I-B.         Connection with Global Social Movements

The Social Forum process had a unique but expected beginning in Africa. It started off as a continental movement, replicating itself incrementally in different parts of the continent and thereby growing to reflect the rich cultural and political-economic mosaic that is the African political-economic reality. To be sure this has had a special influence on its evolution and relationship with the key organs of the global movement and other actors like the state, corporate and the spiritual sectors. The unique origin also influenced its relationship not only with the other global movements, feeding into the WSF, but more significantly with major national Social Forum processes and polycentric Social Forums across the globe.

The Nairobi process was the product of a series of well-structured and extensive consultations that brought on board and connected with the major actors and organs of the African social forum process. To this effect it remains and will shake down in history as an African process eventuating in Nairobi, Kenya. Nearly all the major decisions in respect to: content/methodology, venue, timing of the event, budget and structure of the forum activities were made by the respective organs of the WSF, ASF and or in close consultations with the legitimate organs of the same. In the whole, the pattern of relationships (both local and external) that evolved in the run-up to the event was largely supportive and participatory. Whereas some were patronizing and condescending, a few remained aloof and thereby leaving the process to its own unique dynamics. Good will and appreciable support came from the Italian social movements, the Brazilian collective and the Indian Social Forum. The future of the forum needs to constructively and heuristically build on this.

III.           EVENT PREPARATION

III-A.                 Vision

The process of the World Social Forum 2007 was integral to the growth of African Social movements and the wider social movements around the world. The Vision of the event was carved out of the recognition of Africa’s role in the emancipation of the human society from the tight and painful grip of neo-liberal capitalism, its implacable will to survive the myriad forms of imperialist subjugation and oppression through militant resistance built around alternative visions of another world. The WSF2007 subsequently placed the necessary premium on the much needed continental alliance, dialogue and convergences as the basis of laying the foundation for strategies for the eventual construction of a new world owing to the integral connection of Africa’s struggles with those of other movements and peoples across the globe.

The theme: People’s Struggles, People’s Alternatives, as the mantra and reference point, therefore, defined the actions of the wider social movements intending to participate in the WSF2007 event. The Africa Social Forum at the International Council meeting held in March 2006 proffered a concept paper outlining an African Vision for the world as it engaged with the neo-liberal forces, breaking new ground in attempting to engage in convergences of building alliances through solidarity while at the same time proposing to carve out a space for controversies that would enable movements to demand putting paid to  neo-liberal globalization.

The content and methodology of the WSF2007 were the subject and product of a truly global process with an African signature. A methodology adopted by the Eastern Africa Organizing Committee and the Africa Social Forum was based on wider consultation and dialogue on event methodology and content. It exhaustively and democratically involved members of the International Council, trade unions, mass movements, organizing committees of previous WSF and Polycentric Events. Several consultative sessions, meetings of the Content and Methodology Commissions in Nairobi, Parma, Paris and Rome; the facilitating Committee meetings; local organizing committee meetings; the Africa Social Forum Council meetings and two Technical Consultations in Nairobi were held throughout the year in order to articulate and define the agenda of the Event in the most inclusive way possible. The event being in Africa meant that its unique features needed to be designed with a view to integrating the many cultural symbols (art, song, dance, music, poetry, drama, and theatre), environmental concerns and cultural diversity as the basis for Africa and many indigenous communities in affirming their identities, symbols and life-worlds in a global system that continues to subvert cultural diversity and desecrate nature.

A collective approach to determining the Consultations on actions and struggles, the definition of the nine objectives for action, registration fees, venue for the WSF2007, program outline and nature of activities (co-organized, self-organized) was adopted in an open and democratic process and in recognition of the need for collective responsibility toward the future of the World Social Forum as it touched the cradle of humanity and a continent that had seen the greatest onslaught of neo- liberalism. Some key decision that defined the vision and methodology of the WSF2007 event were as follows:

·        The opening out of a consultation process on action and struggles as the basis of defining the issues to be articulated at the WSF2007;

·        The construction and management of the common space as the central space for networking, interaction, registration, merges and participation at the WSF2007 event;

·        The development of co-organized activities as the basis of Africa’s connection to other peoples’ struggles, problems and alternatives towards a better world;

·        The forth day for the construction of new campaigns and proposal on common actions and convergences as the basis of global solidarity and proactive engagement on pertinent issues that characterized peoples struggles and peoples alternatives around the world;

·        Neighbourhood centres as an open space for building convergences, this did not work due to insurmountable logistical spatial limitations;

·        A systemization and memory process of documenting and capturing the process as it evolved.

III-A-1.                   Mobilization and Consultation: Local to Global Levels

The preparatory process for the WSF 2007 was subject to and a product of several consultations and mobilization stages. It encompassed regional, African and international level consultations. This had the effect of conferring democratic character and political legitimacy to the process. The consultations fostered consistent interaction on all aspects pertaining to social mobilization and resources mobilization.

At the International Level

In addition to the consultative meetings held by the international council and its commissions, several mobilization meetings were held. These were:

·        Meetings with social movements in Scandinavian countries: Finland, Sweden, Denmark;

·        Meeting with the Italian social movement, June 2006;

·        Meeting with the Content and Methodology commission in Rome, in June 2006;

·        Meeting with Social Movements in France, June 2006;

·        Meeting with Babels in France.

Each of these meeting provided an opportunity to share with and brief the wider WSF constituency on the Nairobi Preparatory process and to seek feedback from those who were interested in the success of the Nairobi Event. These included:

·        A combined delegation of the ASF council and members of the Nairobi Organizing Committee met with the European Green and Left-wing parliamentary groups in Brussels. The mission was to sensitize the groups to the preparatory challenges of the Nairobi process on the one hand and also to bring on board the WSF 2007 the Parliamentary world Forum through linking its international actors withy the local parliamentarians on the other;

·        There was also the meeting with the international councils’ Finance Commission in September 2006, in the Netherlands. The agenda for the meeting included: exploration of strategies for sustainable funding arrangements for the WSF, reviewing and rationalizing of the budget for the Nairobi event, setting realistic benchmarks for registration fees, categorization and levying of entrance fees etc.;

·        African participation in and meeting with the Indian social movements during the Asian social Forum and exploring opportunities for short–term and long term collaboration along south-south relationships;

·        Meeting with the content and methodology committee in September 2006 in Nairobi during which time the nine  objectives(hitherto known as thematic terrains) were agreed upon and the necessary spaces designed;

·        Meeting with the Content and Methodology Commission, in December 2006, in Nairobi that finalized all the logistical implications of the content and methodology for the event, set the timetable and logistic benchmarks for registration of activities, allocation of stall etc.

At the African Level

Two ASF councils were held: the first in Nairobi, the main objective of which was to produce the content and format proposal for the 2007 WSF. In addition it deliberated on and presented the ASF council and its secretariat the work programme in respect to mobilization and fund raising. The ensuring proposals were later on adopted by the IC meeting in Nairobi.

The ASF council was followed by three African council facilitation committee meetings in June, September and December 2006.The meetings provided an opportunity to define the implementation mechanisms for African participation as far as vision, mobilization and resources implications on the one hand and to liaise with the East African Organizing committee on the broader political and implication of Nairobi process.

