web.worldbank.orgmenuPK:34457pagePK:34370piPK:34424theSitePK:4607,00.html By James D. Wolfensohn, President of the World Bank

Thousands of anti-globalization activists from all over the world are gathering this week in Porto Alegre, Brazil, for the World Social Forum's third meeting. The Forum, which runs through January 28 and is held simultaneously as the World Economic Forum of economic and business leaders in Davos, Switzerland, is expected to draw over 100,000 people from 157 countries. This year’s Forum seeks to explore alternative ways for globalization and to put them into practice.

To coincide with the event, James D. Wolfensohn, President of the World Bank, wrote the following op-ed that appeared in several newspapers this week.

January 24, 2003—These past two years have not been easy ones for the world. Too soon after we toasted a new millennium full of hope, we have seen terrorism, economic recession, and disrespect for human rights put fear and uncertainty in the hearts of people in rich and poor countries alike. Continuing conflicts, droughts and floods, collapsing markets, and deepening poverty have taken a heavy human toll, particularly in Africa and Latin America.

How to make a better world possible for all is what civil society representatives from around the globe will be debating this week at the third World Social Forum (WSF) in Porto Alegre, Brazil. And these are the same challenges that we are grappling with—and yes, debating—at the World Bank.

Whether in Porto Alegre, Bamako, or Washington, DC, such debates are important. Certainly no one in civil society nor in the World Bank can claim to have all the answers to these enormous challenges. Yet what I believe is promising is the evidence of a growing consensus among those of us working in international agencies, and leaders in government, business, and civil society, that we can begin to solve these problems only if we forge a new development path linking economic growth to social and environmental responsibility. Without social equity, economic growth cannot be sustainable. Without enlarging the real opportunities available to all citizens, the markets will work only for the elites. This means providing everyone with access to education, health care, decent work, and—as the new Brazilian president Lula has pointed out—with at least 3 meals a day.

The events of September 11, 2001, helped drive home the message to people everywhere that there are not two worlds - rich and poor. There is only one. We are linked by finance, trade, migration, communications, environment, communicable diseases, crime, drugs, and certainly by terror.

Today, more and more people agree that poverty anywhere is poverty everywhere. Our collective demand is for a global system based on equity, human rights, and social justice. Our collective quest for a more equal world is also the quest for long-term peace and security.

This growing consensus is playing out in the emergence of a global partnership for poverty reduction. At the recent United Nations conferences in Monterrey and Johannesburg, and at the launch of the Doha round of World Trade Organisation (WTO) negotiations, developed countries pledged to help developing countries by strengthening capacity, increasing overseas development assistance, opening markets to trade, and reducing agricultural subsidies. In turn, developing countries pledged to institute sound economic management policies and promote good governance. Rich and poor countries alike have reaffirmed their commitments to achieving the Millennium Development Goals. At the World Bank, we have now reoriented our strategy to help developing countries meet the Goals—including halving poverty, ensuring basic education and health for all, promoting gender equality, and protecting the environment—and pressing the richest countries to meet their obligations under the Goals to help the poor.

Over the next 50 years, we will likely see world population grow from 6 billion to 9 billion, with almost 95 percent of that increase going to the developing world. Food needs will double, annual output of carbon dioxide will triple, and for the first time more people will live in cities than in rural areas, placing an enormous strain on the social fabric, on infrastructure, and on the environment. If we are to meet our common goal of reducing poverty, we estimate that we will need an average annual growth rate of the world economy around 3.5 percent—giving us, perhaps, a USD 140 trillion world economy by 2050. But it must be responsible growth—growth that takes full account of social and environmental concerns.

Responsible growth means greater transparency so that publics can track government policy. People rightly demand to know what their governments are doing, to be consulted and to have a say in their own destinies. This is where civil society, at the local, regional, and global levels, can play a critical role. Civil society groups are helping give voice to the voiceless, delivering essential services, and building local capacity, especially in regions where government presence may be weak or because they come from poor communities themselves. For too many years the Bank, like many others, ignored civil society. Over the last decade we have been actively engaging civil society organizations throughout the world in policy dialogue and in the projects we finance. There is no doubt in my mind that we have civil society advocacy to thank for progress on debt relief and on the environment, and for the better implementation of Bank projects. And the role of civil society groups at the local level and on the world stage will continue to grow.

