While the burden of debt is crippling poorer nations, cancellation of what is outstanding is not enough. There is an urgent need to restructure the current financial framework if a sustainable solution is ever to be realised, argues Justin Frewen.
The emergence of a significant middle class – who demand increasing space for their accommodation – means that the urban poor are everywhere being constricted to a decreasing proportion of land. In these city spaces they exist as a ‘fugitive humanity’, writes Jeremy Seabrook.
Growing global inequality presents a major obstacle in the
fight against poverty. Redistributing resources more fairly requires a greater
cooperation between governments that eschews the current ‘cut-throat’ nature of
international free trade competition, says Justin Frewen.
Expert panellists and film director Philippe Diaz discuss
the structural causes of poverty and suggest possible solutions at the UK premiere of ‘The End of
Poverty?’ on 12th December 2009. The event was coordinated by STWR and the British Film Institute (BFI).
Just as the 1999 Seattle protests against the WTO launched
the global justice movement onto the world stage, Copenhagen may reveal a
global civil society that has developed beyond the politics of resistance into
a truly diverse, forward-looking force for change, writes Anna White.
Three decades after its inception, the ‘Tobin tax’ has
finally entered the mainstream political debate. Campaigners must now ensure its
primary purpose remains to redistribute finance away from the failed banking
system and toward benefiting the world’s poor, writes Anna White.
Implementing global food reserves should be part of a
genuine multilateral response to the food crisis. A new Global Convention on
Food Security could offer an institutional framework for the governance
of food and agriculture, argues a presentation by Robin Willoughby.
While the healthcare debate rages in the US, a broader discussion has been renewed on the international stage that envisions the universal goal of "health for all". The time is ripe for a global civil society movement to turn this vision into an international priority, writes Adam Parsons.
Rather than a push for techno-fixes and tightened intellectual property rights that characterised the recent World Seed Conference,
we need a new paradigm in agricultural development that promotes cooperation,
sharing and free-exchange of seeds, writes Robin Willoughby.
The financial crisis presents a rare opportunity to build a
system of international finance that works in the true interest of the global
public, but the G20 ministers seem intent on maintaining the unsustainable
growth-oriented global economy of the past, writes Rajesh Makwana.
