Africa Hosts its First Major Anti-Globalization Forum

For the sixth time since 2000, NGO representatives, fair-trade advocates, anti-globalization protestors and activists of all kinds unite at the World Social Forum, this week in Mali. By tackling the problems of inequality, debt relief and trade realities that trouble the developing world, the forum serves as foil to the World Economic Forum, a meeting of the world’s economic elite, held concurrently in Davos, Switzerland. The WSF, being held in Bamako, the first African host city since the forums began, is good news for those who believe that globalization has bypassed Africa. Analysts attribute the continent’s low participation in world trade to poor trade and manufacturing infrastructure, a lack of skilled labor, political instability as well as a protectionist stance from Western governments. The forum – self-described as political, cultural and global - aims for a new world economic model that offers opportunity to all nations, especially developing ones. – YaleGlobal