The Second ASF council meeting was held in Dakar in December 2006. Its deliberations focused essentially on: briefing and debriefing by the Nairobi organizing committee members on the state of play in regard to the Logistical preparations on the ground, state of mobilization in the rest of Africa and the level of resources mobilization. Further still, it provided an opportunity for a few but critical social movements to define and share their strategies and action plans for Nairobi with others. It also made it possible for African Social Movements to share with the Eastern African Organizing committee the challenge of putting the last touches on the content and methodology but most important, to refine the logistical as well as methodological implications of the co-organized activities during the event.

Beyond the ASF council and the facilitation committee meetings, several other mobilization and consultations took place ahead of WSF 2007.These included but were not limited to the following:

-         National forums in Senegal, Benin, Niger, Zimbabwe, Uganda and Ivory coast.

-         Sub-regional forums: West Africa (Nigeria), Southern Africa(Malawi), North Africa  Assemblee constitutiove du forum maghrebin in Morocco)

-         Forum on migration in Mali ;

-         Pan- African Youth forum in Kenya

-         African trade union meeting in Kenya;

-         Preparatory meeting for West and Central African journalists and media

-         Several media briefs and Consultations in Nairobi

Regional and National Levels

The three east African countries carried out various mobilization campaigns to raise awareness in view promoting an active participation of grassroots organizations the WSF process and the WSF events itself.

Kenya.

Mobilization of social movements, in their rich variety, was the responsibility of the Social Mobilization Commission. The mobilization commission of the organizing committee of the WSF2007 had, with the support of the secretariat, organized a number of regional and thematic social forums across the country. The first was held in Nairobi on the 25^th of  May under the theme engendering the WSF Process. This was followed by the Western Kenya Social forum which was held in Kisumu on the 27^th and 28^th of July. This forum was organized by different grass root groups working in the region. It brought together an estimated 3000 people from across the western Kenya region including some from Uganda. Different activities organized on the three-day event included, public lectures, cultural performances, and workshops and radio Interviews. The focus of this event was land Use, Squatters and mineral extraction and economic empowerment for the wananchi. Coast Social Forum was held in August while Central Kenya Social Forum was held on 18^th November 2006.

The secretariat also took advantage of the national agricultural shows to sensitize and mobilise the Kenyan public. In the informal settlements, a number of mobilization initiatives took place including a WSF day in Kibera (the largest slum in Africa) on 18^th August 2006, at Huruma and through the Kutoka Network of Korogocho. Special attention was directed at the trade union fraternity, which it was felt, had not embraced the social forum process. As a result, WSF 2007 had a very visible presence of trade union leaders and workers’ organizations.

A collaborative relationship was extended to the spiritual sector. AACC/CARITAS WSF Ecumenical Platform which was set up in April 2006 by CARITAS, a global Catholic network and All African Conference of Churches, a continental ecumenical network of protestant churches, conducted mobilization campaigns targeting the faith based constituents. The Ecumenical coalition brought together Protestant groups. The  AACC/CARITAS Ecumenical Platform thus brought into the mobilization process a very powerful and entrenched community of spiritual communities with many organizations with a proven track record in fighting for social justice, participating in debt and  anti-poverty campaigns and with a slew of sustainable community-based projects on their collective resumes.

Uganda.

The 2^nd edition of Uganda Social Forum (USF 2006) was successfully held from 18^th -21^st September 2006 at Namboole Stadium. Under the theme Building Uganda – Our Struggles, Our Solutions, the highlight was the “Caravan” which moved hundreds of people from all corners of the country to participate in the event. In particular, four Caravans from Northern, Eastern, Western and South Western Uganda were organized to mobilize people and social movements especially from the sub-national level to participate. Thematic caravans particularly for teachers, nurses and laborers were also organized by the respective labor unions.

Specifically, the Caravans carried clear and distinct messages that denounced social exclusion, injustices and inequality; and announced people’s alternatives, solutions and actions however, the call for Peace and particularly an end to the war in Northern Uganda was echoed by all the Caravans. The International Peace Day (Sept. 21^st) was celebrated during the Social Forum with a Peace March that attracted over 600 people through the streets of Kampala calling for peaceful resolution of  the conflict and promotion of national reconciliation.

Tanzania

Members of the WSF 2007 Organizing Committee participated at the recent Zanzibar International Film Festival. Khadija Hija, who represents the Tanzania Social Forum on the Cultural Commission of the WSF 2007 Organizing Committee, was one of the main discussants at Gender Challenges for Women in Leadership Roles plenary on 22nd July, 2006 where she popularized the WSF and spoke to the challenges facing the organization and hosting of the event in Eastern Africa.

Youth

The organization of the Intercontinental Youth Camp and activities by youth had been planned and reviewed for many months at the level of the International Council, the Africa Social Forum and the Organizing Committee of WSF2007. There was overwhelming support at each of the meetings which facilitated an interaction between youth and other generations within the respective organs of the World Social Forum. The Africa Social Forum had at the time of its inception, recognized the important role played by youth as the custodians of future societies by enshrining within its structure, a continental youth commission. Youth Mobilization was therefore articulated through an intergenerational approach and made an integral to the overall mobilization strategy of the Africa Social Forum and the Eastern Africa Organizing Committee.

The Local organizing committee at its inaugural meeting set up an autonomous, yet connected youth commission populated by diverse youth movements alongside other commissions responsible for the event. The Youth Commission, recognizing the lack of memory and continuity within different youth camps in previous forums undertook the following key actions:

·        Developed key information materials and kit that facilitated a clear understanding of the process, charter of principles, history and modes of participation;

·        Identified a gender balanced team of two young people as national focal points at the Africa level to facilitate communication, consultations and mobilization at the national level;

·        Instituted a coordination mailing list for information sharing between the Africa Social Forum Council, the Organizing Committee and the different national focal points;

·        Organized together with the Africa Social Forum and the Pan African Youth Movement, a continental preparatory process that saw the participation of a group of 30 young people from all regions of the continent, representing many issues affecting youth;

·        Facilitated, together with Action-Aid International, the participation of youth from the Continent and from many regions of the host country;

·        Coordinated the Caravans from Southern Africa as a strategy to facilitate mobility as well was share WSF principles and spirit with local groups where the Caravan was passing through;

Caravans

The Africa Social Forum Council expected that the participation of African social movements would be higher compared to the global edition of previous forums held in Asia and South America due to the reduction of travel expenses for African groups travelling to the event in Nairobi and the availability of different possibilities of travel such as air, rail and road.

The movement of people towards the WSF 2007 venue was therefore conceived within the cultural context of the ‘caravan’ or more ambitiously, transitory forums that moved through different countries, making stops ‘oases’, connecting with local social movements on issues of debt, trade, hiv and aids and other thematic areas of the WSF2007. The arrival of the Caravans in Nairobi was timed to coincide with opening ceremony of the WSF2007 as a symbolic connection of the event to the many movements within Africa. The Caravan having been organized from Lusaka mobilized groups in eighteen buses from South Africa, Malawi, Zambia and Tanzania. Other groups that took ownership of this initiative were social movements from Uganda, Somali and Ethiopia. An initiative from Western Africa was abandoned at the last minute due to resources and complication on the intended Caravan Route.

III-A-2.                   Media and Communication

One of the greatest challenges facing the Kenyan Organizers of the WSF2007 was the need and urgency to sensitize the broader African public in general and social movements in particular to the principles, agenda and dynamics of the WSF process. In order to realize this objective, the Media and Publicity Commission of the Organizing Committee was charged with the responsibility of ensuring that as many people as possible were informed about and sensitized to the dynamics of the WSF process.

