• charter-fsm-wsf-en-table3

last modified July 30, 2021 by facilitfsm


(this is work in progress version 0) 

WSF principles do not make explicit "how" the vision of the process they describe is implemented in a specific manifestation of a given SF process . This "how" is the craft experience and area of collective  "facilitation"  of the forum process  in facilitating collective, which endeavour to organize those manifestations  which are not reduced to "events"

CHARTER OF PRINCIPLES OF THE WORLD SOCIAL FORUM  text

How to implement the principles in an instance/manifestation of the forum process

   Implementation examples WSF 2021 context and other recent situations  2016-2020

The committee of Brazilian organizations that conceived of, and organized, the first World Social Forum, held in Porto Alegre from January 25th to 30th, 2001, after evaluating the results of that Forum and the expectations it raised, consider it necessary and legitimate to draw up a Charter of Principles to guide the continued pursuit of that initiative. While the principles contained in this Charter - to be respected by all those who wish to take part in the process and to organize new editions of the World Social Forum - are a consolidation of the decisions that presided over the holding of the Porto Alegre Forum and ensured its success, they extend the reach of those decisions and define orientations that flow from their logic.

The charter is based on the  concrete experience of the first forum  and formulates “Guiding principles” to give it continuity. These are aimed at participants and facilitating groups who want to organize demonstrations / editions of the process. 

These principles do not make explicit how the vision of the process they describe is implemented in a specific manifestation . This "how" is the "facilitation" area of ​​the forums

quick overview of13  WSF event implementations  http://openfsm.net/projects/fsm-wsf/fsmwsf-wsf-event-editions/#EN 

 About facilitation….

See the document guiding principles to organize a WSF event

http://openfsm.net/projects/organizingwsfevents/guiding-principles-en

censing manifestations of the forum process  http://openfsm.net/projects/wsf2012-support/wsf2018-calendar/#lista

about facilitation and formats of participation   http://openfsm.net/projects/dibco1/dibco1-2020-discusionfsm-input36-en

1. The World Social Forum is an open meeting place for reflective thinking, democratic debate of ideas, formulation of proposals, free exchange of experiences and interlinking for effective action, by groups and movements of civil society that are opposed to neoliberalism and to domination of the world by capital and any form of imperialism, and are committed to building a planetary society directed towards fruitful relationships among Humankind and between it and the Earth.

The forum is a space, made available to participants by a facilitating group. It is not an organization with a political leadership of this same facilitating group. This focuses on  making the forms of participation available, without affecting content produced by participants . 

The charter describes  who the participants are with their values their goals their actions of. They are the "political" actors who will use the forum space, through forms of self-organized participation such as "online encounters," "announcement of initiatives", face-to-face activities and  assemblies," news from the WSF.

Through the use of these forms and the multiple interactions in their context, they will produce political content according to the various purposes described in article 1, such as "articulating  for actions"

Formats of participation :

News from the WSF (in exploration initial phase FSM 2021 mexico)

https://wsf2021.net/news/ 

Online meetings (initial phase WSF 2021 mexico)

http://openfsm.net/projects/pfsm20autodoc/project-home/#lista

Transformative initiatives (in development)

https://join.wsf2021.net/initiatives

https://fsm2021.mayfirst.org/iniciativas-y-calendario/

Self-organized activities (all fsm)

 https://join.wsf2021.net/activities

2. The World Social Forum at Porto Alegre was an event localized in time and place. From now on, in the certainty proclaimed at Porto Alegre that "another world is possible", it becomes a permanent process of seeking and building alternatives, which cannot be reduced to the events supporting it.

Participants can come to reinforce or initiate  initiatives that are descriptions of their struggles, campaigns, transformative projects  - resistance and promotion of alternatives for another possible world. 

They are  invited to define "public actions dates" in the action plan of their initiatives

Calendario of action dates of initiatives

https://join.wsf2021.net/actions-calendar 

Montreal Futures Calendar 2016 (frozen) 

https://fsm2016.org/en/actions/

 Initiatives in panamazonico social forum

https://www.forosocialpanamazonico.com/iniciativas/

 Action dates

 https://join.wsf2021.net/actions-calendar 

3. The World Social Forum is a world process. All the meetings that are held as part of this process have an international dimension.

In an initial phase implementation for a concrete Manifestation of the process, proposed from a facilitating group, this group can open entry points to the forum space,

These points can be in the format of informative welcome encounters where the topic is "why and how to participate", according to a thematic dimension, or according to geographic areas throughout the world,

These encounters ideally animated / faciltated by members  from the facilitating collective can be held in English, Spanish, French, Portuguese,

Welcome encounters about  why and how themes http://openfsm.net/projects/pfsm20/pfsm20-ejes-tematicos

welcome Encounters fabout why and how participate geographic http://openfsm.net/projects/pfsm20/pfsm20-areas-geograficas

Self-organized meetings http://openfsm.net/projects/pfsm20/pfsm20-encuentros-en-espacios-intercom

4. The alternatives proposed at the World Social Forum stand in opposition to a process of globalization commanded by the large multinational corporations and by the governments and international institutions at the service of those corporations interests, with the complicity of national governments. They are designed to ensure that globalization in solidarity will prevail as a new stage in world history. This will respect universal human rights, and those of all citizens - men and women - of all nations and the environment and will rest on democratic international systems and institutions at the service of social justice, equality and the sovereignty of peoples.

