Make Poverty History

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The UK campaign

A 'white band' bilingual in Welsh and English.
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A 'white band' bilingual in Welsh and English.

The Make Poverty History campaign (which is written as MAKEPOVERTYHISTORY) is a British and Irish coalition of charities, religious groups, trade unions, campaigning groups and celebrities who are mobilizing around the UK's prominence in world politics in 2005 to increase awareness and pressure governments into taking actions towards relieving absolute poverty. The symbol of the campaign is a white wristband made of cotton or silicone. A 'virtual' white band is also available to be displayed on websites.

TV ads have also been running for many months, urging people to speak to their representatives about stopping poverty. However, OFCOM banned the ads, deciding that the ads were "wholly or mainly political" in nature, since they aimed to "achieve important changes". The campaign has said it was "dissapointed" in the decision.[1]

The three demands of the campaign are:

It should be noted that none of these aims are new (there have been many attempts over the last few decades to promote them), but the scale of the 2005 campaign dwarfs previous efforts.


An estimated 225,000 (BBC News) campaigners marched in Edinburgh on the 2nd July
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An estimated 225,000 (BBC News) campaigners marched in Edinburgh on the 2nd July

Events

Make Poverty History sets out a timescale revolving around the 31st G8 summit in Gleneagles, Scotland on July 6, 2005.

Plastic version of the "white band"
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Plastic version of the "white band"

The campaign was given a high profile launch on British television on New Year's Day 2005 in a special edition of The Vicar of Dibley, written by Richard Curtis, who pledged support for the campaign during 2005. His television drama The Girl in the Café, broadcast in the UK (on BBC One) and US (HBO) on the same day, June 25, also highlighted the same issues.

  • The UK assumed presidency of the G8 on January 1, 2005 and is hosting the summit with poverty in Africa being a major topic for discussion.
  • Around 225,000 protestors demonstrated on July 2 in Edinburgh to promote their demands.
  • The 20th anniversary of Live Aid was on July 13, 2005. A series of concerts called Live 8 took place before the G8 summit to encourage activism and debate within the G8's member countries, with the aim of increasing political pressure on the leaders.
  • July 2 - The Live 8 concerts rock all over the world from Hyde Park to Tokyo..

Member organisations

The UK campaign has over 500 member organisations including many faith groups, trade unions and charities. See Member organisations of Make Poverty History (UK).

Whilst the anti-war group CND is a member, the Stop the War Coalition (StWC) requested to join but was refused. There is some speculation that this is because the organisers want to minimise criticism of the Labour government over the Iraq war. StWC independently organised for people to join the July 2nd demo in Edinburgh, with many local groups working together, and managed to negotiate the right to have a stage at the rally at its end.

The Canadian campaign

The Canadian Make Poverty History campaign was launched in February of 2005 by a coalition coordinated by Gerry Barr, President and CEO of the Canadian Council for International Co-operation. The campaign is supported by a coalition of charities, trade unions, faith groups, students, academics, literary, artistic and sports leaders such as actor Mary Walsh, musician Tom Cochrane, Canadian Olympian Anna van der Kamp, and United Nations special envoy Stephen Lewis.

Make Poverty History has four main objectives in Canada:

The US "ONE" Campaign

Main article: ONE Campaign

In April 2005, a commercial began airing in the United States with several celebrities in black and white stating the pledge of the American ONE Campaign, their version of Make Poverty History. The commercial featured 33 celebrities and personalities; names as diverse as religious leaders Pat Robertson and Frank Griswold; singers including Bono, P. Diddy, Mos Def and Jewel; and various actors including Brad Pitt, Susan Sarandon, Al Pacino and Antonio Banderas. At the end, Tom Hanks states, "We're not asking for your money. We're asking for your voice."

The general goals of the ONE campaign in the United States are to end extreme poverty, hunger and AIDS. A more specific goal is to get President George W. Bush to commit at least 0.3% of the national budget, around US$30 billion, to foreign aid, and increase it further to the UN goal of 0.7% of GDP, around US$73 billion as of 2004, over the next several years. In 2004, the United States Government spent US$7 billion on foreign aid.

The founding sponsors of ONE are Bread for the World, CARE, DATA, International Medical Corps, International Rescue Committee, Mercy Corps, Oxfam America, Plan USA, Save the Children US, World Concern, and World Vision. They have strong ties with the NBA, MTV's Rock the Vote, and the Millennium Campaign.

The Norwegian campaign

The Norwegian campaign was started by Kirkens Nødhjelp on Thursday 9. June. Haakon Magnus, Crown Prince of Norway and Kjell Magne Bondevik are some of the celeberities in Norway that wear a white Make Poverty History band.

The three demands of the Norwegian campaign are:

The shops in Norway that sell Make Poverty history bands are Cubus and Dressman, two Norwegian clothing shops.

Criticism

Critics of the campaign see debt relief as counter-productive and have referred to it as "Make Poverty Permanent", as they do not trust the criteria used to select non-corrupt governments for debt relief. In past cases other third world governments have invested aid money in military spending and other projects that help the rich and not the poor in these countries. Thus, these critics allege that debt relief and aid are used to fund lavish lifestyles for the ruling class[2] (although efforts are made to exclude these countries from the G8 debt relief).

Critics also argue that the countries receiving aid cannot control how it is used. Aid is often structured to help the first world governments giving the aid more than the countries in receipt of it, while the power to change things in these societies is given to western educated people who know nothing about the countries they are meddling in, and often instigate inappropriate ideas that tend to increase rather than decrease levels of suffering. The campaign has also been criticised for accepting some tenets of neoliberalism [3], though it also has its neoliberal critics, who claim wealth is created only through voluntary free trade, and thus that the "Trade Justice" aim of the campaign is a counter-productive form of protectionism, which will harm the poor more than help them. In Britain some critics, including those in the left of the Labour Party, have criticised the campaign for not being critical enough of the UK government, as they see Tony Blair and Gordon Brown's support for the campaign as a cynical ploy to move away from criticism of the Iraq war and its protectionist policies. Finally, ending poverty is seen as a slogan used by politicians and other groups in order to promote themselves and their alleged superior morality, with no evidence that the political ideas behind these slogans will make any difference to levels of poverty in Africa or elsewhere.

A number of items of merchandise against the campaign have been produced, with tongue-in-cheek slogans such as "MAKEBONOHISTORY".

See also

External links

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