Before September 2006, the Convener of the Media and Publicity Commission had prepared an Action Plan focused on building Public Relations with the mainstream media in Kenya and the coordination of Publicity Materials. Within the Commission different communication networks and organizations where represented but the implementation of all the activities proposed was always conditioned to the accessibility to funds. Nevertheless, some members of this Commission continued participating in meetings in acting at advisers to the process.

To respond to this situation the Secretariat oriented its communication efforts in supporting the information on the two websites (event and process sites), the production of electronic newsletter and the elaboration and distribution of press releases and media advisories to the printed, radio and Television media, highlighting the preparation and challenges toward the event .

The full potential of publicity and communication as a tool of mobilization was not fully realized. Lack of timely resources along with other logistical handicaps delayed the production of publicity material and visualitation events that the secretariat was able to initiate.

The general Kenya and African public began to drawn its attention the WSF 2007 when a series of Public Relation events were organized by a hired media professional, albeit late. The secretariat took advantage of all possible opportunities to create awareness among the different constituencies. It is worthwhile mentioning that networks, Community Based Organizations, local social forums in and outside Kenya and partner organizations of SODNET worked with the secretariat in ensuring the transfer and flow of information to sections of society where it was needed.

III-A-3.                   Website

The WSF2007, in an attempt to institute a participatory platform for interaction, visibility, convergence and transparency of the entire process, embarked on an initiative of constructing the www.wsfprocess.net that acknowledged and took advantage of media opportunities proffered by new technologies accompanying the grudging   democratization of knowledge and information. The International Council together with the Africa Social Forum Council and the Organizing Committee having recognized the prototype portal developed by the European Social Forum introduced a more refined content management system through an online Work Space as a participatory platform for the WSF2007 event and the ensuing processes.

The Work Space was sustained through a series of consultative processes, Skype conferences and technical meetings by members of the Indian Organizing Committee, European Social Forum, The Brazilian Collective and the Africa Social Forum. The group exhaustively designed possibilities for accessing content and statistical information on themes, groups, countries, issues, organizations, activities registered for Nairobi and so on. It also enabled groups to openly access information on any organization or group and provided possibilities for open dialogue on possibilities for networking and joint actions. The Work Space further enabled groups to communicate amongst themselves, merge activities on their own and store relevant documents that were central to their activities, whether intended for the Nairobi event or simply to facilitate collaboration in their daily work. The Work Space to date offers the greatest of possibilities in the way of making available tools for planning, documenting and sustaining a wide range of activities within the Social Forum Space.

As was the case in all the previous events of the WSF, an event website (www.wsf2007.org) was developed to offer content and information specifically related to the event. The site also provided possibilities for the organizing committee to issue Calls such as volunteers, interpretation and share with the wider public a calendar of events planned within the mobilization process towards the event. The site offered possibilities for local groups to proactively engage in shaping and organizing the Nairobi event. Other actions that were made possible through this site included online payments, donations, media briefs, press releases and other information based services. Both sites were developed using Plone and Zope that are of an open source technology.

III-B. Content and Methodology

III-B-1.                  The Planning of the Co organized Activities

The concept of Co-organized activities was proposed by the African Social Forum and the Organizing Committee and endorsed by the International Council of the WSF meeting in Nairobi in March 2006 and later on by the IC meeting in Parma in October 2006. The main objective and strategic challenge for the ASF and the OC, was to make visible the global problems but from an African perspective. They were discussed during all of the preparatory meetings of the IC, OC, and Methodology Commission and subsequently endorsed.

Implementing the Co-organized activities turned to be a formidable challenge since it was an innovation that required ample time for planning before execution. Estimating the number of people who would be interested in taking part in the different thematic axes was in itself a challenge, the poor handling of which led to many huge tents remaining under-utilized. By November 2006, 14 themes had been agreed upon and Members of the ASF and OC were asked to prepare concept papers for each theme. Each concept paper was expected to address a specific issue or problem and provide some guidelines for different formats suitable for each activity. Specific organizations were asked to facilitate and coordinate particular activities according to their area of interest and competence.

The OC, the ASF Council, and the IC were convinced that the Co-organized Activities would provide the best mechanism for African organizations to show the world the African perspective on complex issues of global implications. To that effect they were equally convinced that these activities would attract large audiences from all over the world, especially those interested in African problems. 4 tents that could accommodate up to 3,000 (in addition to the Kasarani Gymnasium which had a 5,000 capacity) people each were prepared. It was also decided that these activities should not compete (for audience and thematic areas) with the self organized activities; therefore, the third period of the day (time slot) from 2:30 pm to 5 pm would be dedicated exclusively to the Co-organized activities.

III-B-2.                     The Planning for the Fourth Day (Proposals for Actions Day)

The proposal to have a day of convergences was tabled during IC meeting in March 2006 and adopted accordingly. A meeting in Rome in July 2006 discussed this in detail followed by a concept paper on the same by the Brazilian collective. The fourth day was discussed in all of the preparatory meetings except that, as opposed to Co-organized activities, the methodological implications was not thoroughly discussed, leaving room for last minute tying up of the numerous loose ends..

The idea behind the innovation was to enrich the WSF format by introducing a day in which all organizations that are keen to present proposals for actions, campaigns and struggles would make them visible during the fourth day. In all previous WSF events, organizations met, networked, and formed alliances to expand or to be more effective in their work. All these would take place everyday during the event but they were not visible enough; meaning that not all the participants in the WSF event would know about them. The innovation succeeded in creating a methodology that would allow as many participants as possible at the Forum to be informed about the proposals made by others organizations.

The afternoon of the 4^th day was intended  to be dedicated to presentations of all the proposal or calls for action. 21 rooms were designated for that purpose according to the thematic areas of the proposals (identified by the IC Content and Methodology Commission during its December 2006 meeting in Nairobi); and 2 facilitators were designated to each room. The role of the facilitators was to ensure the flow of the meeting and allow enough time for each proposal to be presented. Since all the proposals were to be read or presented verbally, it was necessary to interlace with cultural expressions related to the topic. As a culmination of the afternoon, there would be a symbolic tree planting ceremony.

III-C.    Resources Mobilization

(include: payments , fundraising gala, issues of celtel’s contributions ,government comitement)

Resource availability is critical to any undertaking. For an event of the magnitude of the World Social Forum, a clear cash flow plan was needednand subsequent preparations were put in place to this effect. Otherwise, planning and subsequent execution would have been a nightmare waiting to have its toll on the organization of the Forum.

A Resource Commission of the WSF 2007 Organizing Committee was established in April 2006 and charged with the responsibilities, the principal among which were:

·        To draw a memorandum of understanding between the E.A Organizing Committee and ASF Council Secretariat;

·        To  work on the budget;

·        To work on a Resource Mobilization action plan;

·        To develop a financial management manual and

·        To consult with the main actors within the Brazilian Collective, the Indian Social Forum and the team of consultants charged with the responsibility of advising the IC on resource sustainability challenges facing the WSF..

By October 2006 resource mobilization was slow and, at times, a frustrating and humiliating affair. Even before, we embarked on setting up structures of the WSF 2007 Organizing Committee some donors treated the organizers as if they have had a record of serial embezzlement of funds. To this extent it was a case of .( odour should rephrase )  “guilty until proved otherwise”.”  Members of the organizing committee were subjected forensic interrogation that nearly led to the abandonment of the undertaking. A Resource Commission of the WSF 2007 Organizing Committee was established in April 2006 and charged with the responsibilities, the principal among which were:

·To draw a memorandum of understanding between the E.A Organizing Committee and ASF Council Secretariat;

·To  work on the budget;

·To work on a Resource Mobilization action plan;

·To develop a financial management manual and

·To consult with the main actors within the Brazilian Collective, the Indian Social Forum and the team of consultants charged with the responsibility of advising the IC on resource sustainability challenges facing the WSF..

