World Social Forum
http://www.forumsocialmundial.org.br/
http://www.worldsocialforum.org
The World Social Forum is an open meeting place where social movements, networks, NGOs and other civil society organizations opposed to neo-liberalism and a world dominated by capital or by any form of imperialism come together to pursue their thinking, to debate ideas democratically, to formulate proposals, to share their experiences freely and to network for effective action. Since the first world encounter in 2001, it has taken the form of a permanent world process seeking and building alternatives to neo-liberal policies. This definition is in its Charter of Principles, the WSF's guiding document. The World Social Forum is also characterized by plurality and diversity, and is non-confessional, non-governmental and non-party. It proposes to facilitate decentralized coordination and networking among organizations engaged in concrete action towards building another world, at any level from the local to the international, but it does not intend to be a body representing world civil society. The World Social Forum is neither a group nor an organization.
World Social Forum Office in São Paulo
Address: rua General Jardim, 660, 8th floor, São Paulo SP 01223-010, Brazil
Team
Alessandra Ceregatti, Ana Roberta Alcântara, Isabel Pato, Márcia Macedo, Patrícia Giuffrida, Maria-Anna J. Beauséjour
General information
fsminfo@forumsocialmundial.org.br
International Council
fsmci@forumsocialmundial.org.br
Press assistant: fsmimprensa@forumsocialmundial.org.br
World Forum for Alternatives
http://www.social-movements.org/en/
The Social movements directory is a World Forum for Alternatives (WFA) initiative to make known, or improve knowledge of, these new global actors. It includes social movement profiles and analysis articles. The directory of social movements is a data bank that gathers, sorts and puts information on the social movements around the world at the disposal of militant activists. The information is of two kinds: files describing the organizations and networks that make up the social movements, and articles that put the development of the social movements into context. The files and articles are linked up to each other so that the logic and roles of the social actors in forming social movements can be seen in perspective. The directory aims to promote communication and the building of bridges between the social movements and networks in different countries and continents, and to provide an empirical and analytical basis for understanding the dynamics of the social struggles and their convergences. The directory project is sustained by an intercontinental structure of research centres specialized in analysing the development of social struggles and engaged in logical and political support to the peoples' organizations and social movements that are involved in them. The experience and the expertise accumulated for a number of years by each organization on its own continent give the directory its relevance, while its viability and usefulness for the movements are guaranteed by the solidarity ties and exchanges existing between the participating organizations and the struggles in their respective countries and continent. The organizations are the following:
Latin America: Observatorio Social de América Latina (OSAL) Consejo Latinoamericano de Ciencias Sociales (CLACSO)
- Asia:
- ARENA (Asian Regional Exchange for New Alternatives): Hong Kong
- North Africa:
- Arab and African Research Centre: Cairo, Egypt
- North America:
- Alternatives: Montreal, Canada
- Europe:
- CETRI (Centre Tricontinental): Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium
These organizations contributed to the funding of the project:
- NOVIB (OXFAM-Holland) www.novib.nl
- OXFAM – Belgium www.oxfamsol.be
- DGCD (Direction Générale de la Coopération au Développement – Belgium)
- La coopération luxembourgeoise au développement/Lëtzebuerger Entwécklungszesummenaarbecht – Luxemburg
Ruckus Society
The Ruckus Society provides environmental, human rights and social justice organizers with the tools, training and support needed to achieve their goals. Some of the projects Ruckus is working on are as follows:
Indigenous Peoples' Power
The Indigenous Peoples' Power Project (IP3) – The Ruckus Society's ongoing commitment to supporting the fight of Native communities for Environmental Justice, Human Rights and Self Determination.
Not Your Soldier
Youth Counter Recruitment Camps – The Not Your Soldier Project gives youth the tools they need to stop the military invasion of their schools and their communities.
Jumpstart Ford
The Ruckus Society is honoured to be part of the Jumpstart FORD Campaign. By partnering with Rainforest Action Network and Global Exchange, we have reunited three key organizations that played a critical role in rocking the WTO to its very knees during the nonviolent actions in Seattle 1999.
The Ruckus Society
369, 15th Street
Oakland, CA 94612-3303, USA
Tel: +1 510 763 7078
Fax: +1 510 763 7068
E-mail: ruckus@ruckus.org
United Nations Non-Governmental Liaison Service
The United Nations Non-Governmental Liaison Service (NGLS) is a small inter-agency programme with offices in Geneva and New York and a combined staff of 10 people. The Non-Governmental Liaison Service (NGLS) promotes dynamic partnerships between the United Nations and non-governmental organizations. By providing information, advice, expertise and support services, NGLS is part of the UN's effort to strengthen dialogue and win public support for economic and social development.
Reflecting its UN inter-agency, system-wide character, NGLS is currently supported by 17 UN system organizations, and reports annually to its Programme and Coordination Meeting (PCM), held every spring and attended by representatives of those organizations. The meeting is chaired by a high-level representative of NGLS's Lead Agency. As of 2002, the Coordinator of NGLS now reports to the UN Communications Group (UNCG), its governing body, and through the UNCG to the UN Chief Executives Board (CEB), the highest administrative committee of the UN system, chaired by the Secretary-General.
NGLS collaborates particularly the organizations and programmes that sponsor its activities: UNDP (lead agency), UNCTAD (administering agency), FAO, IFAD, ILO, UNAIDS, UNCHS (Habitat), UNDCP, UNDP, UNEP, UNESCO, UNFPA, UNHCR, UNICEF, UNIDO, UN/DESA, UN/DPI, WFP, WHO and the World Bank. Currently, the Service also receives support from a number of governments, including those of Canada, Sweden, Norway and the United Kingdom, and from the United Nations Foundation.
Geneva
Palais des Nations
1211 Geneva 10, Switzerland
Tel: +41 22 917 2076
Fax: +41 22 917 0432
E-mail: ngls@unctad.org
New York
Room DC1-1106,
New York, NY 10017, United States
Tel: +1 212 963 3125
Fax: +1 212 963 8712
E-mail: ngls@un.org
The Tricontinental Centre
Located at Louvain-la-Neuve in Belgium, it was created in order to contribute to the debate on the future of North/South relationships, to disseminate proposals for alternatives to economic, political and cultural system that creates inequalities and exclusion promoted by people in the South and to propose concrete ways for social movements to work together. The Centre publishes Alternatives Sud, a quarterly collection of contributions on specific issues, expressing views from the South since 1994 in French with abstracts of the articles in English. The centre also has a documentation centre, which contains over 500 journals and other publications, most of them published in Africa, Asia and Latin America.
Director
Bernard Duterme
Avenue Sainte Gertrude 5
B-1348 Louvain-la-Neuve
Belgique, Belgium
Tel: +32 10 48 95 60
Fax: +32 10 48 95 69
E-mail: duterme@cetri.be
Documentation Centre
Yvon Dewilde
Tel: +32 10 48 95 61; +32 10 47 41 21
E-mail: doc@cetri.be or ydewilde@bspo.ucl.ac.be
