TRADE JUSTICE. DROP THE DEBT. MORE & BETTER AID.
Official National website: www.MAKEPOVERTYHISTORY.org
Today, the gap between the world's rich and poor is wider than ever. Global injustices such as poverty, AIDS, malnutrition, conflict and illiteracy remain rife.
Despite the promises of world leaders, at our present sluggish rate of progress the world will fail dismally to reach internationally agreed targets to halve global poverty by 2015.
World poverty is sustained not by chance or nature, but by a combination of factors: injustice in global trade; the huge burden of debt; insufficient and ineffective aid. Each of these is exacerbated by inappropriate economic policies imposed by rich countries.
But it doesn't have to be this way. These factors are determined by human decisions.
2005 offers an exceptional series of opportunities for the UK to take a lead internationally, to start turning things around. Next year, as the UK hosts the annual G8 gathering of powerful world leaders and heads up the European Union (EU), the UK Government will be a particularly influential player on the world stage.
A sea change is needed. By mobilising popular support across a unique string of events and actions, we will press our own government to compel rich countries to fulfil their obligations and promises to help eradicate poverty, and to rethink some long-held assumptions.
MAKEPOVERTYHISTORY urges the government and international decision makers to rise to the challenge of 2005. We are calling for urgent and meaningful policy change on three critical and inextricably linked areas: trade, debt and aid.
1. Trade justice
- Fight for rules that ensure governments, particularly in poor countries, can choose the best solutions to end poverty and protect the environment. These will not always be free trade policies.
- End export subsidies that damage the livelihoods of poor rural communities around the world.
- Make laws that stop big business profiting at the expense of people and the environment.
The rules of international trade are stacked in favour of the most powerful countries and their businesses. On the one hand these rules allow rich countries to pay their farmers and companies subsidies to export food - destroying the livelihoods of poor farmers. On the other, poverty eradication, human rights and environmental protection come a poor second to the goal of 'eliminating trade barriers'.
We need trade justice not free trade. This means the EU single-handedly putting an end to its damaging agricultural export subsidies now; it means ensuring poor countries can feed their people by protecting their own farmers and staple crops; it means ensuring governments can effectively regulate water companies by keeping water out of world trade rules; and it means ensuring trade rules do not undermine core labour standards.
We need to stop the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF) forcing poor countries to open their markets to trade with rich countries, which has proved so disastrous over the past 20 years; the EU must drop its demand that former European colonies open their markets and give more rights to big companies; we need to regulate companies - making them accountable for their social and environmental impact both here and abroad; and we must ensure that countries are able to regulate foreign investment in a way that best suits their own needs.
2.Drop the debt
- The unpayable debts of the world's poorest countries should be cancelled in full, by fair and transparent means.
Despite grand statements from world leaders, the debt crisis is far from over. Rich countries have not delivered on the promise they made more than six years ago to cancel unpayable poor country debts. As a result, many countries still have to spend more on debt repayments than on meeting the needs of their people.
Rich countries and the institutions they control must act now to cancel all the unpayable debts of the poorest countries. They should not do this by depriving poor countries of new aid, but by digging into their pockets and providing new money.
The task of calculating how much debt should be cancelled must no longer be left to creditors concerned mainly with minimising their own costs. Instead, we need a fair and transparent international process to make sure that human needs take priority over debt repayments.
International institutions like the IMF and World Bank must stop asking poor countries to jump through hoops in order to qualify for debt relief. Poor countries should no longer have to privatise basic services or liberalise economies as a condition for getting the debt relief they so desperately need.
And to avoid another debt crisis hard on the heels of the first, poor countries need to be given more grants, rather than seeing their debt burden piled even higher with yet more loans.
3.More and better aid
- Donors must now deliver at least $50 billion more in aid and set a binding
- timetable for spending 0.7% of national income on aid. Aid must also be made
- to work more effectively for poor people.