Resource Mobilization trips were made to Finland, Sweden, Denmark, the Netherlands, Belgium, Italy and France with varying degrees of success. A number of international organizations with offices in Africa in general and Kenya in particular were also approached. In this particular regard both the secretariats of the EA Organizing Committee and the ASF Council are grateful to the Danish Association for International Cooperation (MS), Action Aid International, Oxfam GB, Heinrich Boll Foundation and ENDA-TM for coming in early enough to enable the Organizing Committee secre seed  resources to meet the overhead costs of running the secretariat and to engage in  limited social mobilization.

One of the earliest financial supporters of the Forum was Oxfam Novib with a € 400,000 Nairobi Secretariat and € 185,000 for the ASF Secretariat in  Dakar. Without this expedient support the Forum risked an embarrassing stillbirth. The resources t of the resources were asas per the table below:

(take note about the table and currency notes

There is need for consistency with the right names of the donors)

(Odour should take note of: What the justification of the above order is- it would rather be according to how the monies came in) there is need for a note basing on the adjustments made at the Secretariat i.e change in the venue and cost implications)

As can be gleaned from the table above against a total budget of US$ 6,839,557, only US$ 3,187,031 was realized. This amounts to only 46.59% of the projected budgetary requirements. It is a pity that due to this resource constraint, such essential items like the Solidarity Fund had to be foregone, leading to less African participation than had been envisaged. Of the US$ 3,187,031 realized, the WSF 2007 Nairobi Secretariat realized US$ 2,336,892 with US$ 850,139 going to ASF Council secretariat in Dakar.

To make matters worse, most of the monies promised came late and as at the time of the Forum, only about 55% of the money pledged had been disbursed. This necessitated  a risky pre-financing arrangement, particularly in respect to some logistical needs of the event that ended up  compromising the quality of some services rendered to the forum.

The Government of Venezuela also communicated with us that it was contributing Euro 100,000. We were later informed that the money had been sent to the organizing Committee through the account of Third World Forum. We are yet to hear further on this money.

III-D.                        Coordination to deliver the event

III-D-1.                  Venue and Physical Facilities

Even before the formal decision by the African Council meeting in Harare, Zimbabwe that Kenya would host the 7^th edition of the WSF, the Steering Committee of the Kenyan Social Forum had already sent to both the African Social Forum and the IC a proposal suggesting Uhuru Park in combination with the Kenyatta International Conference Center – both in the center of Nairobi - as the appropriate venue. Part of the considerations that went into the choice of this particular space was that: the forum would connect with many ordinary Kenyans, the problem of transport would partly be alleviated as most of the accommodation facilities would be within a walking distance and that the venue would combine in one space both the opening and the closing ceremonies. Both venues were secured through down payments made as early as March 2006.

On further consultation with the relevant authorities regarding when possession would be taken of Uhuru Park in particular when exactly the Organizing Committee could begin to construct the necessary facilities, we were left in no doubt that it was not going to be possible to occupy an open public utility for close to three months without facing formidable logistical challenges. The possibilities of moving to Nyayo Stadium, which is less than a kilometer from the original venue, were explored. The recommendation of the technical team that had been set up by the Organizing Committee was endorsed. Arrangements for the architectural mapping of the potential territory were then made.

It is during the Content and Methodology meeting that took place in Nairobi in Sept. 2006 and in close consultation with the local organizing committee, that the final decision to adopt Kasarani as the venue for WSF 2007 was arrived at. The decision was immediately and widely publicized throughout the WSF fraternity. Reports to the subsequent meetings of the various organs of both the African Social Forum process and the IC of the WSF conveyed the same message. No objections from any quarters have been recorded. 

It was, therefore, extremely strange that during and after the event and IC meeting in Nairobi, a few voices were raised taking exception to the decision, allegedly, by the Organizing Committee to hold the forum at Kasarani. This calls for a reminder that, in future, decisions by the IC must enjoy collective and consistent ownership by the relevant organs of the WSF.

Physical Facilities at the Venue

The initial scope of identifying, agreeing on and designing the event territory was the initiative of the Steering Committee of the Kenya Social Forum. The ensuing project was derived from the ‘Report of the WSF Technical Consultation in Nairobi’ (Aug 2006). Given that the time left to deliver the facility was extremely short and  that the uncertainty about the envisaged budget not matching the scope of the project continued to haunt the planning phase of the undertaking there was a lot of understandable hesitation in getting started with the work. The architect of WSF 2005 and his counterpart for WSF 2007, engaged in consultations that culminated in the decision as to the site and type of physical facilities needed for the event. Their recommendations were, as matter of procedure, endorsed by the Nairobi/August meeting of the IC. Thereafter, Davinder Lamba firmly assumed the coordination role for the WSF 2007 physical facility project. His professional background as an architect put him in a good stead to coordinate the project and provide the necessary leadership in matters concerning the venue. He put together a physical facility’s project team consisting of a group of professionals with the requisite expertise. The project team was vetted and formally appointed by the secretariat against a honoraria commensurate with the task at hand and resource availability.  A project office was set up at Mazingira Institute, where the project coordinator is based. A staff member of the Institute, Deborah Gathu joined the project team as its secretary and documentalist. This was part of the Institute’s voluntary contribution to WSF2007. A member of the secretariat was appointed to liaise between the secretariat and the physical facility project team.

The Development phase included the constitution of project team, preparation of project management plan (objectives, scope, schedule), carrying out technical investigations and the design of the physical facility. In addition, its mandate covered such areas as: preparation of procurement documents, inviting tenders from suitable contractors or service providers, analyzing tenders, coming up with bill of quantities and presenting reports and recommendations to the Secretariat for further action. Activities during the Execution phase included: the award of contracts and the appointment of contractors or service providers by the Secretariat, and the building of the physical facility as required. The operation phase included the use of the physical facility for the duration of WSF 2007. The closing phase included the dismantling and removal of all WSF building works and installations and handing over MISC to its administration.

III-D-2.                  Volunteers

Some of the challenges facing the task of mobilizing for effective interpretation applied, in equal measure, to the recruitment and mobilization of volunteers. The challenge had to do with the difficulties associated with need to determine the number needed and how and where to recruit them from and how to bring them to speed on the principles and dynamics of the WSF. The recent effort by the previous Kenyan regimes to depoliticize the the youth at both tertiary and secondary levels of schooling  played havoc with our efforts to target the universities and training colleges for recruitment of volunteers. This meant that the majority of those who responded to the call for volunteers were individuals seeking short-term employment. This, of course, defined to a great extent the attitude with which the volunteers performed their duties before and during the Forum event. It soon became clear that due to deep capitalist penetration of the social fabric of society, the culture of voluntarism was a grossly undermined spirit in the Kenyan society. 

In view of all these challenges the secretariat appointed a volunteer coordinator to manage all matters pertaining to volunteers. He drafted a concept paper containing principles and guide lines expected to inform the recruitment of the volunteers, matched supply and demand sides of the challenge and distributed the volunteer skills needed for the different tasks at the Forum

More than 900 volunteers responded to the call. Of these 500 were selected from the online database and taken through the training sessions held a week before the event. The focus of the sessions was on the nature of the WSF, the spirit of voluntarism and the specific tasks the volunteers were expected to perform. Some other 500 volunteers were recruited by local organizations, like the Kutoka Network, AACC/Caritas Ecumenical Platform and Undugu Society of Kenya to help in the organization of the march (opening ceremony) and the marathon (closing ceremony); also, these volunteers were participants during the event itself.

