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Last January the World Social Forum was held for the first time in Africa.
To play host to the greatest assembly of the no-global movement and of the NGOs was Nairobi where for five days delegates from all the continents discussed about the possible alternatives for a liveable world.

The World Social Forum goes to Africa

First held at Porto Alegre (Brazil) in 2001 this year the social forum came to the capital of Kenya. The 7th World Social Forum (WSF) took place from 20-25 January 2007 in Nairobi, the first time on African soil, even though in 2006 Bamako, Mali, hosted a continental Forum.

According to Tenbad Mussa Embelea a Senegalese and member of the steering committee Africa is a key-choice: "We find in Africa all the wrongs of politics that the social movement report anywhere: the unbalanced relationship between North and South, the iniquitous rules of commerce. Africa is the first victim of emigration that is a tragic problem for the Africans and next the foreign debt contracted for the most by dictatorial regimes protected by the western countries without any benefit coming out of it for the population and the looting of our natural resources: oil, uranium, cobalt and bauxite. We are dispossessed of our wealth through mechanisms of privatization imposed by the World Bank and by the International Monetary Fund. For this reason Africa is a mirror of the world."

For Taufik Ben Abdalla, another Senegalese and organizer of the African committee: "Africa has always been held to be a marginal continent with a small consistent civil society and instead this year it entertains the World Social Forum and it will show all the strength of its youth."