In 2007, the World Social Forum (WSF) was held for the first time in Africa. The 1st WSF had been held in Porte Alegre, Brazil in 2000, which remained its venue for a number of years. In 2004, WSF was moved from Brazil for the first time and was held in Mumbai, India. Asia in a sense was considered the host continent. In 2006, the event structure was changed i.e three polycentric WSF's were held one in each of the three developing continents, i.e Asia, Africa and Latin America.

The basic concept behind WSF is in response to the World Economic Forum held in Switzerland, a representation of the world's biggest corporations in the world. The WEF is in essence coming together of the powerful corporate elite of the World and their 'solidarity' is for increasing their monopoly control over the world's resources and markets. The WSF is a direct response to the corporate world and the slogan "Another World is Possible" is a hallmark of WSF. This slogan envisions a world ruled by people, a world free of poverty and hunger; in other words free of the corporate control which has been responsible for much of the miseries faced by the marginalised communities such as women, children, fisher folk, peasants, indigenous people and workers among others. WSF in essence provides space and voice to the antiglobalisation movement. Although the WSF is considered a meeting of progressive structures of the people's movements, it is an event which faces a number of criticisms. The most controversial is the WSF Charter does not provide space for groups with militant background engaged in struggle against their states or other exploitative forces.

WSF is generally a huge gathering of at least 30,000 people if not more. The event is planned more as a mela (carnival) rather than only an intellectual activity. Many organisations will try and have stalls for their own representation but in actuality of the thousands of organisations which come to the yearly Mecca of progressive politics, a large majority has no physical space for representation. There is space provided for local small producers to come and sell their products. The concept is to promote local handicrafts made by marginalised persons/communities who cannot compete in the global business world.

The shops and the organisation stalls have a continuous stream of people visiting them. Apart from the hundreds and thousands of people (of every race, color, nationality, sexual orientation) who are constantly on the move, there are constant rallies, side walk speeches, songs, theatre shows and folk dances being offered. It is important to point out that the Nairobi venue was difficult for disabled people. I saw one woman pushing another woman on a wheel chair. It was not an easy task and the woman helping out her friend was quite obviously tired. The workshops were mostly held in the pavilions (the venue was a sports ground) and needed at least 50 steps to be climbed to reach the workshop venues, a task daunting to even people without physical limitations.

Food is generally made available inside the venue. Although food being offered at the WSF venue in India and Brazil was affordable, Nairobi was expensive. Fixed prices to fixed food packs had been assigned which the local Africans could not afford at all. There were demonstrations against the ready-made food stalls everyday.

It can be said that chaos is normal for all WSF venues, WSF in Nairobi went even further. Disorganisation was quite visible; registration was a difficult process which required standing in line for many hours to be able to get registration. In addition, there were many safety concerns. Although one cannot say that these issues were not faced in India, there was at least one woman raped at Mumbai WSF. In Africa, the issue was thefts. People lost money in thousands of dollars. Handbags, cameras, laptop computers, jewelry were stolen every day. Mobile snatching was the order of the day.

It is important to note that in order to participate 'meaningfully' at the WSF one has to have a very clear idea of what issue/groups you would like to engage with beforehand. All communication with these groups should be made before reaching the WSF host country.

It was common to hear stories that the workshop space that had been booked by email/other methods of communication, were either not available or had very poor administrative facilities (lack of sound system, lights). It was also common for people to report that they had been on a wild goose chase trying to locate their workshop venues. Venues had to be changed suddenly due to double bookings, or sometimes people could not find the venue as they were scattered over vast expanses of space.

In essence, the WSF is geared toward conference goers, lobbyists and campaigners. One has to know the pitfalls of organising events long distance, know how to network, locate other like-minded groups in the host country/region and iron out issues of who will participate in your workshop, rally, other events and be able to campaign at the WSF venue itself so as to muster others who would be interested in joining your events. If organisations are hosting events many will sponsor at least 10-50 (depending on funding capacity) participants, so that their own workshops are attended by mostly those who have been invited by them and other network members. To expect other casual dropins/ groups who are interested in your issue is quite foolhardy. Even if people would like to attend your events, it is difficult to find workshop venues.

My own objective in attending the Nairobi WSF had been to participate in activities organised by People' Coalition on Food Sovereignty (PCFS). I also attended the Third Feminist Dialogue hosted by a number of African and Asian women networks.

The Feminist Dialogue meeting was well organised and very important for Asian women, as it allowed us to understand the issues confronting African women. It is worth pointing out that many of the women there were those whom we meet at many international events. However, there was a clear majority of African women and hence it really brought to light the issues of African women very clearly, something which is missing at international events in other continents.

PCFS had also organised a number of events on food sovereignty. This network had actually had meetings with African networks prior to the WSF and organised attendance of African groups as well as Asian participants. Without this kind of preparatory work, attendance at WSF is still of course possible but the organised networking which was carried out by PCFS and continues would be difficult to accomplish. In my opinion, this is one of the main benefits of WSF. To network and widen one's global outreach to likeminded groups who can help us achieve our objectives of pushing a pro-peoples agenda.

PCFS had conducted a workshop on women and food sovereignty in Nairobi for which I had facilitated. The workshop really brought to light the many similarities in patriarchal structures between Asia an Africa; however, the differences especially with respect to agricultural production were also clear. In India, APWLD had participated in the WSF in a fairly organised way and a similar workshop on Women and Food Sovereignty had been held. Such an intervention at Nairobi was missing. In my opinion, an intervention by APWLD would have been useful to introduce APWLD to Africa, especially grass root women who had attended WSF (or an international event) for the first time.

The PCFS workshops were mostly attended by the participants sponsored by PCFS and like-minded solidarity networks. Which bring the point home that even though WSF has many thousands of participants, chance networking is difficult. Audiences have to be 'captured' through organised mechanisms.

In other words, for a successful intervention at the WSF much of the legwork has to be done beforehand. This is crucial if the idea is to network and further a particular agenda. For PCFS it had been to take the issue of food sovereignty to Africa and find groups who would be willing to own the concept and push it in Africa. Any organisation/network wanting to achieve similar objectives will also have to do preliminary work before going to the event itself. For example women networks, reaching out to like-minded groups would need preliminary work, and some amount of exploring with other groups before hand.