People demand a new direction to tackle global challenges at the 2011 World Social Forum in Dakar
(Brussels, 3 February 2011) The world needs a new direction, rather than small course-adjustments. This motto brings CIDSE, members and partner organisations from around the globe to the 2011 World Social Forum (WSF) in Dakar. Between 6 and 11 February the international alliance of Catholic development agencies and partners will discuss the profound changes needed to tackle issues such as hunger, climate change and global financial instability. The World Social Forum offers an alternative and more democratic model of leadership, where people are at the heart of solutions to global challenges.
“Governments have not put in place just and adequate policies to tackle the multiple crises the world faces.” said Bernd Nilles, Secretary General of CIDSE who will attend the forum.
“Rising food prices, unresolved climate negotiations, global economic imbalances… they are all symptoms of our failure to act on global challenges. The World Social Forum demonstrates that people want the world to take a new course. It is time that politicians sit up and listen to their ideas.”
The World Social Forum (WSF), designed as an alternative to the World Economic Forum, provides a powerful antidote to a system which puts money rather than people first. In Dakar, CIDSE, its members, and partner organisations will join thousands of people from all over the world to plot out strategies to achieve pro-poor policies in the short term, and find answers to fundamental questions for our future.
Contact in Dakar:
Roeland Scholtalbers, scholtalbers@cidse.org, <+221-765695567>, <+32477068384>
CIDSE events in Dakar:
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‘Beyond 2015’ public debate (Bond, CAFOD, Christian Aid, CIDSE, Trócaire, WWF), 9 February 2011, 8.30am
- ‘From Cancun to Durban’, Climate Change workshop (PDF), 9 February 2011, 12.30pm
Floating ideas for global justice:
Are we ready to change our lifestyles and live more sustainably? How will we help people most affected by the impacts of climate change? How will we tackle global hunger as rains are increasingly unpredictable and crops continue to fail? What needs to happen after the 2015 Millennium Development Goals deadline? As development budgets continue to be cut, what resources do government have to finance development? The financial sector is looking for ways to avoid a new breakdown. How can it, as the main beneficiary of globalisation, contribute to addressing global development challenges?
Notes to the editors
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CIDSE is an international alliance of Catholic development agencies. Its 16 members from Europe and North America share a common strategy in their efforts to eradicate poverty and establish global justice.
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CIDSE at the 2011 WSF – floating ideas for global justice.
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CIDSE has participated in the WSF since its first encounter in 2001, which has since become a permanent world process seeking alternatives to policies which fail to adequately address the needs of poor people in developing countries. http://fsm2011.org/