VHeadline commentarist, Guyana's Ambassador to Venezuela, Dr. Odeen Ishmael writes: During the final week of January, the world's attention was focused on the discussions of political and business leaders at the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland. But as they debated issues surrounding the global economic crisis, a much larger World Social Forum (WSF) of social, political and environmental activists convened in Belem do Para in northern Brazil also to consider the same issue as well as other pressing global concerns.

Significantly, five South American presidents -- those of Bolivia, Brazil, Ecuador, Paraguay and Venezuela -- stayed away from Davos to make their appearance at the Belem forum.

The WSF, generally viewed as "left oriented," was established in 2001 as an initiative to counter globalisation as well as an alternative to the Davos forum. Since then it has drawn participation from civil society groups worldwide.  While the two global forums have trended towards different agendas, this year they both concentrated their attention to the financial and economic meltdown engulfing all regions of the world. Unlike the Davos forum, this 9th WSF involved a wider participation of activists of all social and political hues, including those opposing the Iraq war, third-world debt, capitalism, genetically-modified food, deforestation, global warming, the WTO, IMF and World Bank, Israeli occupation of Palestinian land, arms sales, poverty, discrimination and a host of other issues.

The choice of Belem, at the mouth of the Amazon River as this year's WSF venue was apparently deliberate. It was meant to emphasise environmental and climate issues, as well as social concerns especially with the participation of the poor Amerindian communities living in the Amazon Basin, the world's largest tropical forest and freshwater reserve. Indeed, there were intense discussions on the problems of climate change and environmental protection including the conservation of water resources.

Although its organisers viewed this year's gathering as both a political and organisational success, there was criticism that poor planning prevented the more than 120,000 participants representing social movements and NGOs to discuss at length their proposals to find solutions to the economic crisis and other global setbacks.

Despite the organisational problems, the forum drew from the numerous discussion groups a wide range of ideas and issued a final declaration which urged strong mobilisation of NGOs and other civil society groups to defend the livelihood of people across the world in the face of the critical economic situation. The declaration urged governments to nationalise banks and not to reduce salaries at enterprises hit by the economic downturn. Other demands included the provision of energy and food sovereignty for the poor; the withdrawal of foreign troops from Iraq and Afghanistan; sovereignty and autonomy for indigenous peoples; the right to land, decent work, education and health for all; and the democratisation of media and knowledge.

Differing from Davos, the Belem forum mapped out a series of actions to highlight global economic, political and environmental problems. These will include a week of demonstrations and other activities from March 28 to April 4 to press for urgent measures to alleviate climate change. Demonstrations are also planned during the G-20 summit of indu