The World Social Forum is one of the most significant civil and political initiatives of the past several decades. Since the first World Social Forum (WSF) was held in Porto Alegre in January 2001 in Porto Alegre, Brazil, as a counterpoint to the World Economic Forum held in Davos, Switzerland, its call for ‘Another World is Possible!’ has been echoing as an alternative to challenge the neoliberal order. This year’s gathering in Mumbai, India, between 16-21 January was the fourth edition.

Official statistics estimate that about 80 thousand people represented by 2 660 organisations from 132 countries participated. Others put the number of participants at 150 000. The Mumbai gathering was different from the previous WSF meetings. First, Mumbai as a venue was no place to romanticize about poverty, unlike Porto Alegre, where poverty can be hidden. Despite the fact that it is India’s financial capital, two-thirds of Mumbai's people live in indescribably dirty shantytowns, where there are no water, taps or toilets in most homes. Taking a walk through Mumbai, one could not afford to ignore the signs of a sick economy.

Secondly, bringing the WSF to India afforded an opportunity for most poor Asians who could not in the past meet the cost of flying and living in the rather posh Brazilian city of Porto Alegre to have a feel of what happens at such world jamborees. One can safely say the majority of those who attended were from India and its neighbouring countries. Besides the usually refined criticism about the lack of transparency and democracy in the World Trade Organisation, International Monetary Fund and World Bank that characterizes these meetings, this time the majority, mostly Asian delegates, came, spoke, sung, danced, marched and denounced problems associated with the caste system, war, cultural imperialism, deep social and economic injustices and capitalism. They condemned the “Bushes and Blairs” of this world for the allied forces’ presence in Iraq, hailed socialism/communism and condoned Dalitism, as well as denounced the apartheid regime of Israel. Issues about dwelling rights and liveable cities, the caste system and “untouchable” Indians, the unsustainable situation of debt in poor countries of the world, and the coercive use of force by governments, multinational corporations and international financial institutions dominated the discussions.

The third difference was the African Social Forum (ASF) scenario. Of prime importance, Africans made a break-through in terms of their numbers at the WSF. Compared to the past three gatherings I attended, the Mumbai edition recorded the highest attendance of African civil society activists in the history of the WSF. I think around 350 to 400 Africans residing and working in Africa were in Mumbai. This was a big enough group to put the continent’s problems across. The ASF under the leadership of its secretariat in Senegal produced a daily paper, Africa Aflame, that captured and took into consideration Africa’s uniqueness and issues.

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The African Social Forum has grown in stature and can now meet IC criteria required for an entity to be seriously considered to play a leading role in the convening of the annual global meeting that parallels the Davos World Economic Forum. In my opinion, the main one was the ASF role in strengthening and mobilising social movements in Africa to participate in WSF as part of the process leading to consolidation of the world social movement. Its processes saw the building of an African space for the formulation of concerted alternatives to neo-liberal globalisation, based on a diagnosis of the latter's social, economic and political effects. The Forum helped define social, economic and political reconstruction strategies, including a redefinition of the role of the State, the market and citizens' organisations.

Armed with two basic documents crafted in Bamako (Mali) in 2002, and Addis Ababa (Ethiopia) in 2003, those pursuing anti-capitalist struggles within the framework of WSF will acknowledge that ASF has opened new avenues to define citizen control procedures to ensure that political change promotes the expression and implementation of alternative, credible and viable responses to corporate-led globalisation. The Mumbai Africa meeting failed to consolidate this foundation and found itself bogged down in process issues that should have been addressed before all proceedings. In my reading of the programme, some of the concerns should have been captured in the first session. We would have been briefed of developments in the IC and what issues Africa was chasing in the context of Mumbai.

