Press Report Europe WSF 2009 - OpenFSM!

Press Report Europe WSF 2009
always said that that kind of academic posture will eventually dissipate the spirit of the WSF, and I think that
has already happened to some extent.
To really reinforce its soul and continue to provide a strong kind of energy in support of civil society movements,
the Palestine issue, and Afghanistan, the issue of capitalism really - these are issues in which the WSF must
take a very strong stand.
IPS: Such an approach demands a permanent structure.
WB: Yes, I think that we should find ways of really making the International Council a more accountable body.
The problem now with the IC is that it is mainly a discussion group rather than a body with real effective powers
to move the struggle on.
IPS: Should the IC be an elected body?
WB: We can’t be tied to forms, but we really need an International Council that is accountable, that is
representative, so to speak. There are various kinds of formal mechanisms. I feel also that we should probably
have a more effective kind of Secretariat that is there not organising the next forum but to ensure the
implementation of resolutions and the accumulation of lessons.
One of the problems of the WSF has been that there is no sense of accumulation of lessons from one WSF to
another, so accountability, accumulation of lessons and decision-making that is democratic - this is the
challenge of the WSF. Having said that, despite all the unnevenness and weaknesses of the WSF, it is still a
very important mechanism for global civil society to be able to influence the course of global events.
(*This report was published by TerraViva, an independent IPS daily, at the World Social Forum in Belem,
Brazil.) (END/2009)
Q&A: 'We Have to be Good at Proposing, Not Just Opposing'
Miren Gutierrez interviews AYE AYE WIN of Dignity International
ROME, Jan 26 (IPS) - NGOs like Dignity International are packing their bags
to fly to Belem in Brazil where the World Social Forum (WSF) is taking place
this year. The stakes are high.
"We are all gathering in Belem because we still firmly believe that another world is
possible," says Aye Aye Win, executive director of Dignity International, a
Netherlands-based organisation supporting people and groups engaged in fighting
for human rights. "I do believe that the current global economic crisis in many ways
confirms the importance of the WSF as a forum that proposes viable alternatives,
and it would be wise for the World Economic Forum at Davos (Switzerland) to lend
its ears to ideas coming out of it."
Aye Aye has worked for the Council of Europe, an organisation that seeks to develop common principles based
on the European Convention on Human Rights. She has coordinated the Global Forum for Poverty Eradication,
from which Dignity International originated. She has worked also for the Advocacy and Early Warning
Department of the London-based NGO International Alert, the Sasakawa Peace Foundation in Japan, and the
Development Centre of the Organisation For Economic Cooperation And Development (OECD, a grouping of 30
wealthy nations).
Aye Aye Win spoke with the IPS Editor-in-Chief about the role of the WSF today.
IPS: The WSF is a movement against the "kind of globalisation which is based only on the values of
market and profit," in the words of WSF international committee member Roberto Savio. Do you feel
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