 

 

 

The charter also mentions in paragraph 1 the "fruitful relationship of human beings with the Earth"

 The documentation of the initiatives by their promoters will help to have a directory of initiatives / alternatives.
https://join.wsf2021.net/initiatives en 2021

See list of initiatives in Montreal

https://fsm2016.org/en/groupes/ (click on initiatives)

See list of initiatives in FSMET

https://join.transformadora.org/?q=initiatives

5. The World Social Forum brings together and interlinks only organizations and movements of civil society from all the countries in the world, but it does not intend to be a body representing world civil society.


The forum is proposed as a space, an instrument, and is not an actor, and therefore cannot represent anyone

 

6. The meetings of the World Social Forum do not deliberate on behalf of the World Social Forum as a body. No-one, therefore, will be authorized, on behalf of any of the editions of the Forum, to express positions claiming to be those of all its participants. The participants in the Forum shall not be called on to take decisions as a body, whether by vote or acclamation, on declarations or proposals for action that would commit all, or the majority, of them and that propose to be taken as establishing positions of the Forum as a body. It thus does not constitute a locus of power to be disputed by the participants in its meetings, nor does it intend to constitute the only option for interrelation and action by the organizations and movements that participate in it.

This paragraph gives the  guarantee that you cannot “make the forum space talk” .

Participants come into the space using  self-  organized forms of participation , to advance their goals. Participants know that  no one is legitimate to speak on their behalf just because they came in space.

 

7. Nonetheless, organizations or groups of organizations that participate in the Forums meetings must be assured the right, during such meetings, to deliberate on declarations or actions they may decide on, whether singly or in coordination with other participants. The World Social Forum undertakes to circulate such decisions widely by the means at its disposal, without directing, hierarchizing, censuring or restricting them, but as deliberations of the organizations or groups of organizations that made the decisions.

Participating entities or individuals can explicitly support such or such  decision / declaration, which will be considered a simple initiative,  with a public action date at the time of the forum event. Initiatives with goals and action plans are also "decisions" that can be supported.

The facilitating group  agregates all the dates for public actions of the initiatives in a "calendar of futures",  which is widely disseminated, with filters according to categorizations chosen by its promoters: dates, types of action, language, themes, geographic areas, scales of action, but  without prioritization.  Prioritization fits self-organized initiatives for global agendas

At convergence assemblies, statements were made - in other activities as well http://openfsm.net/projects/convergences/

Calendar of futures  https://join.wsf2021.net/actions-calendar in 2021 

Salvador 2018 2018 Salvador 2018 http://openfsm.net/projects/sobre-agora-dos-futuros-fsm2018/agorafsm18-calendario

Migrations Social Forum 2018 http://openfsm.net/projects/pfsmm/pfsmm18-lista-calendario

Agora of futures 2021   foro virtual   https://join.wsf2021.net/agora 

Agora of futures 2018 http://openfsm.net/projects/sobre-agora-dos-futuros-fsm2018/agorafsm18-articulo-de-presentacion-marzo-2019

Tarapoto 2017 http://openfsm.net/projects/cif/cif-galeria-de-papelotes-iniciativas-en-fospa-tarapoto

 

8. The World Social Forum is a plural, diversified, non-confessional, non-governmental and non-party context that, in a decentralized fashion, interrelates organizations and movements engaged in concrete action at levels from the local to the international to build another world.

The forum is a space where participating collective entities can articulate, either to discuss visions, or to prepare initiatives for concrete actions.

It is also a space where people and / or collective entities can support statements or announce joining concrete initiatives/actions announced in the future

To come in the space as a person there is no requirement. one is invited to consider filling out a personal inclusion form, which then gives the possibility for  representing collective entities for acts of active participation such as using the formats of collective self organized participation (encounters, activities, initiatives, news)

For each initiative that decides, there may be access to an online support form

9. The World Social Forum will always be a forum open to pluralism and to the diversity of activities and ways of engaging of the organizations and movements that decide to participate in it, as well as the diversity of genders, ethnicities, cultures, generations and physical capacities, providing they abide by this Charter of Principles. Neither party representations nor military organizations shall participate in the Forum. Government leaders and members of legislatures who accept the commitments of this Charter may be invited to participate in a personal capacity.

