Venue : University Cheikh Anta Diop (UCAD II) , Dakar, SENEGAL

1. Final report
2. Decisions
3. Facilitation group of the Assembly of Social movements for WSF Dakar 2011

1. Final report

The third Seminar of the Assembly of the Social Movements took place November 5-7 in Dakar, as part of the preparation of the World Social Forum scheduled for February 2011. The Assembly adopted the following declaration.

The global crises of capitalist and patriarchal system (economic, financial, environmental, ecological, energetical, social, migratory, cultural) has had particularly dramatic social impacts, and has increased the pauperization of the vulnerable by increasingly excluding people from access to land, water, food, housing, employment, health, education and energy… It leads to definite damage to environment and population.

This social war against the vast majority of the population is made possible only because of the monopolizing of all the resources, by debt and social adjustements by an historically high rate of unemployment. The total war situation, militarization, criminalization of social movements, deregulation of international relationship, questioning of peoples rights to sovereignty and corruption are tools of this offensive.

The systemic crisis has impacts on the environment and the climate. The so-called “natural catastrophes” are particularly affecting the least protected peoples, as recently demonstrated by the floods in Africa and Asia, the earthquakes in Haiti, Chile and Indonesia….

The African continent that is hosting this Seminar of the Assembly of the Social Movements has been particularly affected: exclusion of people from access to the natural riches of the continent, in terms of mining, agriculture and fisheries, land-grabbing by transnational companies and States to produce agrifuel or food that is exported, the accumulation of waste, fewer remittances sent home by migrant workers who are the first victims of the crises in the countries where they live. As Youth is excluded from any hope of a better life by the impossibility to find stable jobs; this itself is a factor that aggravates emigration.

The sovereignty of African States is threatened by the transnational companies, the International Financial Institutions and the countries of the North. This leads on a daily basis into violence, with women as the main victims, and leading to forced migration of people fleeing the crisis etc.

Although this situation weighs heavily on the ability of people to resist, there is also an enormous challenge for the social movements. With the divisions and isolation of the struggles, there are also huge grass-roots assembles taking place. They are united and leading struggles that have led to victories in the Niger in 2005, in Bolivia with the water war, in India against the privatization of rivers…

The Assembly of social movements, which is conceived as a space for struggles, is therefore facing a dual challenge : building linked-up grass-roots struggles, patiently rooted in the communities, towns and rural areas, refugee camps, slums…and the perspectives for radical change that will prove that the capitalist productivist, patriciarchal system is not the closed perspective for humanity.

We need to achieve a different way of defining and sharing wealth that serves all people here and now, taking into account the fundamental needs of the populations and the capacities of the environment and builds a just world, without war or discrimination.

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2. Decisions

We the social movements gathered for the third world social movements assembly:

1) Reaffirm that the process of the Assembly of social movements (ASM) is a space for convergence and structuring of the social struggles. In the ASM we act in order to give visibility to the struggles, to coordinate and strengthen them;

2) Create a facilitation group of the Assembly of social movements for WSF Dakar 2011 composed of Senegalese, African and international organisations. This group has for primary task to prepare the Assembly for the WSF in Dakar. It is an open group, to be part of it you have to get in touch with Vanessa Jarlot from Attac/CADTM Togo: vanessa.jarlot at cadtm.org;

3) We will begin today to mobilise massively in order to assure a popular success to the Assembly of Social Movements (and so to the WSF);

4) We will call at the International council of the WSF in November 2010 to confirm July 2010’ consensus [1]. As a result, ASM will have a space and will take place after thematical Assemblies. We will also try to facilitate the meetings of Social Movements prior and during WSF;

5) We will organise the ASM at the WSF Dakar inside the place which will be determined for the WSF. Nevertheless, we will organise as ASM one or several “external” activities prior or during the WSF to show in concrete terms our solidarity with the Social struggles.

3. Facilitation group for the Assembly of Social Movements for WSF Dakar 2011