The World Forum for Alternatives (WFA) was created in Cairo in April 1997 at a conference organised by the Asian and African People’s Solidarity Organisation and the Third World Forum (TWF). TWF was itself created in 1972 as an independent organisation of committed thinkers and social activists of Africa, Asia and Cuba (the non-aligned countries). It benefits from having diplomatic status amongst the non-aligned countries).

Samir Amin is the director of TWF. The director of Centre Tricontinental (CETRI, based in Louvain in Belgium), François Houtart, as well as other members of friendly networks from the North (Europe, Japan, USA and Canada) were also invited as participants at the Cairo meeting, and joined the newly established WFA.

The following documents are included with this text:

- The manifesto of the WFA, drafted in Cairo in 1997, which constitutes the charter of this network
- The Bamako Appeal was drafted in 2006 at the first meeting of the enlarged council of the WFA (comprising some 200 participants)
- The current directory of officers of WFA
- The programme of the next session of the TWF/WFA to be held during the World Social Forum in Dakar, Senegal, in February 2011
- A call for financial support.

In January 1999, the WFA organised, in association with Le Monde Diplomatique, the first public event. The conclusions of this meeting have been published in a book entitled ‘Mondialisation des résistances: l'état des luttes 2002’, edited by Samir Amin and François Houtart. It was this event, amongst others, that inspired the creation of the World Social Forum, the first session of which was held in Porto Alegre, Brazil, in January 2001.

WFA is a network of networks which organises its own activities with a view to contributing to the progress of a positive alternative to the dominant capitalist and imperialist system. The programme for the next session of the TWF/WFA to be held in Dakar during the WSF provides more details of the six round-table discussions, and reflects some of the key activities of the WFA. The WFA itself participates as an independent organisation in the World Social Forum.

The WFA held its second, enlarged, council meeting in Caracas in October 2008 in collaboration with the Venezuelan network ‘En Defensa de la Humanidad’. The third meeting of the council will be held in Cochabamba, Bolivia, in August 2011.

Further details of the activities of the WFA are to be found on its website. See also www.thirdworldforum.net

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* Samir Amin is the director of the Third World Forum.
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