III-D-3.                  Registration and Programming

The WSF 2007 executed two innovative methods for registration: introduction of online registration using the Workspace which later was called the process site (www.wsfprocess.net) and a payment schedule of individual fees to attend the Nairobi event. The following figure describes the procedure for registering individuals, organizations and activities; it is important to note that there were two aspects of the registration procedure, one for the organizations with access to internet and the other for those who did not have access. The later is the case for many organizations in Africa.

Major challenges arising from the registration process were as follows:

·        A four-step procedure and only one language (English) for registration of one activity created some degree of confusion among the users: first it was necessary to become a “user” of the process site www.wsfprocess.net  (this was not the individual registration to attend the Nairobi event). Then, the organization promoting the activity had to register since only organizations could register activities. Once these two steps had been fulfilled, it was necessary to fill out two forms for one activity—one for the content and the other for the logistical information of the same activity.

·        Some people only filled out the first form (some were disconnected by the server and others were unable to follow the procedure) which basically meant that they did not register the activity for the Nairobi event. Other people did not understand the difference between registering an activity and a proposal. These two groups of people only realized the problem when they arrived to Nairobi and found out that their activities were not registered.

In response to some of the above challenges the Secretariat embarked on conducting several workshops with local organizations and networks in order to explain the registration process and familiarize the prospective participants with the new internet tool. It did not, however, maintain constant communication with the organizations using the process.net site.

In order to build the necessary bridge for those without access to internet, a group of internet mediators was necessary to manually input into the www.process.net site all activities registered in Nairobi; using the e-mail (and paper) forms. More than 100 activities were registered in this manner.

A “self organized” merging process (for similar activities) was anticipated by the process.net internet tool developers to take place during the registration process. But only a few organizations took the initiative to look for other activities similar to the ones they were promoting.

Access to information from the process.net site and later on from the Ethica Bank in Italy was difficult since it would take a long time to download a file and then convert the file into a format that would be useful by the Nairobi team. The same technology—software—was used before during the European Social Forum 2006 in Athens, and therefore its promoters must have experienced the same problems but they did not share that experience with the Nairobi team.

Finally, the payment modules were developed  and built into  a the registration process quite late; making it difficult for organizations to pay for their activities and for the Secretariat to analyze the payment data – resulting in difficulties associated with the need for timely verification of all sorts of payments made in respect to services expected from the Organizing Committee.

The Fee Structure Debate.

The introduction of a payment schedule for individual registration based on the origin of the participants (Africa, Rest of the South and North) generated an internal debate in the Secretariat, and, later on, the same debate was taken up by a number of local organizations. One side of the debate argued that the WSF was too dependant on external funding and that such a situation tended confer undue influence on powerful international organizations, predisposing them to  act as if they own the WSF space and process. Therefore, it was argued that it was increasingly becoming necessary for the WSF to begin to explore the possibilities self-funding; an eventuality that would imply more direct ownership of the process by those who appreciate the value of investing in the process. The structure of the fees was set up in such a way that the organizations and individuals from the North would subsidies the organizations and individual from the South. All these were shared with all the formal organs of both the ASF and the IC of the WSF.

The other side of the debate argued that the structure was drawn along conventional stereotypical lines since there were also poor people in the North who could not afford such fees. It was argued further that organizations from the North would end up paying for the “poor” people of the South and the dependence syndrome woumd be entrenched instead of being put paid to.

The internal debate within the Secretariat (with inputs from the ASF Council Secretariat) reached an agreement over the fees by lowering the fees, suggested by the Resources Commission of the IC, for the North, South and Africa, and adding a reduced fee for students, poor individuals from the slums around Nairobi – not to forget poor peasants and pastoralists from the countryside. Provision was made for a daily entrance fee of Ksh.50 especially for those interested in taking part in specific activities. The IC Resources Commission had proposed US$ 150, US$ 50 and US$ 25 respectively for Northern, Southern and African participants respectively. This was lowered by the Secretariat to US$ 100, US$ 25 and US$ 5 respectively.

At the same time the debate on fees for commercial and non-commercial stalls, pavilions or specific tents for participating organizations or delegations, and rooms of different capacities for self organized activities surfaced. The fee structures under debate had a direct effect on the planning of the activities: some organizations created alliances with international funding agencies and were able to negotiate with the Secretariat for reduced fees while other made direct requests to the secretariat seeking unconditional fee waver for them

III-D-4.                  Interpretation and equipment

It had been expected that, in keeping with the WSF tradition, interpretation would be done by the Babels – a network of volunteer interpreters - as the core interpretation group. During the July-August consultations in Nairobi, the Babels, through a representative of ALIS (alternative interpretation systems), gave four (4) conditionalities to be met in order for them to provide interpretation for WSF 2007 in Nairobi. These included:

• That the Secretariat provides them with US$ 1.2 million for “mobilization.”
• That the Secretariat provides them with a fully functional office.
• That the Secretariat hires 3 full time Babels staff.
• That the money be made available before mid-August.

As the Secretariat had not mobilized any resources then and also given that no such demands had been made to previous organizers of the WSF, the Secretariat was ill-prepared to deal with the entailed challenges. After nearly three months of internal debate within the Babel fraternity of which neither the Organizing Committee nor the Secretariat was included in the list serve facilitating the debate, the Babels publicly announced  that they were not going to  provide interpretation services to the Nairobi event. The Secretariat then had to embark on exploring the alternatives to Babels in October 2006.

The main challenge during the planning of the interpretation was two fold: first of all, it was important to define the number of interpreters that would be needed during the event and, second, it was important to determine how and from where to recruit them. Additional challenges touched on implications for the budget, the equipments to be used, training, and the political inclination of the prospective interpreters.

In response to the above challenges the Secretariat assigned one person to the Coordinator of matters pertaining to interpretation and allied activities. Subsequently a team was set up to support the effort.

More than 50 rooms needed to be conditioned for interpretation services, 4 languages were needed per room and 2 interpreters per language during a day of work. This means a total of 1,200 interpreters were needed. This approach showed that the Nairobi Secretariat would not have the resources (the budget, human resources and equipment) to satisfy all the interpretation needs required by the activities. ( Thomas to clarify)

The budget consideration dictated and the Secretariat purchased 150 transmitters from ALIS in Athens to equip 30 rooms for interpretation giving priority to co organized activities and the rooms with larger audiences. It was planned that the equipment and a technical person would be available by mid December 2006, but the technician arrived just before Christmas and the equipment arrived on Jan 18, two days before the event. The delay was caused by long negotiations (more than 2 months) between the Secretariat and the ALIS and the Indian Organizing Committee of Mumbai, finally by end of October, it was decided to purchase the equipment from ALIS. The equipment was paid for in early November but the equipment did not leave Athens until just before mid December. The late shipment the equipment was due to delays by ALIS and subsequent long strike by port workers in Greece. Eventually, the equipment came without the promised booths, leading the Secretariat to act quickly and have booths manufactured.