Poverty will not be eradicated without an immediate and major increase in international aid. Rich countries have promised to provide the extra money needed to meet internationally agreed poverty reduction targets. This amounts to at least $50 billion per year, according to official estimates,
and must be delivered now.
Rich countries have also promised to provide 0.7% of their national income in aid and they must now make good on their commitment by setting a binding timetable to reach this target.
However, without far-reaching changes in how aid is delivered, it won't achieve maximum benefits. Two key areas of reform are needed.
First, aid needs to focus better on poor people's needs. This means more aid being spent on areas such as basic healthcare and education. Aid should no longer be tied to goods and services from the donor, so ensuring that more money is spent in the poorest countries. And the World Bank and the IMF must become fully democratic in order for poor people's concerns to be heard.
Second, aid should support poor countries and communities' own plans and paths out of poverty. Aid should therefore no longer be conditional on recipients promising economic change like privatising or deregulating their services, cutting health and education spending, or opening up their markets: these are unfair practices that have never been proven to reduce poverty. And aid needs to be made predictable, so that poor countries can plan effectively and take control of their own budgets in the fight against poverty.
MAKEPOVERTYHISTORY is a unique UK alliance of charities, trade unions, campaigning groups and celebrities who are mobilising around key opportunities in 2005 to drive forward the struggle against poverty and injustice.
Forum members, in collaboration with other local groups, both religious and secular, and supported by individual activists, have been very active throughout 2005.
The campaign got off to a flying start before the big year even began, on 8th November 2004. The National Jubilee Debt Campaign, in collaboration with Cafod HQ, provided an African speaker, in a meeting laid on by local Jubilee and Cafod campaigners. Charity Musamba, a Jubilee activist from Zambia, told a packed meeting at the St. Mary's Centre, Castle St., Chester what the burden of unpayable debts and unfair trade rules had done to her country. Zambia has a population of 10.3 Million of which 8 Million have to live on the equivalent of 60p a day. Zambia had to spend up to £100 million each year in interest payments. The country has had a little debt relief, the assets being used for education and health, but IMF/World Bank conditions for that relief have meant that 15,000 trained teachers could not be employed. The IMF had also insisted on the privatisation of public utilities, putting essential services beyond the pockets of the very poor.
Then, Feb 23rd, 2005, Wednesday - at the Catholic High School, Fr Peter Henriot S.J, a debt and trade justice campaigner, originating from the USA but currently based in Lusaka, Zambia, said that MAKE POVERTY HISTORY was a new thing because it was not about amelioration nor about reduction but about elimination. It could be done and must be done. Along with economic, social and ethical argument, he told stories. He stressed the courage, generosity, and solidarity of many Africans, but said that the poverty and suffering was real enough. One illustration of this was the story about the clever boy who kept falling below his expected performance. When asked why he was so unfocused & sleepy the other day, he answered:"It was not my turn to eat yesterday".
There followed a series of events. There was a Vigil in Chester Cathedral during the Global Week of Action for Trade Justice. During White Band week in May, at Chester College, as it then still was, two 24-foot banners were draped on the Tower building, visible from the road outside,saying to passers-by as well as students: MAKEPOVERTYHISTORY. This the handiwork of the Chester branch of Jubilee Debt Campaign, in collaboration with the College. May 28th, - CWDF members ran the All Day Coffee Bar at Wesley Methodist Church, featuring displays, literature and action cards. One of our giant banners was tied to the railings outside. The following night, Politika at Alexander's focused on the G8 - run by the Forum in collaboration with Alexander's Jazz Theatre.
Jun 4th, Sat - 12-2pm a 24-foot MAKE POVERTY HISTORY banner was processed from Northgate to the river and round to Watergate via the wall, stopping at key sites for people to see and cameras to record. The very stones of the city cried out "Make Poverty History", and formed an unusual tourist picture gallery later published on the website and elsewhere, as an example of a historic city proclaiming the message.
