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Anti-poverty campaigners and their digital alter egos sing poverty goodbye and call for immediate reform of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund

Hundreds of civil society activists were joined today by their digital alter egos or ‘Avatars’ for a unique, ground-breaking action combining music, dance and virtuality. They were calling on the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund to hear the voices of the poor worldwide and instigate immediate reforms.

The actions were aimed directly at those attending today’s World Bank Development Committee meetings in Washington DC. 250 students from Lehigh Valley Charter High School for the Performing Arts in Pennsylvania joined 140 life size cut-out figures representing different countries around the world in front of the Bank to ask the institutions to “Hear the voices of Poor countries”.  The students performed the Poverty Requiem, a musical piece telling the story of poverty and how to overcome it.

In response to the Development Committee:

“The International Monetary Fund and World Bank must realise that aid conditionalities cause tremendous suffering on the ground. Unless, these institutions reform and put people at the centre of their policies, they will fail to alleviate poverty or deliver development for the poorest countries”, GCAP Chair Sylvia Borren told journalists at GCAP press conference this morning.

GCAP Malawi member, Andrew Kumbatira, also Executive Director of the Malawi Economic Justice Network commented: “The World Banks shift to agriculture shouldn’t blind us on the bleak future facing hundreds of African farmers who have been abandoned for years. Today we demand that they match their supposed priority with a commitment to provide additional resources so millions of livelihoods that have been destroyed by decades of harmful policies can be improved.  What we see now is a decrease in funding for agriculture and a favour for food dumping instead.”

GCAP Indonesia representative, Dian Kartika Sari, also Deputy Director of the Indonesian NGO Forum for International Development (INFID), warned that harsh conditionalities currently attached to debt relief are crippling her country and making people worse off.  She highlighted rice pricing and oil as two examples of blatant policy misguidance.

The civil society day of action at the Annual Meetings, an initiative from the Global Call to Action against Poverty, closed a global chain of activities centred around International Day for the Eradication of Poverty and White Band Day on 17th October. On that day, over 38 million people stood up against poverty and inequality, demanding that their leaders keep their promises to deliver on aid, trade justice, debt relief and accountability.  This week, GCAP brought these voices to the Annual Meetings to call for more active civil society involvement in these policy processes help poor countries respond to emerging crises such as climate change adaptation.

For GCAP’s declaration to the Governors of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund go to: http://www.whiteband.org/GcapSpecials/ifis-action-2007/the-people2019s-declaration-to-the-governors-of-the-world-bank-and-international-monetary-fund

For information:  Ciara O’Sullivan and Marie Ange Kalenga, GCAP Media Coordinators, Tel + 1 202 413 91 29  Ciara_os@hotmail.com and Mkalenga@mac.com

Notes to Editors: The Global Call to Action against Poverty (GCAP) is a civil society alliance of social movements, International NGOs, trade unions, community groups, women’s organizations and faith and youth groups working together across more than 100 national coalitions/platforms. GCAP is calling for action from the world’s leaders to meet their promises to end poverty and inequality. In particular, GCAP demands solutions that address the issues of; public accountability, just governance and the fulfillment of human rights; trade justice; more and better aid; debt cancellation and gender equality and women’s rights. For more information, visit: www.whiteband.org

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