African Woman and Child Feature Service

The saying heavens are made of this, can be used to epitomise the Seventh World Social Forum being held in Nairobi, Kenya and attended by over 150,000 delegates.

The conference brought together activists, social movements, networks, coalitions, civil societies and other progressive forces from Asia-Pacific, Latin America, the Caribbean, North America, Europe and Africa whose interests are central to policy making with an aim to reduce social inequalities in the world.

The Nairobi conference, for the first time, provides grounding on issues related to Africa’s problems. Apart from people gaining inspiration and encouragement from each other’s experiences by opening up new avenues of thinking in the quest to solve the world’s problems, issues affecting Africa are being discussed in depth by the delegates.

As stated by Chico Whitaker, Brazilian Justice and Peace Commission representative to the WSF Organisation Committee and International Secretariat: “This is the reason for its success.”

Indeed another world is possible for many people in Africa namely women children, the aged, youth, the disabled as well as those who are affected and infected by HIV/AIDS. And with this issues like debt cancellation will become a thing of the past.

But even as discussions around the conference are centred on people’s solution to issues such as human rights, reproductive health, good governance, fair trade and access to education among other factors, the voices of the women from the rural areas are missing again.

Without proper information, women in Africa cannot hold their government’s accountable and they cannot be part of the governance structure. The right to information is a social justice issue as was stated by Wafula Ogutu, Chair of Panos East Africa.

But unlike the previous World Social Forum meetings which coincided with the already well-established World Economic Forum in Davos, the 2007 WSF will end a day before the Davos meeting starts. This makes it an opportune time for the world’s leaders to look into issues and recommendations from the Nairobi meeting.

This is because the WSF has become a popular mechanism and it offers an alternative way of looking at how the world can be made a better place.