My colleagues and I have followed the debates which have occurred during the WSF during the past two years, and we will discuss with interest ideas and proposals which emerge this year. But while debate remains needed, it is not enough. We must also act. We must harness all available resources—from the public and private sectors, international agencies and local communities—in implementing innovative solutions that will reduce poverty.

The future is in our hands, we are not hapless bystanders. We can influence whether we have a planet of peace, social justice, equity, and growth or a planet of unbridgeable differences between peoples, a planet of wasted physical resources, of corruption, and terror. We can create a renaissance of values and social justice, freedom from want and fear. We will not agree on every issue, but we can agree that a better, and more humane, world is possible—and we can work much more closely together to make it a reality.

Useful links: For further information on the Third World Social Forum currently taking place in Porto Alegre, please visit:www.portoalegre2003.org.   Related News   IFC to Help Brazilian Particleboard Maker   Protecting the Amazon Rainforests in Brazil   World Bank President Congratulates Brazil's President-Elect On Victory

www.iol.co.za January 24 2003 at 05:27AM By Andrew Gumbel

Los Angeles - The stage is set for another classic showdown between the rich world and the poor.

Once again, the lords of global capitalism are meeting in the tightly sealed cocoon of a luxury hotel.

Outside, their critics - representing the disenfranchised of both the First and the Third Worlds - rise up in vocal opposition to their tightening grip on world affairs.

This time, though, there will be no direct clash along the lines of Seattle in 1999 or Genoa in 2001, since the two sides are separated by an ocean - literally and figuratively.

Anti-globalisation movement could be set to achieve 'critical mass'For the third year running, the World Economic Forum in Davos, arguably the world's most exclusive club of political and corporate leaders, faces a direct challenge from the anti-globalisation movement gathering at the World Social Forum in Porto Alegre, Brazil.

And this year the challenge will resound louder than ever.

Organisers of the Brazilian event, which kicked off on Thursday, expect at least 100 000 attendees, almost double last year's number.

For all the speculation about the decline of the anti-globalisation movement in the wake of September 11, there is no doubt that the World Social Forum is being taken in deadly earnest.

On both sides of the Atlantic, discussion will be dominated by the same themes:

• the looming war against Iraq;

• the crisis in corporate capitalism triggered by Enron's collapse and associated scandals;

• the burden of debt in the Third World, and the growing gulf between the rich elites of the world and the almost 3 billion people who live on less than $2 (about 17,44) a day.

Indeed, the whole tone of the Davos meeting has altered over the past couple of years, in part because of the pressure from Porto Alegre.

This year's theme, "rebuilding confidence", says it all.

Perhaps most significantly, the man who inspired and inaugurated the World Social Forum, Luis Ignacio Lula da Silva, has now become the president of Brazil.

From Porto Alegre, where his Workers Party has for the past few years run a highly successful experiment in participatory democracy, antithetical to the prescriptions of the IMF and World Bank, he will travel to Davos to address his fellow world leaders on Sunday.

For the first time, there will be direct dialogue between the two sides at the highest level.

Lula's pleading for responsible populist reform based on the interests of all parties, not just the bankers and corporate chiefs looking to fatten their own bottom line, is unlikely to make much immediate impression on the Bush administration.

It seems more interested in dominating the world through force than through consensus.

But at least the battle lines will be drawn, more clearly perhaps than they have been since the end of the Cold War.

Much of the impetus for this year's meeting stems from the growing worldwide opposition to war with Iraq - a wedge issue with the rare power to unite the often disparate strands of the anti-globalisation movement.

