The impact of the world economic forum and the world social forum on growth and development

Abstract

The dissertation aims to explore a comparartive study, between the World Economic Forum (WEF) and the World Social Forum (WSF) on the quality of life through growth and development. This hypothesis reveals their corresponding international institutional influence to developed-rich and developing-poor societies in the process of globalisation, as symbolically perceived in the regional North-South divide. Qualitative methodology was applied, by making use of documented primary and secondary sources including books, official documents and internet websites. The research tackles on globalisation‟s hyperglobalist and sceptic theories, wherethey areeventuallyadopted into the annual neoliberal WEF and socialist WSF debates, as well as their resultant initiatives. At the WEF, governments, multinational corporations (MNCs) and international financial institutions (IFIs) suggest an economic globalisation full of investments and trade liberalisation to spur equal development for all nations. This is contested by WSF mobilizations, where nongovernmental organisations (NGOs) and transnational social movements relate a western-imperial global economy that generates poverty and unemployment in southern-regional countries, ultimately calling forworld social justice, human, indigenous and sustainable environmental rights.Such conclusive issues illustrate that either a constructive world capitalism or radical democracy benefits the sociopolitico-economic progress of international societies, particularly those representing third world countries. However there can also be a transformation, amalgamating the WEF and WSF together in a World Economic Social Forum, possibly creating a single international society of rich and poor populations that help to devise a constructive united future in growth and development.