|
|
|
Action Card Briefing – April 2005
Action Card Briefing - April 2005
A number of key political events is making 2005 a year of exceptional opportunity for anti-poverty campaigners here in the UK: to name just three, the UK is hosting a summit of G8 leaders, taking on the presidency of the European Union and publishing the report of the Commission for Africa. A fourth - a General Election - is also a real possibility. Twenty years after Live Aid the UK government is under pressure to take a strong lead in finally making poverty in the two-thirds world a thing of the past.
Last year all the major development agencies, trade unions, churches, faith communities and other organizations began to plan a mobilization of their supporters for 2005. Under the banner of MAKEPOVERTYHISTORY these bodies want to make the most of the unique opportunities this year offers and press for real progress on three main fronts: ‘drop the debt’, trade justice and more and better aid. Events such as Red Nose Day, a Global Week of Action for Trade Justice and a mass rally in Edinburgh over the weekend of the G8 summit will enable campaigners to show how deeply they feel about the fact that 1.2 billion people still live in abject poverty.
Another significant event will be the UN Millennium Summit in September to review progress on the Millennium Development Goals. These Goals - to which governments, international organizations and many other bodies have signed up - provide a benchmark by which efforts to overcome poverty and improve the quality of life for the world’s poorest people can be measured. As well as aiming to halve by 2015 the number of people whose income is less than a dollar a day, the Goals also set targets for achieving universal primary education, gender equality, a reduction in mortality rates for infants and mothers, an end to HIV/AIDS and other diseases and an increase in the availability of safe drinking water.
Everyone agrees that the key to the Goals’ success or failure is political will - and political will is shifted by people actively campaigning and raising awareness, ‘changing the wind’ as US social activist Jim Wallis puts it. 2005 gives us a great window of opportunity to do just that. So let’s all do what we can to help end the scandal of poverty once and for all. One way is to send your Action Card to the Prime Minister telling him of your hopes for the G8 Summit in Gleneagles in July:
Rt Hon Tony Blair MP Prime Minister 10 Downing Street London SW1A 2AA
|