It is one thing that Argentinian anti-IMF protesters, protectionist US steel unions, save-the-whale campaigners and Noam Chomsky - a star speaker at Porto Alegre - can all agree on.

But the issues raised by global capitalism have not gone away.

"Critical mass" has always been the dream of the anti-globalisation movement. In Porto Alegre, over the next few days, it may just attain it. - Independent Foreign Service

news.bbc.co.uk Friday, 24 January, 2003, 12:57 GMT Mahathir Mohamad's speech angered some delegates

By Mike Verdin BBC News Online business reporter in Davos "Snow clouds, followed by a brighter afternoon," ran the weather forecast.

"In the evening, icy cold blast sweeping in from Asia, leaving ill-fated Congressman scurrying for shelter."

OK I made up the last bit. But for accuracy, Rob Portman, a Republican from Ohio, might prefer BBC News Online's version to that on the Davos website.

A website which also promised that anyone seeking the "tranquil idyll over the agitated life in the thriving centre" would find "peace and quiet at heart of nature" in the Swiss resort.

Rather than the thick edge of the tongue of Mahathir Mohamad, who escalated a debate on "Trust and Governance for a new Era" into a warning that we had entered World War Three.

And that the US was to blame.

'Collateral damage' It used to be a joke, in Britain at least, that the US, having entered the first two world wars late, would be bang on time for the third.

But the scenes portrayed by Dr Mahathir, of Afghans and New York bankers killed since September 11 labelled no more than "collateral" damage, of terrorist and US leaders locked in a cycle of "hatred, anger, bitterness" were hardly intended to amuse.

Instead, they left some delegates - not all Americans - at the World Economic Forum's annual summit vexed and fuming over the "outburst". (Read meticulously from a prepared text.)

"Mahathir has a tendency to fire off like that," one said.

Another questioned Mahathir's own credentials as a moral saracen, when, at home, he himself has a mixed record of helping the poor.

Too early to tell Still what better place than Davos, 1,500m above sea level, to seize the moral high ground, and prompt at least some change of thought amid the Enron-scarred delegates below.

Things don't usually warm up until at least the Friday US delegate

"It makes you think that the problem might be chronic, rather than acute," said one executive.

And the day had begun so calmly.

Asked how the week-long summit, the WEF's 33rd annual beano, compared with its predecessors, most had said that on Thursday, the first day, it was too early to tell.

"Things don't usually warm up until at least the Friday," said a US telecoms boss.

"Then you'll see the conferences filling up, things starting to get going."

Expensive time A Brazilian delegate awaited the weekend arrival of Lula, Brazil's new president, to see how his speech in Davos compared with one given at the anti-globalisers' World Social Forum, in Porto Alegre.

Indeed, none of the great and the greater - 2,300 business, political and social leaders are expected to attend - told me to mind my own business News Online, which might have been fair.

Some have, after all, apparently paid $35,000 to attend, about $250 an hour, which makes even a quick interview a loss of expensive time.

That old British saying "penny for your thoughts" hardly accounts for inflation.

Snow What they did get for their money on the first day was updates on security, business and the environment, a session on Al-Qaeda, and thoughts on the future of the anti-capitalists.

They got an opening lunch, a free Hewlett-Packard organiser (to be given back at the end of the week) and plenty of words beginning with b.

Banker Michael Johnston talked about booms, busts and bubbles. WEF head Klaus Schwab joined the B-team with bond, bind and build.

And they got snow, as the Davos website had forecast.

Running late Enough indeed to ensure Christopher Graves, managing director of Far Eastern Economic Review, arrived half an hour late for the meeting he was meant to chair.

"It did not help the flow of things," one speaker said later.

"In some ways it would have been better if he had not turned up at all."

Congressman Rob Portman may wish he it had been him who was delayed instead.

He only stood in after original US political speaker, Senator Orrin Hatch, stayed in Washington for a key vote.

Amen And, however, gamely Mr Portman battled - and he rallied creditably around the theme of defending democracy - the wily Mr Mahathir, with 39 years of political experience and a written speech to back him, was most applauded at the close.

