Entries For: October 2008

What force can two percent of people living in our complex, and often troubled, earth change with their rallies, marches, meetings, concerts and prayers? How will the trees they planted, the letters they delivered to their leaders, their e mails and texts, the time they gave, change the injustices that motivated them to take action in the first place?  

For starters, they show that there is power in numbers. By getting out there and registering their events, they were able to do something that so many movements in the past have failed to do - they could be counted. In the three years since the beginning of the Stand Up campaign, the movement of people who want to see poverty eradicated has grown from 23 to 43 million in the first two years, and now to a staggering 116.99 million.   

This is a reflection on both the popularity of this simple concept, and the work of the grassroots mobilisers who are reaching out to people who had never heard of the Millennium Goals. I am heartened that this awareness raising has happened, and I believe that the changes we see as a result of civil society’s efforts will be threefold.  

Firstly, the new connections made between students, women’s groups, local government, trade unions, churches and mosques and youth centres – that had previously no reason to act together - will be permanent. The movement away from single-issue mobilisation to collective, local action with a common purpose is very powerful wherever you live. Whether you stand for decent work or women’s rights, you share the common goal of wanting to eradicate poverty so that people can access their fundamental rights. The development of this new network is extremely exciting.  

Secondly, the policy demands that so many people who took part in Stand Up Take Action campaign developed beforehand will be the framework for government lobbying and advocacy throughout the year. The demands on education and health policy, particularly in the South, will be reiterated at budget time, at key policy decision moments, and during face-to-face meetings with many of the Ministers and Heads of State who were happy to be part of  Stand Up over the weekend of October 17^th. They will not be allowed to step away from this demonstration of solidarity. This has worked in several countries in the past two years, and will again. People will use their actions and the 116.99 million figure to leverage the pressure they need at these critical decision-making moments.  

Finally, a vital change I foresee more immediately is in the global response to the current financial crisis. As heads of the 20 most powerful nations on earth prepare to meet as guests of George Bush in Washington next month, the voices of the 116.99 million will be heard. Civil society is asking about global-level double standards. If it is considered acceptable to cancel the debts of financial institutions when they get themselves into trouble, why can the debts of countries not be written off overnight with equal immediacy and lack of conditions? As GCAP , we will ensure that amid the talk of protecting the status quo, there will also be talk of changing the global financial architecture to include the needs of the one billion people who are hungry due to exorbitant food costs, as well as the many more who are sick due to lack of access to medicines and poor because they cannot work.

The worldwide number is… 116,993,629. That's almost 2% of the total world population!

Here’s how the figures break down:

• Africa: 24,496,151
• Arab region: 17,847,870
• Asia: 73,151,847
• Europe: 951,788
• Latin America: 211,250
• North America: 123,920
• Oceania: 210,803

Read the full announcement press release for more information, or watch the announcement press conference with Kumi Naidoo, Sylvia Borren and Salil Shetty.

To download the final number picture, please visit the Flickr photo page and select "all sizes" from the menu on top of the picture to select your prefer download size.

Your participation, energy and commitment have been inspirational.

We truly are a global movement and together we can show governments that we won't stay seated or silent in the face of poverty and failed promises.

Thank you!

www.flickr.com Stand Up and Take Action's SUTA - Best photos 2008 photoset

...and Stand Up and Take Action is nearly over. While the day - October 20th - has already dawned in Asian, African and European countries, activists in the Amercias, and Pacific islands are still waiting to take the final Actions of the day.

People of all nationalities, races, economic means, beliefs and ages have come together across the globe to show governments that they refuse to stay seated or silent in the face of injustice. To show leadership in taking collective and personal actions to end poverty. And to demand that their governments keep their promises to end poverty and inequality and make progress towards the Millennium Development Goals.

Stand Up and Take Action started with a school assembly in Nelson, New Zealand, where students prepared a speech about global poverty and the MDGs and watched a video from the 1985 Live Aid Concert.

