STWR - Share The World's Resources

Governments must accept that the root causes of poverty, inequality and climate change will never be addressed without substantial reforms to the global economy. In the meanwhile, the post-2015 development goals need to be much more ambitious about preventing avoidable poverty-related deaths within an immediate timeframe.   

The seed freedom movement is an inspiring example of how the principle of sharing is central to resolving the crisis in agriculture, and highlights the urgency of resisting the powerful agribusinesses that seek to eliminate biodiversity and criminalise the saving and sharing of seed. 

In order to stimulate further public engagement and activism on global issues, it is important for those promoting the sharing economy to place far greater emphasis on the environmental and social benefits of sharing rather than any purely personal benefits, such as financial gain.

Campaigners have long proposed measures to reduce extreme inequality, but policymakers remain fixated on an economic model that threatens to undermine the fabric of society. When will the political elite heed the growing demands for redistribution that are being voiced in countless reports, books and public protests? 

Land value taxation embodies the principle that natural resources are the creations of nature and should therefore belong to society as a whole, not individuals – and as STWR acknowledges, the ramifications of this conceptual shift for a more just and sustainable world are potentially immense.

There are many policies that governments could implement to raise the finances needed to reverse austerity measures, tackle climate change and prevent needless poverty-related deaths. But we cannot rely on governments to change the current world direction - the only hope is a huge groundswell of popular support in favour of global sharing. 

Oxfam's chief executive makes some thought-provoking observations about transitioning to a sustainable and just world, and points towards an important question: what will it take to spur a mass engagement of ordinary people around the need to end poverty and social injustice?

The recent climate talks in Doha were held as if in an alternative reality to distressing developments across the world. But there still remains hope and optimism because there is no possibility of preventing runaway climate change without global sharing and justice.

The executive summary of a report by Share The World's Resources outlines how governments could mobilise over $2.8 trillion to finance the global sharing economy as an immediate global priority - but this will only happen with an unprecedented groundswell of public pressure for sharing and justice.

In a presentation given to a distinguished audience from Eurasian countries, STWR highlighted the need for the international community to immediately end life-threatening deprivation and needless poverty-related deaths by implementing 10 redistributive policies that could strengthen and scale up the ‘global sharing economy'.