The European Social Forum in Florence is a further step in a global process of building alternatives to a world of capital and of war.
Its origins date back to early 1998 when the proposal for a Multilateral Agreement on Investments (MAI) was made public. The agreement had been discussed in secret in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) covering the world's 30 richest countries.
The intention was for it to become a kind of world constitution for capital which would give capital many rights and few duties - especially in Third World coun tries where the investments' would be made. A social movement emerged in protest, causing France to withdraw from the negotiations in late 1998 and finally preventing the agreement from being signed. ATTAC
One of the organisations to spur the 1998 mobilisation in France was ATTAC, the Association for the Taxation of financial Transactions for the Aid of Citizens. ATTAC is an organisation focused on the reform of financial institutions, stating amongst its aims outlawing tax havens, cancelling Third World debt and reforming or abolishing the WTO. ATTAC now has 20,000 supporters in France and 80,000 worldwide. justice triggered protests around the world - in Seattle against the World Trade Organisation, in Washington against the International Monetary Fund and World Bank, in Prague, and last year in Genoa where 300,000 people protested against the neo-liberal policies of the 'G&' group of countries. stage of resistance to the heo-liberal agenda. Beyond mass protests and demonstrations it seemed possible to offer specific proposals, to seek concrete responses to the challenges of building 'another This new social movement for global
World Social Forum (WSF). Porto Alegre Activists then decided to launch a new
to the dominant model.
The idea was, with the participation of organisations that were already networking in mass protests, to arrange another kind of meeting on a world scale - the
The WSF held in Porto Alegre, Brazil, in January 200l and again in January-February this year, provided an opportunity for activists to come together to search for alternatives
The WSF drew up a Charter of Earth'. Principles as a framework for discussion
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