By Brenda Zulu
The Bamako Polycentric World Social Forum organisation has been challenged on how to bring Africa out of its marginalisation and the Bamako event is offering the occasion to converge the fight.
The Bamako Polycentric World Social Forum has been challenged to bring Africa out of its marginalisation and offer more opportunities for peoples and movements to converge and fight.
Mali host committee spokesperson Mamadou Goita, said that this was a good opportunity to prove that the social forum was not made up of unruly people rampaging the place and destroying property because of marches and other manifestations.
Goita pointed out that the social forum was made up of people who have an idea to create a popular dynamic and that the success of the present event would allow us to know what we have already achieved as Africa prepares to host the 2007 WSF in Nairobi, Kenya.
He added that the host committee of Mali has done what they could to make the event a success and if there were any problems encountered, all possible efforts will be made correct them.
Goita said that their budget to host the Social forum was initially pegged at three million US dollars but they only managed to secure at least half and this is what they are using to put up all events.
He said that 10 000 people had been registered on the internet and all in all they were hoping to host a total of at least 30 000 participants.
On hotel accommodation, he observed that the main problem was that Bamako hotels do not have the capacity to host numbers that thronged Brazil and India, but the city’s people were willing to receive visitors as their guests for the duration of the forum.