The springtime weather was hot and breezy as 50,000 people converged in the Tunisian capital of Tunis last week to discuss topics like debt, the Arab Spring, and drones. These were among the seemingly infinite variety of issues debated at the thirteenth annual World Social Forum.

The forum began in Brazil in 2001, and is held in a non-Western country every other year. The forum has emerged as a counterpoint to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, where elite business and political leaders meet each year to discuss global issues from a largely corporate perspective.

In contrast, the World Social Forum is an open space for social movement participants, civil society, and individuals who are critical of imperialism and corporate-led global capitalism to network and exchange ideas on an international level.

Attendees have traditionally questioned the structural adjustment policies advocated by institutions like the International Monetary Fund and World Bank, in which countries are asked to balance their budgets by slashing spending, usually on items like the pay and pension of public employees. While the banks claim that these policies will lead to more prosperity, critics counter that they have more often led developing nations to accumulate crippling debts.

“This was like a dream come true,” said a radiant Sossi Mohamed Sadek, a Tunisian second year engineering student who was one of the hundreds of local volunteers at the World Social Forum in Tunis. “To see our university overflowing with over 50,000 people from Africa, Europe, Latin America, the United States, the Middle East—it was extraordinary. I came away with new ideas and new friends that will surely have a great impact on my life.”

Many Tunisians were thrilled to have hosted the eleventh World Social Forum, held from March 26-30, 2013. It marked the first time that the world’s largest global gathering of progressives—a gathering born in Brazil in 2001 out of the protests against corporate-dominated globalization—took place in an Arab nation. It came at a time when the world has been rocked by grassroots uprisings in the Arab world, but also increasing mobilizations to counter the climate crisis, and massive economic protests from southern Europe to “Occupy” groups in the United States to student movements from Quebec to Chile.