WSF 2022: Final Declaration

Together building a common agenda for another urgent and necessary world

1. This 14th edition was launched on Sunday, May 1st with a march that coincided with the events celebrating International Workers ́ Day. The 2022 WSF, which took place May 1-6 in Mexico City, is the first face-to-face and remote meeting (hybrid) since the advent of Covid in 2019.
2. The pandemic, which continues causing damage on a global level, did not prevent representatives of social associations, collectives and movements from Africa, Asia, the Middle East, Latin America, and Europe from gathering in Mexico City.
3. The 2022 WSF had to overcome obstacles that made it difficult or even prevented the attendance of representatives of various countries, mainly Africa and Asia. We denounced the denial of visas to members of delegations of several countries and the denial of entry by Immigration authorities to many of our comrades.
4. More than 3 thousand participants of autonomous women and feminist movements, members of various sexuality groups, labor unions, indigenous communities, social churches, environmentalist groups, antiracists, urban and rural movements, migrant organizations and many other social groups, from over 30 countries on 4 continents met in 789 workshops and assemblies at 15 venues in Mexico City’s Historical Center, at gatherings held in over 50 rooms, patios and auditoriums, in addition to tents set up in Plaza de Santo Domingo, where everyone was invited to reflect, exchange ideas and imagine actions to change the world. Issues included climate, land-respecting agriculture, sustainable economics, human rights, feminism, minorities, education, workers’ rights, culture, communication, self-determining of peoples… and so many others! This Forum has surely sparked a series of collective actions that will soon unfold.
5. Movements face a series of challenges as result of the irrational exploitation of natural resources such as water, land, and space, which accelerate climate change, migratory trends, the displacement of peoples and, with these, the de-structuring of our societies. This economic, social, and cultural violence is a form of permanent warfare to which humanity is being submitted, which can only be stopped with radical systemic change.
6. Governments have used the pandemic to attack democratic liberties, to impose a series of restrictions to peoples’ rights and, above all, to give unjustified power to large private pharmaceuticals, the main beneficiaries of a universal pandemic brought about by irrational capitalism.
7. Dominant policies of austerity and structural adjustment have been reaffirmed. Neoliberal arrogance is being imposed. Instability, wars, violent repression, and the support of terrorism have become the norm in all regions. Reactionary ideologies and far-right populism have become increasingly active.
8. The 2022 Mexico WSF is one step towards the construction of new phase of alterworldism. Each phase of alter-worldism is a response to the dominant neoliberal capitalism and is based all forms of mobilization.
9. The 2022 WSF was marked by this global situation and was guided by resistance. Social and citizen movements are aware that strategic action is urgently needed. They have affirmed that the need for resistance does not annul these contradictions, and that all possibilities are still on the table.
10. This year, a new war has broken out in the Ukraine, which was invaded by Russia. True to its origins and its Charter of Principles, the WSF denounces this invasion, the deaths of thousands of civilians, and the use of deadly violence, whose effects have been felt around the world. This new scenario of war adds to many others where communities are suffering the consequences. Peoples must find a path towards the construction of peace.
11. It must not be forgotten that the apartheid of the state of Israel, the wars in Syria, Iraq, Mali and Afghanistan, and between global imperial powers in other parts of the world is the supreme expression of the shameful and petty-minded dispute for global hegemony in which there are no winners or losers, only the desolation and death of our peoples.
12. Much was at stake at the 2022 World Social Forum. In a profoundly contradictory global setting, we were able to redefine an alter-worldly proposal that corresponds to this new situation; understand the novel contradictions of the global system; and motivate movements to resist, to find alternatives, and to construct a new project of emancipation.

Another world is possible and together we must build it!