In the forum space, a diversity of entities  coexist or dialogue  or articulate for actions with their own political and organizational expressions and cultures 

To avoid capture of the forum by governments and parties,  only civil society entities can use formats of participation such  as “ online encounters”, “face-to-face activities” (from workshops to assemblies), “transformative initiatives”, "News from the WSF" .

In the forum, the collective organization that give strenght is valued: the participating people can support declarations or initiatives, but cannot use the formats of participation accessible  only to collective entities

 In the initial phase fsm 2021 mexico - there is a simple declaration of inclusion in the process https://framaforms.org/contacto-inclusion-proceso-fsm2021-1582471657

Also a form to announce an online meeting https://framaforms.org/situation-encuentros-pluri-sesion-online-proceso-fsm-2021-1585409293

In a near phase, a registration module can be implemented, as is the case in the transforming economies forum - registration of people - entities - activities

in wsf 2021  https://join.wsf2021.net/   persons organizations activities initiatives 
wste forum

https://join.transformadora.org

10. The World Social Forum is opposed to all totalitarian and reductionist views of economy, development and history and to the use of violence as a means of social control by the State. It upholds respect for Human Rights, the practices of real democracy, participatory democracy, peaceful relations, in equality and solidarity, among people, ethnicities, genders and peoples, and condemns all forms of domination and all subjection of one person by another.. .

Reformulating that they are the generic participants in the forum that have these values. The forum is  a space ideologically located by the values ​​of its generic participants described in the charter

 See the colored charter http://openfsm.net/projects/ic-methodology/charter-fsm-wsf-en-colorized

 See text on generic values   http://openfsm.net/projects/pfsmm/pfsmm18-valores-y-metas-genericos-carta-fsm/#EN

11. As a forum for debate, the World Social Forum is a movement of ideas that prompts reflection, and the transparent circulation of the results of that reflection, on the mechanisms and instruments of domination by capital, on means and actions to resist and overcome that domination, and on the alternatives proposed to solve the problems of exclusion and social inequality that the process of capitalist globalization with its racist, sexist and environmentally destructive dimensions is creating internationally and within countries...

Describing generically the  “analysis-debate” dimension  in the dialogues self-organized in the forum by its participants   

It could be a self-categorization of online activities and meetings by their organizers

Activities 2016 
https://fsm2016.org/en/activites_liste/

2018 activities

https://wsf2018.org/en/todas-atividades/

activities event 2021

https://join.wsf2021.net/activities

activities process 2021 2022

 https://wsf2021.net/gtagora-1actividades2021/ 

 12. As a framework for the exchange of experiences, the World Social Forum encourages understanding and mutual recognition among its participant organizations and movements, and places special value on the exchange among them, particularly on all that society is building to centre economic activity and political action on meeting the needs of people and respecting nature, in the present and for future generations..

Describing generically the  dimension "practical experience" , in the dialogues self-organized in the forum by its participants   

It could be a self-categorization of online activities and meetings by their organizers

13. As a context for interrelations, the World Social Forum seeks to strengthen and create new national and international links among organizations and movements of society, that - in both public and private life - will increase the capacity for non-violent social resistance to the process of dehumanization the world is undergoing and to the violence used by the State, and reinforce the humanizing measures being taken by the action of these movements and organizations

Describing generically the  dimension "acting articulations"  for  initiatives of resistance and construction,  in the self-organized dialogues in the forum by its participants. Option for non-violent actions 

It could be a self-categorization of online activities and meetings by their organizers  https://join.wsf2021.net/initiatives

There may be a categorization of action forms in the futures calendar

An activity can also mention the initiatives it is going to take as an object of discussion

14. The World Social Forum is a process that encourages its participant organizations and movements to situate their actions, from the local level to the national level and seeking active participation in international contexts, as issues of planetary citizenship, and to introduce onto the global agenda the change-inducing practices that they are experimenting in building a new world in solidarity

Describing generically the " dialectic between local, national, and global scales" in the dialogue between resistance and construction initiatives,  in the self-organized dialogues in the forum by its participants

 It could be a self-categorization of online activities and meetings by their promoters

 

.Approved and adopted in São Paulo, on April 9, 2001, by the organizations that make up the World Social Forum Organizing Committee, approved with modifications by the World Social Forum International Council on June 10, 2001.

The international council is established as a collective facilitator of the process of world WSF events (the WSFs) 
Its task is 
to develop this process and take care of the principles, and the quality of  their implementation , in co-responsibility with the collective facilitators of the manifestations of this" process of the WSFs".

 The international council has had more than 40 meetings since its inception - its production in terms of forms of participation has been weak in the last decade - it can be reactivated http://openfsm.net/projects/cifutur/cifuturg2-age-and-presence-in-ic/#2

tasks of the IC defined in 2013 - 
http://openfsm.net/projects/wsfic_fsmci/casa13-wsfic-tasks-tareas-taches-cifsm/#EN