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Final Declaration 5th WSFM

MOBILITY, RIGHTS, GLOBAL MODELS: LOOKING FOR ALTERNATIVES

MANILA DECLARATION
29 November 2012

We are more than 1,800 international and local delegates coming from over 50 countries worldwide, gathered as an assembly of social movements at the 5th World Social Forum on Migrations (WSFM) held on 26-30 November 2012 in Quezon City, Metro Manila, Philippines.

More than half of the delegates are women; and many come from migrant, worker, peasant and other grassroots groups. We are joined by 6,000 more trade unionists from the NAGKAISA alliance in the Philippines and international federations, migrants and dependents from communities, youth, and students in public actions and cultural events during the 5th WSFM.
The 5th Forum is a milestone in our journey together as social movements. This year, our recommendations for a better world directly incorporate the inputs of participants from each of the four days of workshops. Daily plenaries allowed us to explore complex themes and led us to multi-faceted recommendations.

We achieved another milestone with the interlinking of the migrant and social movements in Asia and throughout the world―refugees, anti-trafficking, workers and trade unions, peasants, women’s rights, faith-based, environmental justice, indigenous peoples, domestic workers, progressive academics, trade and development, anti-racism and human rights advocates.
This convergence is necessary because by ourselves and separated, we cannot change the current economic model that exploits migrants. The participation from all regions of the world allowed us to see the global nature of migrant and labour class struggles and provided inputs for collective and strategic actions.

Crisis, critique and consequences of neoliberal globalization: the migration and labour question

1.    Like never before we are facing a humanitarian crisis that threatens civilization.  The current international scene is undergoing a profound multi-dimensional financial, overproduction, environmental and global social crisis.

2.    This crisis is a consequence of a strategy of imperialist domination led by multinational corporations in search of low cost and flexible labour, as well as natural resources from the Global South.

Asia Social Movements Statement on Climate Change at the 5th WSFM

Statement of Asia Social Movements on Climate Change at the Asia Social Movements Assembly during the World Social Forum on Migrations, Manila, Philippines

We have seen climate change related phenomena with intensity never seen before, like Hurricane Sandy, in many parts of the world in the past year. We no longer have the luxury of time as incidents of increasingly severe storms, floods, droughts, disruption of water cycles and other similar events are becoming the “new normal” for many countries. It is also becoming apparent that climate change is instigating more forced migration, and will create more climate refugees. An estimated 200 million people could be displaced by climate change by 2050. In 2010 alone, it was estimated that more than 30 million people were forcibly displaced by environmental and weather-related disasters across Asia and this number will continue to rise. Climate change has also been wreaking havoc on crops and farmlands, worsening the already growing food crisis and pushing even more people into hunger.

And yet, despite the increasing devastation wreaked by climate change on farmlands, livelihoods, and homes, the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) negotiations are moving backwards instead of moving closer to a global agreement that will stabilize and cut greenhouse gas emissions. The premise of the climate negotiations has always been based on the principle that developed countries need to live up to their historical responsibility and yet from Cancun to Durban to Qatar, negotiations have instead focused on how developed countries can escape their previous commitments. Now, with the current proposals on the table, not only are developed countries going to be able escape commitments by watering obligations down to voluntary pledges but they will also be able to create more carbon markets and loopholes in order to not take any action at all. Estimates from a study by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) have calculated that even without all the loopholes, these current pledges will lead to an increase in the temperature of up to 5 degrees centigrade.