The conference

The conference will have one plenary session each day and then two sessions of workshops. We want to prioritise a participatory dynamic by having smaller sessions. This way we hope there will be more chances for good networking. Each day of the conference will have a special topic. Here just a very brief summary of some of sessions.

Day 1: Opening session, Narayan Desai and WRI representatives, followed by a keynote speaker from India.

Day 2: "Displacement, 'Development' and Militarism". This day will feature members of grass-roots movements resisting the mining industry in their local communities. One case we will be looking closely at is the resistance to the mining corporation Vedanta in Orissa, India. There will also be presence of grass-roots activists from Latin America and Africa involved in struggles against mining.

Day 3: "Nonviolent Resistance from Local Communities". We'll be particularly looking at the resistance to the impact of corporations and 'development' policies. The plenary speaker will be Maguiorina Balbuena from Via Campesina in Paraguay. One of the workshops will be on nonviolent resistance to military bases, with participants from the No-Bases network and activists from Ecuador, Germany, South Korea, presenting their struggles against military bases.

Day 4: "Forming Transnational Alliances". A special emphasis of this day is forming alliances between different movements, and in particular South–South alliances, e.g. linking the movement against arms trade with the grass-root nonviolent resistance by local communities suffering from the use of these arms. The plenary speaker will be Medha Patkar talking about the Narmada struggle and the importance of forming these alliances. There will be several workshops looking at ways to strengthen alliances within our network, especially on the issue of war profiteering.

The closing session of the conference will be facilitated by the conference organisers and as a last participatory feature, Narayan Desai will write an appropriate text connected to the topic of the conference for a Garba (Gujarati folk dance) that is easy to learn and where everybody can join in.