An allowance of KSh 2,000 (US$ 30) was set for each day of work per interpreter, also each of them would get KSh 4,000 (US$ 55) for daily accommodation and meals and KSh.1,000 (US$ 15) for daily transport, making a total of KSh 7,000 (or US$ 100) for non-accommodated interpreters and KSh. 2,000 daily for those accommodated by the Secretariat. This caused some resentment as it was seen to favor locally-based interpreters over their international colleagues.

The Organizing Committee made a political decision and agreed to give priority to recruit interpreters in East Africa, then the rest of Africa and finally the rest of the world. The organisers of WSF2007 in Nairobi had sent three local interpreters to Bamako – to take an active part in the process and to learn from the experienced organisers of interpretation. This group was meant to form the core Kenyan section of Babels – and then return to Kenya and spearhead the process of mobilising interpreters, start training sessions of these and also organise for the actual planning of interpretation for WSF2007.

IV.          THE EVENT

IV-A.     Individual Registration

It is difficult to know the exact number of people that attended the WSF 2007 in Nairobi; above of all, because not everyone registered. The first report from registration at the Kenyatta International Conference Centre, KICC, and the first day of the event in Kasarani, shows 46,000 people registered but at the same time about 10,000 name tags were given to local people (at the registration sites) who could not afford to pay the registration fee.

Beginning on the second day of the event, the gates were open; the registration team carried out counting of people without name tags (excluding children) during first two hours of the second, third and fourth days. The counting was done at the main gates. It is, therefore, estimated that some 14,000 were able to attend without paying any fee. Also, the registration working group estimated that some 4,000 people attended the activities carried out outside  Kasarani (in the slums, at UN Office in Nairobi, Gigiri etc.). Therefore, the Secretariat estimates that a minimum of 74,309 people attended the WSF 2007 event in Nairobi.

The following tables show the distribution by region and by African countries based on a projection of the total people registered and the estimation presented above.

IV-B.   Self Organized Activities

A total of 1,296 activities were registered between October 15^th and December 19^th 2006; out of those only 61 were cancelled by the organizers themselves, about 300 were allowed to be registered after the deadline and about 500 demanded changes in time, room or their names and description. What follows is a brief description of these activities.

Content

The highest number of activities, a total of 334 (25.8%), were registered under objective No. 6 which refers to human rights; followed by objective No. 9 which refers to real democracy and objective No. 8 which refers to dignity, diversity and equality. These three objectives account for 629 activities or 48.53% of the whole program and show the thematic concentration of the Nairobi event.

Most of the activities (724 ) registered were of a global nature. This category  represented 55.9% of all the activities.  Regional, Continental , National and Local activities accounted for 22.4%. A significant number of activities, 281 or 21.7%, did not indicate which category their activities belonged to.

The category of “workshops” accounted for highest number of activities registered, totaling 512 or 39.5%. This was followed by “conferences” and “round tables” with 15% and 12% respectively. Testimonies and Films represented 1.6% each category. The registered self organized cultural activities were 58 or 4.5%, not counting those organized on the spot during the event.

Logistics

The program working group made an important effort trying to balance the number of activities during each day and periods of the days. The third period was only used to accommodate those activities that were not registered due to different problems with the registration process.

Date * period Cross tabulation

In terms of room sizes, the activities programmed in rooms with a capacity for 200 people represent 26.5%; those in 100 people’s rooms represent 17.1% and in 50 people rooms represent 21.5%. Only 4% of the activities were programmed in rooms with capacity for more than 400 people.

IV-C.                 Co organized Activities

The OC meeting in Nairobi (November 2006) and the ASF Council meeting in Dakar (December 2006) showed that there was a breakdown of communication between the Secretariat and the organizations that were expected to be involved in co-organized activities. Most of these organizations did not have a clear understanding of the general concept of the co-organized activities and how they were expected to participate. Each theme was reviewed, and some of them merged into one or two new themes, and a new list of organizations and individuals was prepared to azssist in the drafting of of t the framework concept papers and the design of the co-organized activities. It was agreed that this type of activities should not be limited to the traditional “conference” format but use some cultural expressions to convey the messages and the spirit of the issues.

During the Content and Methodology meeting in Nairobi (mid Dec.), it was clear that not all the concept papers were ready and the suggested format for most of the activities was the common “conference” approach. Still, it was evident that many of the speakers had not been contacted yet and that it was necessary to account for their traveling and accommodation expenses. Also, the cultural component in a few of the  activities was inadequately articulated.

Therefore, one month before the event, a new list of speakers was drafted, a strategy was designed to cover the expenses and different tasks were assigned to organizations and individuals. The ASF Council agreed in December 2006 to reinforce the Secretariat team in Nairobi by sending 5 people some weeks before the event, one of them to be dedicated to the co organized activities. This did not quite materialize.

During the event itself, the co-organized Activities suffered from nearly all the logistical problems of the event: The signage was not in place and therefore, people could not find the venues, the translation equipment was installed but without proper electrical connections ( particularly on the first day) and the small FM radios did not work properly, the program published the incorrect time 1:30 pm instead of the correct time 2:30 pm because of the conflicting instructions coming from different organs of the WSF. Further, with all the problems that organizations faced  in respect to   registration of the self organized activities, it was necessary to allow them to take place during the same time slot—the co organized activities therefore lost their privileged status in the program of the event.

As a result, the Secretariat had to make the necessary adjustments regarding speakers, translation system and timing.

IV-D.                 The Fourth Day

The Secretariat in Nairobi faced two main challenges in the implementation of the fourth day: communication and logistics, and the debate on the political implications on the day’s activities. First of all, it needed to communicate the purpose and methodology of this day to everyone interested in participating in the WSF. Some basic information about the purpose was posted in the event web site and on the process one. Still, the description on the methodology was not finished until the end of the meeting of the Content and Methodology commission (18^th December 2006).

By the beginning of January, only 85 activities had been registered for the morning of the forth day. The main reason: participants did not know what was expected in the way of outputs and how they would feed into the subsequent programs of action. This was also true for some of the facilitators themselves

During the event  itself and with the help from some members of the IC, the Secretariat improvised some flyers with the basic information about the fourth day, designed the form for the proposal for actions and distributed them to as many rooms as possible and called for a meeting with most of the facilitators for the 21 meetings. It also ordered 4 big banners which described the program for the afternoon. The Memory Project team undertook most of the tasks of collecting the forms for the proposal for actions, printing of the forms, and organizing volunteers to help with the logistic of distribution and broadcasting.

All of the 21 meetings for actions, campaign and struggles were implemented; they had audiences that varied from 50 to 150 people and some 300 proposals for action were presented by organizations and collected by the Memory Project team.  What is happening about them

IV-E.                  Culture

The ASF Council and the OC had from the very beginning acknowledged the political potency of culture of resistance in Africa and the possibility of its use by social movements in their struggle for change. By invoking the spirit of Ubuntu, the Culture commission intended to showcase a strong African cultural presence and expression as a means of affirming the continent’s identity in the mosaic that is the global resistance against neo-liberalism.

The event saw a considerable presence of cultural groups from North, West, South and Eastern Africa exhibiting diverse cultural skills and performances such as music, percussions, acrobats, traditional dancers and so on.  Other cultural groups came from Asia and Latin America.Besides performance arts, culture was manifested in the following  ways during the event:

·        6 cultural stages and pavilions within the WSF Space were provided.

·        Dedicated cinema halls and spaces at the Venue, including a slum cinema hall;.

·        Community film initiatives for screening documentaries etc in non formal settlements and other venues outside Kasarani;African night to showcase African music, culture, song dance, poetry etc;

·        Culture commission worked closely with the media and communication team in integrating African symbols and other aspects as a unique identity in the messages and materials for WSF2007.  