Here's an account from teacher Mary Greenland:

"It was the most amazing feeling  .... I had two students read a prepared speech about global poverty and the MDGs and then we had the CBC Video from the 1985 Live Aid concert play on the data screen [...] The presenters suggested that when there was one minute of the video left, if the students felt moved by what they had heard and were seeing, they should stand. As kids don't like to be singled out, I had my class strategically placed around the assembly hall and primed to be the first to stand. It was not necessary - at the one minute left mark there was a ground swell of movement and EVERYBODY stood, in the loudest silence I have ever heard. It was unbelievable, humbling! Most of us had tears in our eyes! Even in class later the students were talking about what an experience it had been for us all. I was even stopped by a student in the supermarket that evening to say how moved he had been!"

Fittingly, the last Stand Up event will take place with another island's student action, this time in Honolulu, Hawaii, where middle and high school students of Elite Element Academy will write letters to their U. S. Senators and House member supporting laws to end poverty, while elementary students will draw a picture and take a picture of themselves and their art work, Standing Up against poverty.

We wish that they, and all those who are about to Stand Up and Take Action, have an inspiring and energizing event.

Make sure your action is counted! Please continue to register your events, report your numbers and add photos and videos. If you need some help, see the Event organisers instructions page for guidance.

This massive mobilization has been truly inspiring and shows the hope and commitment of millions of people worldwide to be the generation that ends poverty.

In the next few days, the Stand Up team -- GCAP and UN Millennium Campaign -- will be collecting and verifying the numbers, and an official announcement will be made soon.

In the meantime, please visit http://www.standagainstpoverty.org to see the latest stories, photos and videos from this year's Stand Up and Take Action.

The first day of Stand Up has been exciting and inspiring.  From school children in New Zealand to rugby players in South Africa, from planting trees in India, to concerts in Brazil, the diversity of actions towards meeting and exceeding the Millennium Development Goals has been remarkable.  Pictures are coming in to: http://www.flickr.com/photos/standagainstpoverty

Events continue to flood in, and even at this early stage, we can say with confidence that this is an unprecedented experience for humanity.  We have seen a commitment by such a wide range of people, that political decision makers will have no choice but to respond in unprecedented ways.

Mary Robinson leads a 'Stand Up' action of 500 people in Belfast, Northern Ireland at the Amnesty International Annual Lecture which she delivered on the theme &quot;How universal are human rights?&quot;. Also featured is Linda McClelland of the Coalition of Aid and Development Agencies. <br /> Copyright: Amnesty International. Photographer: John Baucher

In the remaining two days of Stand Up, we are sure to see even more grassroots actions to end poverty and inequality, and to uphold human rights.

Thank you all for you actions, your work, and your commitment.  Please continue sharing with us information about your activities, so that we can strengthen this global movement.

2008 began as a year of possibility. The second half of this year marks the midpoint of our time allotted to meet the Millennium Development Goals; the midpoint of our quest to make aid more effective through the Paris Declaration; and the review of progress made so far in responsible financing for development since the Monterrey Consensus was signed in 2002. Meetings have and will take place in New York, Accra and Doha respectively, to ponder the way forward.

Three ambitious sets of plans. Three High Level Events, in three cities. Three opportunities to be honest with ourselves about what we have achieved – and where to go from here. Encouragingly, honesty isn’t lacking – a range of organisations, tracking progress on all three fronts, has produced well-researched reports. The devil lies in the denial.

From Ghana in September, to the recent meetings in New York, 2008 has been characterised by inaction.

No clear plans for action emerged from any of the meetings. Amidst a lack of commitment from donors, and the inability of the UN to play an effective role in the implementation of development programmes, blame was pushed onto national governments that reacted defensively, hiding behind excuses and accusations of victimisation. In Accra, on the final day, in frustration, participants began donning stickers on their lapels that read “Action not words”.

