By Kumi Naidoo, CIVICUS Secretary General and chair of the Global Call to Action Against Poverty (GCAP)
Following the G8 Summit in Gleneagles, Scotland, the International Facilitation Group of the Global Call to Action Against Poverty (GCAP), met in Bangkok, Thailand recently to evaluate the progress that has been made and to plan for the next phase of mobilisation. Given that GCAP was only launched on 27 January 2005 at the World Social Forum, participants felt that while more progress was sought from the G8 leadership than was achieved, civil society had made significant progress in bringing together a broad based coalition to push for progress to eradicate global poverty.
The focus now is on the UN World Summit, a gathering of heads of government at the UN General Assembly in New York from 14 - 16 September. This is supposed be an occasion where governments account for what they have achieved in terms of earlier commitments made at UN Summits and the Millennium Declaration adopted in September 2000. Even though most of us in civil society feel the Millennium Development Goals do not go far enough, it still looks like the assessment governments will make in September, if they are honest in their self evaluations, is that progress in achieving the goals has been dismal.
The key issues that were tackled at the Bangkok meeting were the policy messages that GCAP supporters will push for, the various mobilisation events that are being planned for New York and globally and how to make the 2nd White Band Day, on 10 September, bigger and more powerful than the first was on 1 July.
The key message to come out of the meeting was that GCAP is not an organisation or formal alliance, but rather a global call with broad policy messages that do not restrict organisations from pushing for additional policy demands. The global call that we are now making is for all civil society organisations to see themselves as leaders of the campaign in their own right and to take the lead in mobilising citizens on 10 September. Whether they organise large marches, prayer services, wrap buildings with a white band (the symbol of the campaign) or hold cultural and other events, all their efforts will add to making the demands more powerful.
If you would like to get more involved, please visit www.whiteband.org for further information. This global effort that is uniting civil society like never before, depends on people like you. As Nelson Mandela put it in February this year, the Global Call to Action Against Poverty can take its place as a public movement alongside the movement to abolish slavery and the international solidarity against apartheid. Like the many who were involved in those efforts, we may feel that victory is a million miles away. Yet this struggle for global justice and equality, and the ending of poverty, is a struggle we can win. We must keep up the pressure so that the institutional architecture of injustice at the national and global levels are addressed and that the efforts of millions of civil society organisations on the ground can succeed.
In solidarity,
Kumi Naidoo
Please send your comments and suggestions to e-mail kumi@civicus.org