The Culture Commission organized the Opening and Closing of the WSF2007 event based on the significance of the two occassionas as the appropriate platforms  for show-casing the continents identity and its connection to other regions.

Culture, it was emphasised,  must be placed at the very centre of any response to the economic and political disparities that plague the world, since the justification for these imperial inequities have always been formulated within a constructed cultural domination by either western culture or the imperial powers. The culture commission of the WSF secretariat developed a program of cultural diversity as witnessed in both opening and closing ceremonies as part of the World Social Forum in Nairobi.

 As a means of celebrating the rich cultural heritage not only in Africa, both ceremonies incorporated musicians from all over Africa as well as representations from other continents. The ceremonies were also graced by prominent individual from different parts of the world and walks of life who are known to stand for and believe in the principles of the WSF. The came from   Latin America, North  America,  Europe and Asia among the many from Africa.

Opening ceremony

The opening ceremony which was held on the 20^th started with a procession from Kibera (an informal) settlement 5km from Uhuru Park. The key messages on that colourful day as witnessed in performances by the musician’s and speeches made were of solidarity in the struggle of the people of Africa as they seek alternatives. Representatives from the IC, ASF and the OC joined the  crowds in celebrating the optimism with which the African poor welcomed the WSF and the solidarity they expected from  progressive forces all over the world.

Closing ceremony

To start the day of the 25^th, a procession and marathon was kicked off from Kariobangi North, running through Mathare, Majengo and Huruma which are all informal settlements east of Nairobi with an aim of show solidarity with the people in those settlements. At the  main ceremony in Uhuru park, highlights of activities that had taken place during the past last 4 days of the forum were brought to public attention.

The African Night

Performances during the night were a celebration of the African Culture, held at the Mio international Sports Centre Kasarani- Gymnasium, the ceremony that started at 8:00pm on the 23^rd continued untill the early hours of the 24^th.It was well attended and the attendance cut across all generations who were present at the forum.

Generally, the overall cultural program was a success. In terms of performances there was inclusion and diversity and participation was broad based. On the level of other cultural genres, there were serious omissions occasioned by inadequate finances, poor coordination and the sheer magnitude of the task. It was overwhelming. Following are some of the challenges that faced the cultural commission: choosing cultural expressions with the desirable political content and message; crowding out simplistic entertainment which detracts from the seriousness of struggles against capitalismin a neo-liberal phase; integrating the cultural agenda into the political vision(s) informing the various activities of the WSF.

IV-F.                  Youth Camp and Activities

Strategy:

Unlike the previous World Social Forums, the Youth Commission, having learnt from previous experiences of the Intercontinental Youth Camp developed the following strategy for maximizing youth participation at the World Social Forum:

·        Proffering a methodology of separating the youth camp accommodation space and activity space;

·        Integrating youth activities within the main forum terrain as well as having a safe space (the youth zone) for youth within the traditional framework of the youth camp;

·        Identifying key visibility activities organized by youth;

·        Youth Activities during the WSF2007

Caravans

The Caravans were perhaps the only event  with a long history of youth involvement in the African Social Forum process; from its conceptualization in Cairo at the Africa Social Forum meeting, its preparation throughout 2006 and subsequently, its realization from the 14^th to the 20^th January, 2007. Weaving its way from Southern Africa, through Tanzania and finally arriving in Nairobi, young people at the level of organization and media played a key role towards it success. As a mobilization tool it took the cake as one of the most important ways of popularizing the WSF agenda in Africa.

Self-Organized Activities:

A total of 52 registered self organized activities in the form of workshops, seminars and conferences were organized by youth and youth serving organizations between 21 – 23, January 2007.

Film screening at the main film hall as well as the cinemas organized at the Slum Film Festival featured films showcased by youth groups. A number of cultural activities in the forum (both pre-registered and on the spot requests) in the form of concerts, plays and other forms of creative arts were held within the cultural stage provided at the youth camp and those around the WSF Venue.

Co-organized Activities

A co-organized activity  -  living alternatives, living futures in the form of an intergenerational dialogue  -  was held on January 23, 2007  and  attended by over five hundred people, mostly youth. The activity integrated an interactive panel discussion with an interlude of cultural performances from Musicmayday and Hope Raisers. The organizing committee and Action-aid through the Pan African Youth Forum supported the participation of over 100 young people from Kenya and 24 African youth from Rwanda, Senegal, Egypt, Morocco, South Africa, Zimbabwe, Ethiopia, Congo, Uganda, Burundi, Botswana and Nigeria as part of the intergenerational dialogue.

Day of Proposals

Within the methodology of the fourth day, a youth session for the presentation of proposals on actions for 2007 was held where about twenty proposals on various campaigns were voiced from different countries and continents.

The Youth Zone:

The Youth Zone was divided into the following areas:

Youth Camp tented (fitted with washrooms and bathing area)  with the capacity to  accommodate 1,200 young people The Youth camp accommodated about four hundred people, most of whom were not youth. The nationalities present at the Camp were USA, Kenya, Tanzania, Sweden, Italy, Spain, India, Cote d’voire and France;

Activity space based at the athletes hostel consisting of :

a) Four solid rooms: Patrice Lumumba 2; Che Guevara 1, Che Guevara 2 which hosted self organized activities and a press conference by young hip-hop artists from Africa on 24^th January, 2007;

b) A cultural stage by the pool side which played host to 2 Concerts, 2 Open Mike sessions, 1 acrobatic session, 1 dance session and a book launch.

IV-G.                 Interpretation

Interpretation during the World Social Forum 2007 event held in Nairobi, Kenya from January 20-25 2007 was organised by a local Interpretation Committee, set up within the WSF2007 secretariat in Nairobi, on behalf of the East African Organising Committee. Some members of Babels, which has a commendable,  played a superbly supporting role, giving technical advice, assisting with the planning, and conducting training of the less experienced volunteer interpreters.

Organising the interpretation during the Forum faced many challenges. The biggest problem was of a technical nature – in some tents, the electrical connections were not ready; in some rooms, the PA systems did not work; and above all, the FM radio receivers purchased by the Secretariat to be used by the participants did not work – as they could not stay tuned on the chosen frequency; the model brought by the company was not the one ordered and were delivered only one day before the event. This resulted in a serious quality loss as simultaneous interpretation from the booth was made very difficult. Shifting to whispering and consecutive interpretation was done in many places. Adjusting to this improvised situation proved to be the collapse of the interpretation system. As in previous forums, the interpretation system failed and it remains as an important challenge.

Other problems had to do with the actual planning of the interpretation. The booth planning – scheduling where and when each interpreter was to work – was a more time consuming task than anticipated. The group organising the interpretation never managed to plan more than half a day in advance, which resulted in people not knowing well in advance when they were working.

IV-H.                 Volunteers

The basic training was insufficient for the volunteers. They were not fully prepared for the intensity of the work during the event. Being ill-quipped with the true spirit of voluntarism, particularly owing to widespread lack of political commitment to the WSF agenda,  the majority of volunteers perceived themselves as part-time workers and not as stakeholders in a struggle to which everyone should contribute. This may just begin to explain their inability to improvise ways of addressing the failure of signage  and thereby assist  the participants in finding their way around the venue.

