Social Forum in Mozambique with difficulties

The first Social Forum in Mozambique was held between 25th and 29th of October in Maputo under the slogan: “Another Mozambique is possible.” The aim was to create a platform for discussion for the national NGOs and to prepare for the World Social Forum in Nairobi in January. Good will and enthusiasm were the redeeming factors in a poorly planned event.

The opening ceremony was the organizational highlight of the Mozambican Social Forum that turned out to be a poorly planned event. Photo: Per Bergholdt Jensen.

In Mozambique things rarely work out the way you expect them to. The first Social Forum in the African country was no exception.

Before the Social Forum started at FACIM (the international trade fair) in Maputo, the organizers behind the event had outlined an ambitious and broad program containing seven themes. Maybe too broad and too ambitious, since it was the first time a task like this had been undertaken in Mozambique.

Among the themes were; economical and social justice; alternative ways of developing citizenship; participative democracy and the culture of peace and natural resources in connection with sustainable development. Other areas included culture, arts and traditional Mozambican values; HIV/AIDS and gender; the rights of the women, the children, the youth and the disabled as well as environmental issues.

Bad planning

When the opening ceremony of the first Mozambican Social Forum initiated more than an hour late on Wednesday the 25^th of October, an official detailed program was still not ready and had not been handed out to the 200-300 participants.

It soon seemed clear that the lack of experience of the organizers had led the event to suffer from some unfortunate – and preventable - “children’s diseases”. Less than two weeks before the forum started the venue of the whole event was thus changed abruptly.

No names of lecturers, no detailed information about activities, etc., had been published prior to the initiation. It was not until after the Social Forum had actually started that information concerning lectures, lecturers and the concrete contents of meetings and workshops was made available to the participants.

Other inconveniencies included lack of drinking water and toilet paper during the first couple of days of the event. Again insufficient planning was to blame.

As a result of the insufficient planning many Mozambican NGOs stayed away from the national Social Forum. Photo: Per Bergholdt Jensen.

Lack of information made NGOs stay away

The lack of detailed planning and information made it difficult for participants to decide whether a given lecture or discussion would be relevant to them. Let alone if it would be worthwhile to spend money on travelling thousands of kilometres from a distant province to participate in something so vaguely defined.

Consequently a lot of Mozambican NGOs – even NGOs based in Maputo where the event was held - decided not to invest time and money in participating in something they only had a very unclear impression of. Other NGOs received invitations from the organizers with such short notice it was not feasible to participate. 

Apparently the idea of the organizing body was to create an open forum where the participants would be free to participate and come with contributions. To a certain degree this also happened. But overall the planning was too nonchalant and the result quite mixed.

“We need courage to change the world”

Since the Mozambicans are fond of official speeches and traditional dances, the opening ceremony obviously had to include plenty of both. As it turned out this ceremony would be the organizational highlight of the Mozambican Social Forum.

Ismael Ossemane, from the organizing committee behind the Social Forum and UNAC (the National Farmers Union), concluded his welcome speech emphasizing the importance of good will and commitment: “We need courage to change the world.”

Afterwards the children’s network, Rede de Criança, captured the participants’ attention through their impressive dance performances that told the recent history of Mozambique in rhythm and movement, from the fight for independence and the civil war to the present peace.

Good will and enthusiasm redeeming factors

Good will and commitment of the participants, and the enthusiasm of especially the youth, would prove to be the factors that redeemed the whole social forum.

The will to change things seemed predominant throughout the event. And especially the children and young people’s participation could prove an important feature for the Mozambican civil society in the future.

Some of the forum’s best lectures addressed the state of law, justice and democracy in Mozambique. These lectures were held by João Trindade and André Cristiano from CFJJ (the Centre for Juridical and Judiciary Education), but unfortunately to a quite limited audience.   

UNAC, the farmer’s union in Mozambique, also made a positive impact with engaged discussions and a relatively high turn-out of participants.

The future forums

The most positive off-spring from this year’s event could be the Social Forum in 2007, where the organizers will hopefully have learned from the mistakes this time round.

In the future the Social Forum in Mozambique could become an important and much needed platform for the civil society in the African country. And in time another Mozambique might actually be a possibility.