Where Now?
Some 12 months ago, on a sunny afternoon in early July, around a quarter of a million of us marched through Edinburgh to ask world leaders to do more to make poverty history. Leaders meeting up the road in Gleneagles responded with “a whisper to the roar of the people”, as a South African campaigner said. But 2005 did see progress on aid and debt. On our third demand - trade justice - there was no progress.
So where do we go from here? Clearly as long as 800 million people are trapped in poverty. as long as a child is dying every 3 seconds, we have to keep on. We cannot lessen our determination that poverty is made history.
I would suggest two areas on which we need to campaign - trade justice and climate.
The Trade Justice Movement (TJM) consists of around 70 organisations, including faith groups, aid agencies, environment and human rights groups etc. The current Doha round of trade negotiations, with its emphasis on trade liberalisation, is unlikely to lead to justice. Its outcome could make life harder for the poor. The TJM is urging:
* Governments should have the right to decide their own policies, the best solutions to end poverty. Trade liberalisation should not be forced on them.
* Western governments should end export dumping, which damages the livelihoods of the poor.
* Laws are needed to hold transnational corporations to account.
Related to the last point is the Government’s “Company Law Reform Bill” which is now winding it way through Parliament. The TJM, together with the Coalition for Corporate Responsibility, is pressing for the Bill to include a clause which states that company directors should be held accountable for the social and environmental impact of their company’s activities. Also that the Bill requires companies to monitor and report on their social and environmental impacts.
An “Early Day Motion” called “Modernising Company Law” has been tabled and already signed by over 200 MPs. If you have not already written to your MP about this, please do so. (www.tjm.org.uk)
Poverty will not be made history unless climate change is tackled. Climate-induced floods and drought are becoming more common. Climate change is reducing the area of land available for growing food. A recent Christian Aid report “The climate of poverty: facts, fears and hope” says that “a staggering 182 million people in sub-Saharan Africa alone could die of disease directly attributable to climate change by the end of the century”. (www.christian-aid.org.uk)
“Stop Climate Chaos” is a new coalition comprising a wide range of organisations. Christian Aid, Tearfund, Oxfam, Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth and others are involved.
The coalition seeks to “generate unstoppable political pressure for change”. But all of us need to examine how we can change the way we live to reduce our energy use and carbon emissions. (www.foe.co.uk/resource/faqs/questions/stop_climate_chaos.html)
John Madeley
Author of 100 Ways to Make Poverty History, published by SCM-Canterbury Press £5.99