On the UN’s MDG progress chart, in Sub-Saharan Africa, none of the boxes are coloured in green. Most are coloured a rather violent shade of red. Red represents: “No progress or [in fact] deterioration”. A damning account of development on the continent.

A colleague called, fresh off the plane from the World Bank & IMF meetings in Washington, dominated by the global financial crisis. He emphasised that the urgent need for massive reform of the system – a system that simply hasn’t worked in terms of effective global economic governance – must be contextualised within today’s financial landscape. How can an institution be taken seriously in its attempts to seemingly push the agenda of the developing world, when it has not yet admitted culpability for its role as an architect of this crisis?

Reports from the Annual Meetings quoted Robert Zoellick, the World Bank President, remarking “the global economic crisis could hurt poor people in developing countries most severely … As governments try to fix economic problems at home, the international community should continue to help poor countries reach the UN Millennium Development Goals to reduce poverty.” Encouraging, but misleading words. Continuing to help?

The World Bank estimates that high food and energy prices have pushed another 100 million people into poverty this year alone. The week before the meetings, governments promised USD 16 billion for the MDGs towards 2015, because they said that’s all they could afford. In the same 48-hour period, the US alone found
USD 700-billion to bail out its financial sector. Realisation of the MDGs requires USD 18-billion a year. For that, you get basic healthcare, literacy, education and the eradication of extreme poverty. It’s not a bad deal. It’s a shame we can’t afford it.

Amidst global turmoil from various fronts, we err on the side of cautious, devastating delay. We were warned of an impending global financial crisis for years. Although we had an inkling of the ruinous consequences of its reality, we never allowed ourselves to believe it would happen.

This has terrifying implications for the unhurried approach with which we are pursuing ways to cope with climate change. The food crisis didn’t sneak up on us overnight either. And our approach to the 1.5-billion living in extreme poverty today, especially given the confluence of crises faced by the world’s poorest, can certainly not be excused with ignorance.

We have the knowledge, the technology and the capacity to change things, and yet, it is denial and avoidance that prevents us from taking timely action. Will these elements of human nature prevent us from acting concretely on these issues, before we are confronted with our own child who dies of a preventable disease, or our own bare shelves, or our own backyard slipping into the ocean?

Last year, Moneyweb noted that South Africa’s income distribution, as measured by the Gini coefficient, is approximately 0.593 — making South Africa the sixth most unequal society in the world. The richest 20 per cent of the South African population earn approximately 65% of total income, whereas the poorest 20% earn approximately 3%. The richest do not experience the crippling poverty that many face. And avoidance abounds.

If denial is the Achilles heel of human nature, then is South Africa doomed to regress, despite the onward march of economic growth?

When Thabo Mbeki resigned the Presidency of South Africa, evaluations of his tenure were on everyone’s lips. One of the key criticisms has been his lack of responsiveness to his citizenry and civil society. This lack of engagement has resulted in a lack of ownership of government – a broader disillusionment of the populace, which has lost faith in Government’s ability to deliver on its promises.

This Friday, thousands will gather on the jacaranda-strewn lawns of the Union Buildings to ask Kgalema Motlanthe’s new administration to do better. Surely, when it comes to service delivery, that can’t be difficult. They will ask for the abolition of user fees on water, VAT-free basic food items in the midst of a food crisis, basic child support and a functioning welfare system. The most basic cornerstones of development. But will the new administration listen?

Madiba told us in 2005, “Sometimes it falls upon a generation to be great. You can be that generation.” But that’s a lot of responsibility, particularly when the job is so large and the stakes are so high. Do we have the stomach for it? The most shocking part of all: We have the resources and capacity to eradicate extreme poverty and meet the MDGs. All that is lacking is political will.

It is an indictment on all of us. We can blame decision-makers, powerful governments and international financial institutions – and much of this is well-founded – but there is an extent to which the buck must lie with each of us.