All of these events were leading up to July 2nd - a high point of the campaign, with 4 Coaches from Chester going to the Edinburgh rally and lobby of the G8 powers. And to keep up the pressure and level of awareness, on July 7th , we managed to surround the City walls with 2.5 kilometres of tape, bearing the MPH logo. The event was launched by the Lord Mayor of Chester.
At the same time everyone was reflecting on the degree of success achieved in Edinburgh, and studying reports by the major NGOs. There had been some extra debt cancellation, for 18 countries,
But many more were left to wait. As for AID - the increases were too small and too delayed (2010). But the worst record was on the topic of Trade Justice. No specific action was agreed. However the British Government continues to lobby about this, pressing for at least some of our objectives. To keep up the pressure several thousand constituents joined in the Mass Lobby of MPs on November 2nd, despite the drenching rain. No MP can have remained in any doubt about the strength of feeling of campaigners, not that they all agreed with everything we demanded. These things take time.
Another Politika event, is slated for November 27th. White Band Day III lies ahead of us, on 10th December, then the WTO summit in Hong Kong and the EU Heads of State Meeting in London, 15-16 December. And massive lobbying actions are being run by various groups in the City.
Already the MPH alliance is discussing the legacy of this year. No one ever expected that we would hit the target in one year. But the campaigning will go on until we succeed.
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MAKEPOVERTYHISTORY banner safari round some historic sites in Chester
On Saturday, June 4th 2005, we set off from Northgate through the crowded streets of Chester, towards the Town Hall Square. On the Northgate we had got our first reaction in the form of car hooters, we presume sounded in approval. Now we met some puzzlement as we struggled through the narrow busy street trying not to get in the way, yet make our point.
Next into the Town Hall square, on up the town hall steps, stopping for a photo, and down again. You can see the street market in front. There is a covered market behind this area also, not visible in the picture. There is a good regular food market here , with some local some from other regions, but all simpatico, as one former Sheriff of Chester pointed out -the Fair trade cause knows no boundaries: our own food producers need justice too. These are real markets Galbraith would recognise: the consumer has a real choice; the seller has a real choice.
From here, dodging shoppers and tourists as we went, down Werburgh Street to the Cathedral. Not all our visitors will have heard about Saint Werburgh (Saxon), or St Anselm (Italian/sort of Norman, and very original thinker and all-round good bloke), but they would be unusually obtuse not to be impressed by the Cathedral building.
Then on to the Roman/Saxon/Norman/Mediaeval wall, a favourite way of dodging the traffic; we did not cause too much mayhem in the narrow footway - most people were patient and often approving. The Eastgate clock just had to be included: everyone else takes a photo of this - it must be in albums all over the world, from Spain to Japan: in fact one can hear that it is, if you listen to the voices of the visitors.
The Eastgate clock section of the city walls was again the focus of an action later in the year, after Edinburgh, to show that the campaign was still alive and kicking in the city. The city centre was completely encircled with MPH tape, the event being launched by the Lord Mayor. See picture below of this July event.
BACK TO JUNE SAFARI - Along the wall again south towards the river, but with a break for a restorative coffee and cake at Wesley Methodist Coffee Bar.
Then on over Newgate to St John's the oldest church in the city, a Saxon foundation. It would if it could say with us: MAKE POVERTY HISTORY.
Down the steps now past the anchorite's cell and the park, down to the River Dee.
The campaigners pause again for a shot of the suspension bridge. The river bank is packed with a mixture of locals and visitors, the visitors causing the locals to reflect that this is quite a good place to live in.
Such a good place that the photographer wandered off and took river pictures. There was some competition for attention between our banner, large though it was, and eccentric as we were, and the ever fascinating ducks and ducklings, swans, cormorants, riverbank trees and ice cream.
The group, meanwhile, crossed the suspension bridge and walked along the river bank to the Old Dee Bridge, crossing back for another Roman Wall photoshoot at Bridgegate.