This would have been the moment to emphasise that after Addis, the ASF recommendations, placed emphasis on the following working themes and strategies: promoting national, sub-regional and thematic forums and making sure that these spaces, initiated in a decentralised and autonomous way, are organised by national and sub-regional social and grassroots movements. Secondly, it would have been prudent to reiterate that emphasis was now being placed on promoting the participation of organisations of the African social movement in the World Social Forum through activities, alliances and a marked presence, and finally, encouraging alliances between components of the African social movement and international social movements, especially those in the south. Thirdly, we should also have been told that the African social forum activities being held in the context of Mumbai 2004 have resulted from a number of processes on the continent and scenarios had emerged after organising two Forums in Africa, that our context (distance, local priorities of the movements, multiplicity of agendas both at continental and international levels, poverty) compels us to define a more appropriate pace to link up with the global movement without competing with continental and regional priorities. Fourthly, the organising committee of the African Social Forum should have outlined how it had come to the conclusion that it was preferable for the global forum to serve as a space for the convergence of decentralised and autonomous initiatives rather than a repetition of continental events.

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Land is considered the most fundamental resource to the poor and is essential to enabling them to lift themselves out of poverty. More than 60 percent of the active population in Southern Africa is dependent on land for livelihood. The last three decades have witnessed some land reforms in Southern Africa, some of which were aimed at land redistribution and introducing land titling for customary tenure. While the issue of land tenure reform has not been given sufficient attention, land distribution has tended to be the core issue in many of the Southern African countries’ land policy reforms. However today there is a growing recognition of the centrality of land tenure in sustainable development process in the region as witnessed by a number of regional and national initiatives and meetings.

Africa's share of world trade fell further in 2002, according to a new trade report, prompting renewed calls for the revival of global trade negotiations that, it is hoped, will increase developing countries' participation in world trade. The World Trade Organisation (WTO) International Trade Statistics 2003 report shows that African merchandise imports and exports grew 2%. This is half the sluggish rate of world trade growth at 4% that year. This pointed to "a further loss in Africa's share of world trade", said the report, which was released at the weekend. Foreign direct investment on the continent also dropped sharply in 2002.

The vision that drives the New Economic Programme for Africa's Development is not unrealistic, chairman of the New Partnership for Africa's Development (Nepad) steering committee Wiseman Nkuhlu said on. Opening the first-ever African ministerial conference on open learning and distance education, he said Nepad was driven by a "people's vision" of African recovery, renewal and renaissance. "In my official duties I have travelled enough to see that this vision is catching fire and catching hold all over the African continent and throughout the African Diaspora.”

The World Social Forum (WSF) must continue to expose the fraud in the present international economic system, says this article in the latest edition of the SEATINI Bulletin. "The current economic system where development is made hostage to free trade is untenable. The way forward for Africa is a gradual and systematic disengagement from the current model of economic order that is driven by purely commercial interests. This disengagement is with a view to re-linking with the rest of the world when Africa is united and stronger. This is long term. In the short term we need to delay the process of further integration so that we have time to reflect. This means that delaying and even refusing to continue with Cotonou and WTO negotiations."

Rwandan authorities have come under fire for forcibly rounding up hundreds of street children in the capital, Kigali, ahead of an African leaders summit. When heads of state arrive later this month for a summit of the New Partnership for African Development (Nepad), they are unlikely to see many of the street children who used to loiter in the city centre, begging and sometimes stealing. Police have launched a wave of round-ups since December aimed at getting the children off the streets. Hundreds have been detained in a transit centre outside the capital.

Which interests are being served by World Bank and IMF operations is just one of many questions raised by observers. Others include: Are WB and IMF interventions, creating or recreating the conditions for war? What are the implications of various policy choices, as well as the pace and sequencing of reform in transition from conflict? Are Bank and IMF frameworks and instruments conflict-sensitive? Should they integrate explicitly geostrategic factors in their analysis when allocating assistance and designing their interventions? What are the limits to the Bank's role? Is the Bank the best-placed actor to facilitate and administer donor assistance in reconstruction? The jury is still out on these questions, which could have serious implications for the Bank's and the Fund's mandates and work methods. An article in the latest edition of the Bretton Woods Update explores these questions in depth, with reference to Iraq, Afghanistan and several conflicts in Africa.

The closure of a Saudi-funded charity linked to the al-Qaeda network could have a devastating impact on thousands of orphans in Somalia. The al-Haramain Islamic relief agency has run a number of orphanages in Somalia for years. The centres also provide food and medicines for other children. In Mogadishu crying children were seen in front of some of the closed centres.

