Dear colleagues,
Having been actively involved in the Social Forum process at national and regional levels for the past 5 years (as a participant from 2003 up to this day and a co-ordinator for the Zimbabwe Social Forum from 2004-early 2006), I was a bit disappointed this year as our national social forum did not manage to organise an event during the Global Day of Action , or even having a movement organising an aautonomous session around the GDA.
One of the reasons why the GDA did not take place was that, not much publicity was done in terms of informing the public about the GDA, and secondly only a few people understood why this year, people had to organise their events on the same day. Social movements in Zimbabwe have been used to organise local, provincial and national forums where different social movements gather together and share ideas on the issues affecting their livelihoods.
Of late, the civil society managed to organise a People’s Convention (1st weekend of February) (more information on the event from Crisis in Zimbabwwe coalition-www.crisiszimbabwe.org ) regarding how to prepare ourselves for the 2008 March presidential elections. It was organised in a social forum format where social movements from the civl rights and socio-economic rights came together to deliberate on key issues that Zimbabwean people would need to be addressed.
On the way forward, I do hope that the IC will make it clear to national social forums on the methodology to be used when organising a GDA and ensure equal representation of social forums in the different continents is guaranteed at the IC level, where ideas and opinions are shared, hence a consensus could be established.
I do hope that for 2009, the IC and regional councils will deliberate on the future of social forums and whether the process has achieved its goal for the past 9 years.
I hope these contributions will be helpful,
In solidarity
Ms Tafadzwa Muropa
Programme Officer -Housing
Swedish Cooperative Centre (SCC)
Regional Office for Southern Africa
70 Livingstone Avenue
Harare, Zimbabwe
Office: +263-4-707494,4-730437 Fax: +263-4-700136
Mobile:+263 11 774 633