The saddest event occurred when a registration volunteer was arrested for selling name tags, programs and information kits outside the gates of Kasarani. Like him, other volunteers were involved in corruption activities. The Secretariat had made an important effort to build a truly international team and volunteers. Some of the international volunteers had a very hard time adapting to the Kenyan settings and dynamics but made an  excellent personal effort to cope with challenges that come with prejudices, superiority  complexes, racism and all manner of cross-cultural incompetence..

IV-I.                      Media

By late December, the secretariat set up an office for media coordination which should have been done earlier had the necessary resources come in time. This office worked towards training and mobilizing the media at both national and international  levels for effective participation in the WSF 2007 .By early January, the pre-event  publicity  work was quite impressive, particularly at the local level. With minimal resources the team faced a lot of resource-scarcity-related challenges. Transport problems, lack of money for advertizing, shortage of support staff  - all conspired to make the work of the team not only tedious but also unrewarding.

During the event, there were over 800 Media networks and 200 local Kenyan media present covering the event. The challenge which with this impressive presence of the media fraternity  was how to manage an effective coordination  of  the coverage of  the event in addition to the fact that the local media from Kenya were still not very well conversant with the  WSF process. The two main Kenyan media houses:  the Standard and the Nation,  had a massive coverage of the event from the start to the end of the r event. All this notwithstanding, the analysis of the media coverage of the WSF 2007 points to the fact that the Nairobi event received more media coverage than any other in the past. 

The Organizing Committee set up two media centers dedicated to media personnel and a press briefing room that acted as the information clearing house and updates on key events and issues at the forum on a day to day basis.  The media centers were fully equipped with 150 Desktop Computers loaded with open source software, wireless access points and 50 wired connection points for journalists’ quick transmission of news and access to news sources. A total of 10 alternative media groups were provided with dedicated news rooms and workspaces around the WSF terrain.

The media office however worked tirelessly and achieved appreciable success, in spite of the “stardom nature” of the media as known the world over for tilting the essence of the real stories in favor of sensational entertainment of the public.  However, the forum remained an open space such that the decentralized information system provided accessibility for journalists to receive information that would facilitate their work. Crisis communication was a pet word for the WSF2007.Knowing very well that there can never be sufficient preparations to adequately facilitate coverage for over 1000 media within the week. With the need to cover the event at a global level, is is evident that a commensurate publicity budget would have been  quite strategic. The dynamics of working in and within the commission as a sub-structure of the Organizing Committee of the forum left  a lot to be desired. With less commitment of commission members who left all the work to the small secretariat team, the challenge was poignantly evident. The commission ideology therefore didn’t work effectively.

Media and Communication should therefore be more of a collective responsibility as a tool for publicity and mobilization by all partners and people who agree to the principles of the WSF right from the members of the IC.

IV-J.                   Memory

Unlike in the past forums, the memory project of the WSF 2007 carries abundance of uniqueness. It was  set up with modest means and skeletal manpower; yet trying to attend to a broad concern expressed by the organizing committee and ASF. With no records to make reference to on the previous WSF memory processes, Niarobi memory building agenda was like a bushhog clearing a new path in a jungle.The format opted for did bebnefit from exceptional dedication of individuals like Pierre George who helped construct a rickety bridge to the past experiences.

The memory of the WSF was highlighted clearly in June 2006 technical meeting in St Denis, where a group imagined a memory project that was not implemented further. In July 2006 in Rome during the IC meeting this issue was once more highlighted by Taoufik (ASF) but will no concrete follow-up suggestions coming forth.

By late November 2006, the secretariat of the WSF 2007 gave responsibility to a representative of the Uganda Social forum (Noela Ojara) to handle this project. A strategy developed in early December 2006 extensively covered three phases of the process: Pre-event memory and documentation, Event Memory, Post- event follow up and documentation. Pre-event memory was done single- handedly by her just as was the case with the event memory planning.  However the implementation of the memory phase was done by an international team. The team was charged with responsibilities of collecting as much information about the forum as possible so as to prepare the event memory. The memory project was of a broad scope, reflected in the variety of documents collected: activity reports, proposal of actions, feedbacks, video, audio recording collection among others. This accounts for the distinctive feature of the memory project.  In addition, the use of the process site which is an asset that was not available in earlier forums will greatly add value to the project as it is unfolding. This tool is currently acting as a depository and collection tool in the memory follow up work.

Event Output:

Current status of documents (memory)

The late identification and creation of the memory team within the secretariat led to belated  planning and implementation of the publicity aspect of the  Memory concerns among the activity organizers. Audio recording that was to be done at the forum by the Alis technical team collapsed because of circumstances beyond their control (persistent power surge, no PA system and few volunteer to assist.).Working with volunteers assigned to the memory team by the secretariat who were relatively ill-prepared for the tasks ahead caused a lot of constraints. At some moments volunteers became “more of participants than information bearers or representatives of the organizing committee.

During the event, it should be mentioned,there were two parallel memory processes. Members of the kenya library Association with the support and efforts of one member of IC started a parallel process from the memory project of the WSF secretariat which presented a rather confusing situation. With the demands  they made on the secretariat, the partnership that had hitherto been caltivated and forged was eventually done away with. The memory team is now closely working with the IT section of the secretariat to ensure that posterity of the WSF process is preserved in as  many form as possible.

In future the need  for a broader collaboration around the core responsibility of the Organizing  Committee of which WSF  should be formalized by the IC so that continuity and disparate ownership of  the memory project  are harmonized into a seamless yet appropriately striated process.

IV-K.                  Services

IV-K-1.                    Food

Given that Kasarani, the venue of the WSF 2007 was relatively far from the Central Business district, the OC ensured that there would be adequate and affordable food and water for the participants within the venue. It therefore created a sub-committee to deal with Food and Drinking water. The sub committee had the following ToR:

·        To identify all the catering and drinking water needs and challenges.

·        Provide a comprehensive framework for the provision of clean, healthy and affordable foods and drinking water.

·        Liaise with food and drinking water providers on all matters related to the welfare of participants (e.g. hygiene, supply schedules, complimentary drinking water for participants who may not afford the cost, waste disposal etc.)

·        Determine the number of volunteers needed, on a weekly basis, to ensure these essential services are handled to the satisfaction of all.

·        Liaise closely with all the relevant commissions and committees.

·        Provide daily update to Logistics Commission and the Secretariat.

·        Report to the Logistics Commission

In the physical plan of the territory a provision of 2 food courts  -  each with capacity of 54 food tents -  was made. From the outset, it was agreed that women groups and other social movement formations would be targeted. For this reason, while some fee was charged for tender processing, food kiosks and snack bars attracted nil fees. The procurement committee allotted kiosks to all the 89 applicants and made a decision that the remaining 19 kiosks would be allocated to social movements that had been part of the process, any member of the Organizing Committee or the Secretariat that could be interested. However, problems arose from allocations in that the number of kiosks available did not match those indicated in the tender documents by the Physical Facilities Team. As a result, some applicants did not get tents, occasioning procurement of additional tents. Most of the kiosks provided very cheaply priced food (ranging from KSh 100 to KSh 250). However, due to poor (or rather non-existence of) signage, many participants did not discover the existence and location of the food courts until the third day. Meanwhile, Windsor Hotel, whose tent was centrally located (due to the fact that it was providing its own tent and furniture) but priced a bit more expensively, was the only one that was easily noticed and attracted many customers.  Eventually, it was invaded by some of the protesters on the third day and its food eaten. Nairobi is generally an expensive city. The prices cited above, even that of Windsor hotel are quite reasonable it it considered that many of the food vendors had to incur substantial costs in transporting food staffs to Kasarani.