Nordic ESF support organisation
- to raise money and support future forums
Popular movements from all over Europe have been strengthened by the European Social Forum held in Malmö from the 17th to 21st September 2008. At the same time, organizing the ESF 2008 resulted in financial losses. In order to help covering these losses, a support organisation has been founded in December 2008.
Support
Make a contribution for Babels interpreters, cultural workers, individuals and small companies that has not yet been reimbursed. Or, if you in the heat of the moment forgot to pay the entrance fee to the forum, now's your chance to contribute!
International transfers:
Account holder: Stödföreningen för ESF i Norden
IBAN: SE1880000821499140711962
BIC: SWEDSESS
Contact us at: esfinsamling (a) gmail.com.
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More on the background:
An evaluation statement on ESF 2008 in Malmö
ESF evaluation by the Coordination group of the Nordic Organizing Committee
Malmö 17 of November 2008
Popular movements from all over Europe have been strengthened by the European Social Forum held in Malmö from the 17th to 21st September 2008. The unions, the environmental movement, the solidarity movement, the peace movement, Indigenous peoples movement, the movement against repression, popular education movements, youth movements, cultural associations and movements for common welfare have all reported back positively on increased commitment and participation at ESF. They also now have a positive view of a more active cooperation with other movements. One exception is the feminist movement which is experiencing hard resistance towards its work in many parts of Europe. The strong role of popular movements at ESF in Malmö was at the expense of political parties, academics and of more professionally-led non-governmental organizations, (NGOs), even though such groups continue to have considerable presence at ESF. All this is demonstrated by a 100-page report on ESF prepared by the Association Aktivism.info.
However the number of participants declined overall, a fact that has contributed to a debt accumulated by the Nordic Organizing Committee. All together, the estimated number of participants was 17000. Estimations are however difficult since the cultural activities were open to all and added more than 36 000 visitors to the more than 300 cultural programme activities. 8000 were paying participants at ESF, 5000 less then the budget calculations. Fundraising will be necessary to meet the deficit caused by this lack of income.
ESF in Malmö took place at a time when popular movements and political parties who care about social justice and environment in all parts of Europe are faced with great problems. Interest in becoming members of popular organizations and political parties is declining. A social climate prevails in both East and West where the hopeful views that are driving popular movements and political commitment are seen as threats or are ignored, while market solutions and authoritarian state methods dominate.
Taking responsibility for organizing ESF under these circumstances was a demanding task. Furthermore, the decision to hold the ESF in Malmö was taken at a very late date; there were in fact no other candidates. It was possible to take on this task because of a historically new cooperation, on an equal basis, between the Swedish LO (the Swedish Trade Union Federation) and the activist organizations that support the global justice movement. This new will for Sweden was viewed as positive by everyone, but it also led to problems as regards collaboration between different organizational cultures. Another problem was to how to achieve unifying political motivation for the venue of ESF in Malmö, thus mobilizing large participation from all Nordic countries.
The fact that NOC with 138 member organizations have acquired debts is thus based on both the political situation in Europe today as well as on their own mistakes. In order to progress in a positive way in this situation while also reinforcing all the positive political results of the ESF is it now important that the evaluation process within NOC and among other participants at the forum continues.
Both the governing board, the working groups and some member associations of NOC as well as many others around Europe have initiated or already contributed to this evaluation, all of which we hope will become a constructive contribution to ESF in Istanbul and to continuous collaboration between popular movements.