Which was, in time honoured fashion, marked by a song from a woman of some, environmental, stature.

"Amen," she sang. "Amen, amen, amen, amen."

A rather final end to a worryingly dismal debate.

www.guardian.co.uk Friday January 24, 2003 11:20 AM

PORTO ALEGRE, Brazil (AP) - If there's one common thread joining the tens of thousands of participants at the World Social Forum, it's globalization, and deep skepticism about what it can do for the good of mankind.

As activists taking part in the forum's opening march Thursday heaped criticism on the International Monetary Fund, Francisco Giuliano was hard-pressed to come up with anything he likes about unfettered U.S.-style capitalism and free trade.

Globalization has come only to decide how the rich will distribute for their own benefit the cake of our countries,'' Giuliano said. This is a globalization made by the haves, by the powerful only.''

Organizers have predicted a turnout of 100,000 activists in Porto Alegre for the six-day forum, held as a counterpoint to the World Economic Forum taking place simultaneously at the luxury Swiss ski resort of Davos.

At least 2,000 police are on hand to keep order. Military police captain Joao Carlos Gomes said no major disturbances were expected.

With lectures from globalization critics and more than 1,700 seminars and workshops, the six-day forum seeks to change the perceived ills of capitalism, including foreign debt and unfair global trade that favor rich, industrialized nations and multinational corporations.

Some social forum participants are convinced that the new Brazilian president, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, has a genuine chance at improving the lot of millions of impoverished Brazilians - and may even help the rest of South America's poor.

Silva, a former shoeshine boy who dropped out of school to help support his family, will address the social forum Friday.

The next day he will fly to Davos, where he reportedly will call for rich countries to join his fight to eliminate hunger affecting between 24 million to 44 million of Brazil's 175 million citizens.

During Thursday's opening march for the forum, an estimated 30,000 to 40,000 people demonstrated in Porto Alegre, many waving red flags and jumping into the air as a coarse voice repeated in Portuguese: ``No, no, no. Capitalism no. Long live socialism and the revolution.''

Brazilian theater student Camila Catario Fortes said anti-globalization sentiment is increasing because of ``negative outcomes of globalization across the world.''

Although the concept of opening all countries to free trade and allowing multinational corporations to operate without limits was good, the impact has not been for most of the world's citizens, she said.

It would have been different had it brought understanding among cultures, it would have been great,'' she said. But in practice, it hasn't happened.''

Annia Faas, a German writer from Hamburg said globalization was ``intrinsically wrong.''

``Differences among men are so great. You can barely understand your own neighbor, let alone the world.''

For Sergio Gomes, a metalworker from Sao Paulo, Brazil's industrial largest city, globalization ``is the new name of colonization.''

It means that industrial countries keep the clean industries, like electronics, and force developing countries to work with industries polluting the environment,'' he said. They get the best, we are left the worst.''

www.sundaytimes.co.za

BUENOS AIRES - The World Social Forum opened in the southern Brazilian town of Porto Alegre on Friday with international delegates calling for peace.

Over the next five days representatives at the forum, established as a left-wing alternative to the World Economic Forum in Davos, are meeting to discuss leftist political ideas, citizen initatives and trade union strategies, with the growth of neo-liberal globalisation and the need for a fairer world order heading the agenda.

The forum, now in its third year, has attracted 100,000 delegates from 153 countries.

On Thursday evening, prior to the main event, 10,000 people demonstrated against the threat of a war against Iraq.

While politicians are not usually invited to the World Social Forum, Brazil's new socialist president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva is due to attend. Explaining the decision, the forum's organisers said Lula da Silva embodied the policies and hopes of forum participants.

The event has steadily gained followers with the number of participants growing from 15,000 in 2001 to 50,00 last year.

However, delegate numbers could be restricted next year as the organisers report increasing problems coping with such large masses of people.

While the meeting is planned for India next year, the forum is expected to meet again in Porto Alegre in 205.   Sapa-DPA