When I first heard about the global “anti-poverty” campaigns, I’ll be the first to admit that I rolled my eyes. Anti-poverty? After all, who’s pro-poverty? But it goes deeper than that. It isn’t just about saying we want to eradicate poverty – it’s an acceptance of responsibility for the state of the world we live in. It is an expression of hope – and in many cases, key policy demands of governments at every level – and of citizen action leading towards concrete change.

We have the power to change things and we need those who we have given the privilege and responsibility to govern to take us seriously. We need to Stand Up and Take Action. We need to re-affirm our individual commitments to acting against poverty in our own lives and communities and take action on all fronts.

This year, the Global Call to Action against Poverty – the coalition of organisations behind the white band campaigns – is expecting to mobilise over 83-million people over the course of this weekend. That represents over 1% of the entire world’s population. One percent who are Standing Up and Taking Action and asking their leaders to do the same.

For South Africa to develop effectively, South Africans need to feel empowered to effect change in their own country and to be listened to by those they have entrusted with leadership.

Much of this is a lesson that must be learned too, in the international, multilateral arena. Responding to the needs of one’s citizens – be it at the national, or more challenging, global level – is key to legitimate and effective governance, especially with the multifaceted challenges we face today.

As we look to Doha, it can only be hoped that civic engagement will be at the heart of the process, for it is the people that civil society represent who will live with the consequences of the decisions made.

And it is those who are asking for “Action, not words”.

Nastasya Tay is with CIVICUS, the international civil society alliance, and host of the GCAP International Secretariat in Johannesburg.

This opinion piece was originally published in the Mail & Guardian's ThoughtLeader

In just over 16 hours the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty will start over in New Zealand.

The first registered Stand Up and Take Action event will be taking place in a city called Nelson, where students of Nayland College will present information about poverty and inequality at their morning assembly.

As the Stand Up days unfold - from October 17th to October 19th - we'll see millions of people taking action across the world, from planting trees to marching in the streets, from writing petitions to offering free medical services, from singing along in concerts to simply sharing time with others thinking about personal ways to take action against poverty and inequality.

Our voices and collective actions will send a strong message to governments that they must keep their promises to end poverty and inequality and meet and exceed the Millennium Development Goals. We will show governments that we will not stay silent in the face of the unequal response to the financial crisis, where money is quickly found for the rich while those living in poverty are asked to wait a bit longer.

We will see for ourselves that we are the generation that can end poverty NOW.

Visit the standagainstpoverty.org website to find an event near you, register your event or to follow the latest updates during the Stand Up weekend.

“The problem with the new India is that the gap between the rich and poor is getting wider,” said the young Indian student in Madrid on Sunday as he signed the GCAP Spain’s In My Name banner at the beginning of A Week Against Poverty.

This is the truly international face of the anti-poverty movement. I see it now when I travel around the world. Whether you are a celeb like Bono signing your name on glass wall in front of the UN in September of this year, or a young Spaniard writing a message asking for money to be directed away from propping up banks and towards poverty alleviation, I am really starting to see a generation of people that wants to end poverty.

“Can you believe there are still hungry people in the world today?” they ask. “Can you tell me how if we have the medicines they don't reach the thousands dying every day of HIV Aids and malaria?”, demands another. These are not specialists, lobbyists or lifelong activists necessarily, they are the questions workers and students? They are the questions of the majority I believe.

In just a few days' time, I hope that it will be hard to ignore what is happening around you. I hope you will be in a town or community where someone has organised a Stand Up moment. This short interjection into your day will allow you to be part of the growing movement of people who want to take some action to change the status quo on poverty. Who will not accept it in 2008. By just standing up and registering your action, you do something that is personal and can be counted. The total will be measured against the previous two years' Stand Up attempts and hopefully add power to our call - show that we are serious about this issue and we are a growing force.

And the message the young man from Delhi had signed on the banner in Madrid? Wada na Todo Abhiyan - Keep your Promises - the exact campaign slogan of GCAP India and where the call for the Indian government to increase spending on education and health has had some success. Lets hope this year it rings even louder and in Spain the Prime Minister is listening especially hard.