The 2005 budget submitted to Congress this week includes far lower levels of funding for HIV/AIDS programs in Africa and globally than what is needed, and what was earlier promised by the President, lobby group Africa Action has noted. The White House's request for next year includes only $2.8 billion for programs to fight HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria globally, with only a portion of this money going to Africa. In his 2003 State of the Union address, President Bush had promised $3 billion per year on an emergency basis to fight HIV/AIDS in Africa and the Caribbean. Salih Booker, Executive Director of Africa Action, said: "Bush's budget request reveals the misplaced priorities of the current Administration. AIDS represents the greatest threat to human security in the world today, but while the President requested more than $400 billion for military defense, he asked for less than 1% of this amount to fight the deadly global threat of HIV/AIDS."

"Recognizing that April 2004 is the tenth anniversary of the genocide in Rwanda, the General Assembly:
1. Decides to designate 7 April 2004 as the International Day of Reflection on the genocide in Rwanda,
2. Encourages all Member States, organisations of the United Nations system and other relevant international organisations, as well as civil society organisations, to observe the International Day, including special observances and activities in memory of the victims of the genocide in Rwanda."

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The International Organization for Migration (IOM) runs MIDA, a capacity-building programme, which helps to mobilize competencies acquired by African nationals abroad for the benefit of Africa's development. See also “Partnership for Brain Gain and Capacity Building in Africa” http://www.iom.int/africandiaspora/default.htm

Election Talk from the Electoral Institute for Southern Africa is available in both electronic format and hard copy. It will now appear fortnightly to give the latest briefing on the forthcoming elections in the SADC region. These policy briefs are written by regional experts to give you a succinct overview on the latest developments in those countries holding elections in 2004.

United Nations refugee agency staff and their counterparts from Chad have finished registering almost 5,000 Sudanese refugees in and around the border town of Tine ahead of their urgent relocation to safer positions further inside Chad. A spokesperson for the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said the agency wants to move the refugees as quickly as possible after several bombs exploded near Tine last Thursday.

Sub-Saharan Africa should have more say in the decisions of the International Monetary Fund, Tanzania's finance minister told a seminar on Tuesday. The minister, Basil Mramba, said African nations, including some of the poorest countries in the world, had less and less influence over the workings of the world finance body. "It is still of major concern that we from sub-Saharan Africa are represented by only two chairs on the Fund's Executive Boards while also our quota share and voting rights continue to decline," he said in the commercial capital of Dar es Salaam.

Africa will witness several key elections this year, with some constituting a litmus test for nations emerging from war and unrest and others marking a milestone, as in South Africa which fetes the 10th anniversary of the end of apartheid. In nations such as Malawi, Mozambique and Namibia, the polls will see veteran rulers stepping down - a sign that things are changing in a continent where democracy often carries less clout than in other parts of the world. The most important polls in terms of the number of voters will be those in Algeria and South Africa, two economic powerhouses located on the northern and southern extremities of the continent.

President Thabo Mbeki wrapped up a tour of the opposition stronghold of KwaZulu-Natal on Saturday by warning that any violence around South Africa's coming elections would be stamped out. Fighting between activists from Mbeki's African National Congress (ANC) and the province's dominant Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) killed 20,000 people in the 1980s, and after a decade of relative calm, tensions have risen since election campaigning began this month.

President Museveni has said he is ready to hand over power in an orderly manner. "Let the opposition relax; I will hand over power when there is a good arrangement," Museveni said on Friday during the 10th graduation ceremony at Mbarara University of Science and Technology. Museveni's last term of office ends in 2006. Although he has not publicly stated any intention to seek another term, critics have accused him of not clarifying his stand on the matter in light of calls from some of his supporters to lift the two-term constitutional limit.

Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, a veteran Liberian politician and former UN official, has taken on a task which many regard as impossible - ridding her country of its deeply ingrained and all pervasive corruption. Johnson Sirleaf, who came a poor second to Charles Taylor in the 1997 presidential election, has just been appointed chairman of a Commission on Good Governance by Liberia's transitional government.