Ten years ago this month, in Porto Alegre, Brazil, the World Social Forum erupted onto the global scene. Conceived in the heat of the surging anti-globalization movement, it summoned activists from around the world to gather in a spectacular festival of alternatives to neoliberal globalization. The World Social Forum quickly became a beacon and a magnet, attracting a stunning array of social forces who shared unequivocal opposition to neoliberalism, but who were otherwise exceedingly diverse -- in their demographic make-up, organizational forms, cultural expressions, geographic roots and reach, strategies, tactics and discourses.

The 2009 World Social Forum (WSF) took place January 27 to February 1 in the equatorial city of Belém do Pará. It was the fifth time the world event took place in Brazil, but the first time outside the southern city of Porto Alegre, the home place of the World Social Forum.

As with the earlier events, Belém attracted hordes of participants -- 130,000 of them from 142 countries but well over 90 per cent of whom were Brazilian, many of them from Pará and neighbouring states in the Brazilian North.

WSF still disappointingly parochial

Over 80, 000 people from 132 countries and representing 2,660 organizations participated in this year's World Social Forum in Mumbai, India. This was the fourth annual gathering of social movements and civil society organizations from around the world united against neo-liberal globalization. This was the first WSF to be held outside Brazil and the decision to move the Forum was a controversial one.

The World Social Forum, initiated in 2000, is a world historic development welcomed by progressive women and men world-wide. However, despite the presence of large numbers of women and significant feminist networks, feminism as both discourse and global movement remains marginal to the culture and politics of the WSF.

As both an annual event and a world-wide process, the WSF has gathered social movements and non-governmental organizations from every continent in Porto Alegre, Brazil for each of the last three years.