make
changes in service delivery like clean water, transport
and communication links...In Africa, people need
information to force governments to change policies."
The WSF takes place every year, bringing together civic
groups which oppose the global political and economic
order. It was started in 2001 as a counterpoint to the
World Economic Forum, an annual gathering in the Swiss
town of Davos that attracts heads of state, business
leaders and the like.
To date, the WSF has mainly been held in the Brazilian
town of Porto Alegre. This year will mark the first
instance in which a forum is taking place in Africa (another
two WSFs are also scheduled to be held later in the
Venezuelan capital, Caracas -- and the Pakistani
commercial capital of Karachi).
Hundreds of campaigners are expected to attend the WSF
in Bamako, most of them delegates from civil society
groups. While the decision to hold a forum in Mali was
doubtless motivated in part by the desire to make
proceedings more accessible to people on the continent,
the hope is that delegates from further afield will also
be present.
"Such a conference requires the attendance of friends of
Africa from Europe and North America," Sam Ndlovu, a
researcher at the University of South Africa, told IPS.
"Without their support, their lobbying and their
campaigning, Africa -- on its own -- will achieve little."
Meja agreed. "We are expecting our friends from overseas,
particularly Europe and the United States, to join us in
Bamako," he noted. (END/2006)
