Civil Society gears up for a major global campaign against poverty
Release Date: 21January, 2005
By Kumi Naidoo, CIVICUS Secretary General
I write this at the end of a very inspiring meeting of the newly-formed Global Call to Action Against Poverty’s (GCAP) International Facilitation Group. GCAP was formed at a meeting in Johannesburg in September last year bringing together some seventy global networks convened by CIVICUS, Oxfam International, the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions and faith-based groups. The rationale for the coming together of these varied groups who do not necessarily agree on issues of detail policy, is that very little progress will be made unless civil society forms a broad alliance to push together for policy changes and to hold governments accountable in terms of the minimalist goals that they have adopted. While the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) framework is useful to some of the alliance’s founding members for putting pressure on governments, others are less enthused by it. Those that use the MDG framework do so on a strategic level and are pushing for goals beyond the MDGs, i.e. Vietnam speaks of MDG Plus, and other speak of ‘beyond MDGs’.
The Global Call to Action Against Poverty will be launched on 27 January 2004 at the World Social Forum. This will be the campaign’s formal announcement to enroll as many civil society organisations to the campaign as possible. Please join us in spreading the world since we want the campaign to be as broad based as possible. The campaign’s four key policy demands are around debt cancellation, an increase in the quantity and quality of aid, trade justice and demands to national governments to meet their obligations at the national level. We have deliberately framed these demands in a broad and inclusive manner in order to build the broadest possible alliance of civil society organisations.
The symbol of the campaign is a white band - a head band, arm band or a wrist band – a symbol that is quite easily accessible to the poor. For further information on the campaign and to sign up, visit www.whiteband.org.
The meetings at the World Social Forum will also include a strategy development session and a controversial roundtable on the 29 January which you are encouraged to join if you are attending the Forum. At the World Economic Forum, GCAP members will be lobbying political leaders around the policy demands of GCAP, as well.
The campaign will seek to mobilise millions of citizens around the world in joint actions, particularly around the G7 meeting on 1 July, the Millennium Summit Plus Five on 10 September 2005 and a joint action around trade around the WTO Ministerial that might be held on 10 December next year.
Some sixty national coalitions have already been formed or are in the process of finalizing their campaign structure, which will give the campaign a local and national feel. The UK campaign, for instance, is called the ‘Make Poverty History Coalition’ and in several African countries, the slogan ‘Make No Excuses’ is being used. These campaigns will be united by the common symbol, the white band, and by the joint citizen mobilisations that are planned for this year. Just as millions of citizens in the developed and developing world showed an immediate response to the Tsunami tragedy, citizens all across the world are ahead of their governments in terms of international solidarity, development support and in assertion of our common humanity.
The Foundation and Planning Phase of the campaign is nearing a close and we now need to move ahead with the outreach and mobilisation phases. We hope that you and organisations within your networks will join us in this effort to say to national and global leaders, “We refuse to accept that we cannot make progress with serious, bold and courageous debt cancellation, improvements in the quality and quantity of aid, trade justice, and greater efficiencies and effectiveness in terms of delivery by developing country governments.
To join the Global Call to Action Against Poverty, or to find out more please visit www.whiteband.org.
Warmest regards,
Kumi Naidoo
Please do send your comments and suggestions to kumi@civicus.org.
