Appeal to Europe

Many ideas and proposals were taken home by the thousands who participated in the 7th World Social Forum held in Nairobi from 20 to 25 January. It’s the first time the event was held in Africa. The World Social Forum was founded in Porto Alegre (Brazil) in 2001 to provide a talking shop for civil society throughout the world, to discuss such issues as justice, the fight against poverty, human rights and the environment, and to work for “another possible world”. There were over 60,000 participants at the Nairobi Forum, including a large representation of Catholic NGOs and associations, in primis Caritas, with 500 delegates from various countries in the world, 200 from Europe alone. Patrizia Caiffa, SirEurope’s correspondent at Nairobi, met MARIUS WANDERS , general secretary of Caritas Europe. At Nairobi there were hundreds of missionaries, women religious and Christian NGOs, and the presence of the Church and of the Caritas network did not pass unobserved. What significance, and what results, does this have for the European dimension of Caritas?“At least 200 participants came to Nairobi from all the regions of Caritas Europe, including the larger delegations from Italy, France, Great Britain, Holland, Bulgaria, Albania, Bosnia, Ukraine and from our central office in Brussels. For us the Forum is a venue for meeting and dialogue that is becoming ever more important as every year passes. Even if we are a large network, we increasingly need other partners, other organizations and NGOs with which to interact, because together we are stronger. We should not, in my view, exaggerate the value of the seminars at the Forum, because the technical facilities were not ideal, due to lack of interpreters and amplifiers. But there were many new ideas that helped to open our eyes. Now we need to examine how we can put them into practice in our programmes, and in our submissions to the European institutions. We will take some good ideas away with us from Nairobi, for instance in the field of migration and development, and on issues relating to the trafficking of human beings”.What good ideas, in particular?“The ideas were innumerable, even if not all of them new. We understood better, however, various aspects of migration with which we were not familiar, for example from a country in the southern hemisphere to another country in the same hemisphere. We all agreed on the fact that the emigration of highly skilled workers can have a positive impact on the countries of origin, but only if its level is not in excess of 5-10% of the total number of highly skilled workers. A lot of emphasis was also placed on the need for a global framework at the local level that would protect the rights of migrant workers, including the UN Convention on the rights of migrant workers of the 1990s”.Have any ideas already been translated into real proposals?“Yes, among the many concrete proposals, the idea that Caritas Europe, together with the Caritas agencies of Africa, North Africa and the Middle East, should organize by the end of this year or early in 2008 a five-day seminar at Addis Abeba – seat of the African Union -, to debate specific themes and discuss policy proposals that African Caritas agencies can bring to the African Union and to local governments, and also to the European institutions. As far as the trafficking of human beings is concerned, the focus was especially placed on the role of advocacy and lobbying. In Europe we will press for the ratification by national governments of the Convention of the Council of Europe against the trafficking of human beings, which was signed but not ratified in 2005. One of the proposals made in this field is that posters be stuck up in airports, saying ‘Welcome to our country, which has ratified the Convention on Trafficking…’, or for the relevant information to be included in the forms that passengers are asked to compile on board planes, to show in a positive light the countries that have ratified the Convention and raise the awareness of public opinion on this scourge of the trafficking of human beings. It’s a practical idea, and very easy to put into practice”.Any special link between Caritas in Europe and in Africa? What are the difficulties?“Yes, there’s a special relation between European Caritas and African Caritas. For example, a joint workgroup has been formally set up, in liaison with Caritas International, to discuss in all honesty and frankness the burning issues of the day. Three persons from each region meet together twice each year to continue a real dialogue, very frank and open, on the problems of Africa. Many European Caritas agencies are opening their own branch offices in Africa, but African Caritas associations want there to be less salaried personnel and more resources made available to reinforce local capacities. This has always been a sticking point in our relations, but we can tackle this problem and say, in all honesty, that our attitude is not a choice but an obligation imposed on us by the European Commission, because we are unable to allocate money unless there is a Caritas office in the beneficiary countries of the southern hemisphere. This is not well understood by Africans. But when we explain to them our needs they can pass on the information and have it circulated through their networks, so as to remove hostilities and alleviate concerns”.