Report from APSF Monthly General meeting 26th February 2023
Presence: Nepal - south Asia( Bangladesh, India , Sri Lanka)– South east Asia (Thailand Philippines Indonesia) - East Asia (Japan Mongolia)
1/ ORGANIZING IN NEPAL
A/ NEPAL GENERAL COUNCIL : formation in process. Another meeting first week of March List of who was there in the meetings 18th January and feb22nd will be made.
B/ NOC NEPAL ORGANIZING COMMITTEE : NOC we will form soon after discussion with major social movements. One main representative and an alternative person for each organization, might be 3 for gender balance.
3 criteria agreed in NGC Feb 22 meeting : 1/ Experience : organizations with event organizing experience organizing large meeting youth forum, women forum, People Saarc…-.2/ Size : national coordination committee, - trade unions - mass movements -large network go federations - forest, dalit, women, environment, human right, ......- 3/ Contributive capacity : interest with time to contribute.
C/ NOC SECRETARIAT: will be independent of a given organization . 7 / 8 working committee composing NOC can have their own small secretariat
D/ WEBSITE & LOGO : need website where to upload- minute discussion notes etc - some people have been requested to volunteer for starting a website where to upload meeting reports etc and-for finding a logo for 2024
E/ CALENDAR seen from Nepal
Target date of WSF event : 15 –19 march 2024 is confirmed
Decision : IC-WSF secretariat has received proposal from Nepal, ( considered date of IC meeting is 16 march, to be confirmed mail announcement in IC mail list)
First, have the consent of the IC, then see about funding. After a first discussion with founders, start discussion with Nepal government..
2/ UPDATE FROM NATIONAL PROCESSES TOWARDS AP/WSF 2024
BANGLADESH : First meeting held and feeling that good mobilization can
take place. Target : in two months have a work plan in Bangladesh
towards wsf2024.
INDIA First Meeting held in person in Delhi : organizations present
expressed willingness to support WSF in KTM -
India General Council would be formed on an meeting in April meeting. Some events in perspective.
THAILAND: Meeting to be held mid March also Asia people forum intention is using the same process to mobilization - more info in next monthly meeting.
3/ APSF and IC FACILITATION ORGANIZING
It was made clear that APSF committees mentioned in the meeting agenda are not the same committees as NOC committees.
Suggestion to collect a list of support from organizations across Asia Pacific to the WSF proposal.
Request to have the WSF2024 proposal shared with IC in the APSF facilitation group.
This whole point about committees will be in next month's General Meeting Agenda, held after the IC decision meeting. Involvement from IC also to be considered.
Suggestion that methodology group APSF discuss this point further
4/ PARTICIPATION AS OF NOW IN 2023 IN APSF AND WSF PROCESS
Possibility to show participation of one’s organization in WSF and APSF process for 2023 was commented and information links shared in meeting chat.
A/ About status of WSF participation visibility from some countries, using joinwsforum.net platform used in WSF2021 and WSF2022 :
Nepal - https://join.wsforum.net/?q=%2Forganizations&display_name0=&country=1150
Bangladesh - https://join.wsforum.net/?q=%2Forganizations&display_name=&country=1017
India- https://join.wsforum.net/?q=%2Forganizations&display_name=&country=1101
Thailand - https://join.wsforum.net/?q=%2Forganizations&display_name=&country=1211
B/ On ways to edit pages describing organizations and activities in 2023 in APSF website and WSF participation platform:
APSF : Making visible organization :
https://www.asiasocialforum.net/directories - see "how to use APSF website" in home page.
WSF : create a personal account (can be with an organization email or personal one) https://join.wsforum.net/?q=user/register (just fill starred fields and submit.) Then you are taken to a page where you can choose your password
Once done, you are logged in ( and can log off and log in later ) and can go to orange menu “register organization”, and fill the form (just fill starred fields and submit),
then edit further created pages with blue menu.
So: two distinct steps 1/ personal account (invisible) 2/organisation page (visible) https://join.wsforum.net/organizations
C/ Slides proposed about "visualizing generic social forum dynamics", (APSF process WSF process etc)
http://openfsm.net/projects/wsfic_fsmci/tunis22-input1.a,
Commenting on 8 generic acts of participation and facilitation tasks.
D/ Diagram "some social forum processes towards wsf 2024", with image and links
http://openfsm.net/projects/espacios-oe/wsf2024nepal-overviews-towards-event
This diagram has been proposed for showing information in a synthetic way, mentioning first steps on how to participate.