WSF report
Alison Aggarwal
(Member / Australia, Regional Council)

Objectives of attending WSF

In attending WSF as a representative of APWLD, I aimed to work towards achieving the following objectives APWLD had set for participating at WSF:

1. To contribute to the intensification of the global resistance to the neoliberal globalisation;
2. To participate and contribute feminist perspectives in the charting alternatives to globalisation;
3. To provide venues for APWLD members to reach out to larger women's and people's movements, and exposure to other political perspectives, strategies and struggles.

Within these broader aims, my personal objectives were to link with a wide range of civil society groups active in the anti-globalisation movement, and to take advantage of the anti-globalisation contexts (which are not as prevalent among women's groups in Australia) to deepen my analysis and strategizing around globalisation and human rights, in collective action with others.

Activities Attended

In addition to participating in activities where I made presentations, I focused on supporting WLB events, APWLD network members events, some women's events (e.g. BPFA+10, feminist dialogue) and attending events which did not commonly address issues from a feminist perspective (e.g. anti-globalisation, new technologies, disabilities, housing etc.). In addition I also attended several events addressing the issue of sexuality in order to expand my knowledge in this area. (See Annex A for list of activities attended).

I was tasked within the APWLD team for coordinating with the WSF Secretariat on developments during WSF. However, not a great deal of coordination was required in terms of coordinating participation at events, as aside from the workshops at which people were making presentations, it was largely up to each individual's choice which forums they attended. I was able to assist with coordination in terms of providing details for the women's march, BPFA+10 meetings and in logistics for the final march. Reports on the outcomes of the BPFA+10 meetings have been sent separately to APWLD.

Was the WSF useful?

As intended, and articulated in the WSF Charter of Principles, the WSF was effective as "...an open meeting place for reflective thinking, democratic debate of ideas, formulation of proposals, free exchange of experiences". Of particular note was the greater visibility of commonly excluded groups including people of alternative sexualities, women and Dalit peoples. On a personal level WSF provided me with the opportunity to hear alternative analysis from some of the greater thinkers of our times, to better know the contexts in which we work in, to better understand our frameworks of analysis, and develop greater solidarity within anti-globalisation movements.

However, this year's WSF was not as effective in achieving its further intentions of "inter-linking for effective action, by groups and movements of civil society that are opposed to neo- liberalism and to domination of the world by capital and any form of imperialism, and are committed to building a society centred on the human person". In part this was due to problems of language, time constraints, the difficulties of the venue and an over-abundance of parallel events, which resulted in people focusing on their own workshops, or being dissipated among the different workshops. As a result while there was an enormous diversity of issues and groups, there was not as much interlinkage between issues and groups, particularly between grassroots movements from different parts of the world. Therefore, it is difficult to see immediately what follow-up actions and benefits are coming out of WSF.

The main contributions I made to advance women's issues at the WSF was through my participation at the Feminist Dialogue (see points of interest attached) and my presentation on VAW and housing in the Workshop on violence and exclusion (presentation has been sent separately to APWLD. For photos see http://www.dignityinternational.org/mumbaiwsf_HR1.html or
http://www.dignityinternational.org/mumbaiwsf_1.html).

APWLD's Secretariat at WSF

Coordination provided by the APWLD Secretariat was very useful, particularly in terms of briefing APWLD members and arranging logistics leading up to the WSF. Efforts to have daily briefings did not come to fruition, due to the disparate nature of activities everyone was involved in. One suggestion for the future would be for those who want to meet, to meet each night after the main activities (possibly over dinner), so that there is no clash with main activities. The APWLD stall also became a useful space for several women's groups, as a meeting and display space. A suggestion for the future would be to develop such a space into an active meeting space for all women's groups, which could also assist with better interlinking with women's groups from other regions.

Evaluations of WSF

In addition to personal conversations with participants of WSF, I also attended the evaluation conducted by the organisers of the Feminist Dialogue and the internal evaluation done by the Tamil Nadu Women's Forum. Overall it was felt that the WSF was a successful event, particularly in terms of celebrating the diversity of anti-globalisation activism. It was noted, that in comparison with past WSF's, there was a much higher level of participation of women and women's issues at all levels, which the Indian organisation committee should be commended for pushing. Having it in Asia also made it enriching to see local issues reflected on a world wide scale. Some suggestions for improvement that were noted were:

• There should be greater engagement between WSF participants and local communities, through cultural performances and a march at the beginning where local communities can welcome the WSF. Pre-WSF mobilisation (such as some Dalit groups with their country-wide rally) can also greatly assist with this. The PME that did take performances to the slums was very effective in this regard.
• Greater representation of women grassroots speakers should be present in the key plenaries (not just feminist stars), as they could provide a different perspective.
• Discussions in plenaries and workshops could have focused more on strategies, rather than just analysis.
• The participation of the Communist Party of India, meant that "Under the Sun", a film that criticised the communist state government in Calcutta were prevented from being shown. Such censorship should not be allowed within the WSF.
• Language, lack of translators and translation, and the bad acoustics in the venues created problems for many people.
• The processions, while adding colour to the event, also distracted people from focusing on the workshops
• thought needs to be given on how to better coordinate the mutual exchange between the community events and the workshops.

APWLD may want to consider advancing the outcomes of WSF by:
- continuing coalition building with other anti-gloablisation and human rights movements;
- participating in coordinating committees to influence agendas of such events;
- including issues related to sexual self-determination within APWLD's work; and
- strengthening the involvement of grassroots women in such events and the follow-up activities.

alisonaggarwal@hotmail.com