Ana Paula Marra
Reporter Agência Brasil

Brasília – The World Social Forum (WSF), which was created six years ago to be an alternative to the World Economic Forum (and is sometimes called the "anti-Davos"), will have three separate sessions on three different continents this year. The 6th WSF begins in Bamako, Mali, from January 19 to 23; it then moves to Caracas, Venezuela from January 24 to 29; the third and final session will take place in Karachi, Pakistan in March. The decision to make the forum global is seen as part of the organizers continuing effort to make politics and economics more democratic.

According to the secretary general of the Presidency, Luiz Dulci, Brazil's position with regard to the Caracas meeting is that it is an important step in the integration of South America in that the forum goes beyond international commerce and will bring together civil society organizations. Dulci, speaking in an Agencia Brasil interview, declared that without integrating civil society there can be no solid integration. "It is important to strengthen commerce and infrastructure, but we also need a unification of worker unions, environmental activists and Indian movements," he said, adding that much progress has been made over the last three years in the area of economic integration, but that from a social point of view a lot remains to be done.

Translation: Allen Bennett