On October 17th, GCAP Spain will lead thousands of people through the streets of Madrid and in another 54 cities across the country, to mark International Day for the Eradication of Poverty.

The range of events is stunning. Rap concerts in the Philippines, marches in South Africa, a concert in Zimbabwe, school children in Palestine, church goers in the UK, film screenings in Australia, shopping malls in Indonesia... the list goes on and on.

I sit at my desk inspired by all of these planned actions, all of the space being created by some of the world’s most impoverished people for their voices to be heard, and their actions to count. It is a privilege to be a small part of this.

The remarkable thing is that, unless you are one of the people planning to Stand Up, you have probably never heard of Stand Up and Take Action. Whilst the world news is full of photos of Sarah Palin in a swimsuit, and OJ Simpson’s murder trial, one of the biggest mobilisations of people in history risks slipping beneath this wonky radar.

You can help. This is a global call to action against poverty and inequality that concerns all of us, men and women, rich and poor, North and South, rural and urban. Poverty affects everyone directly or indirectly, and the current financial crisis, along with increasing food and fuel prices, and climate change, will hasten the direct impact even if you do not personally feel it now.

So Stand Up and Take action with us on October 17. Register your event at www.standagainstpoverty.org, and tell your local paper, your local politician, your local radio station. A global call is the sum of millions of local actions. Together we can end poverty.

Hundreds of billions of dollars are being found to bail out wealthy bankers and financial institutions, but the emergency summit on the MDGs held at the UN in September was only able to generate $16 billion in commitments to ending poverty. The message seems loud and clear: bankers can be bailed out but impoverished people can wait.

With "Stand Up and Take Action" we can show world leaders that just weeks after they recommitted to taking action to achieve the Millennium Development Goals, millions of citizens are watching them and will hold them to account for meeting their commitments.

This year, the main focus of Stand Up is Take Action. All actions count: political or personal, from tree-planting to government lobbying, from donating blood to marching in the streets. Take a look at our List of Actions for more ideas.

Here are some examples of actions taking place around the world:

• South Korea:- general assembly on poverty
• China: Poverty and Migration forum in Beijing
• Georgia: street actions
• Ghana: "Games Against Poverty"
• Chile: activity centre with an interactive wall
• Nepal: voice their desires to deepen democracy in public hearings, planting of over 10000 trees and student events
• Indonesia: voice demands for poverty reduction, women's empowerment and a better health budget
• Art of Living: movement - planting more than 100 million trees worldwide
• India: joining 90,000 people marching to Parliament
• Nigeria: Music Against Poverty during an event to commemorate Fela Kuti
• Uganda: bringing their demands to Parliament
• South Africa: protest march to present their policy demands to the office of the President
• Germany: asking their government for more and better aid and asking parliamentarians to act for the MDGs in basketball stadiums, schools, market places and numerous events across the country
• Italy: asking their government for more and better aid in simultaneous events in football stadiums, airports and train stations.

Many people worldwide are already joining in and have registered their events on www.standagainstpoverty.org. Make sure to register now.

With only two weeks to go, we also need you to keep spreading the word. Use our e-card to tell the world or link to www.standagainstpoverty.org.

Be part of global change – Stand up and Take Action on 17 -19 October- CREATE YOUR EVENT NOW!

There will be many events taking place in more than 100 countries world wide, with a strong message that decent work is the only sustainable way out of poverty. The website is at http://www.wddw.org

If you are not already doing an event, you can support the campaign by linking to the WDDW website or publishing a news item about decent work. GCAP constituents are also encouraged to sign the Call to Action for Decent Work Decent Life on www.decentwork.org.

Today there will be live feeds of activities on http://www.wddw.org from the sunrise in Fiji to the Sunset on Hawaii. You can contribute by sending an sms or mms to +32 476 62 10 41, and by sending any photos or videos to wddw@ituc-csi.org.

Please join in!