Make Poverty History Campaign - What Now?

Make Poverty History What Now?

The biggest protest ever seen in this world took place in the months, weeks, and days leading up to the G8 summit at Gleneagles in Scotland this year. What is surprising is that despite nearly 200 million people signing the petition, very few are aware of what the Live8 and Make Poverty History campaign were about.

Many of us in Europe and the USA may have seen the TV video of several well know actors, singers, and other famous people snapping their fingers every three seconds of the video’s duration. This was to emphasise that every three seconds another child dies in Africa or, putting it into round figures, 30 000 a day die just because they were born into total poverty. The Make Poverty History(MPH) campaign wants to stop this tragedy, but how?

The Recent G8 summit held at Gleneagles in Scotland was the ideal opportunity to let the eight most powerful men in this world know the feelings of the people they represent. Bob Geldof, the man who successfully organised the Band Aid Appeal in the 80’s along with Midge Ure again came up with an idea for a series of worldwide concerts, LIVE8. This time though it was not about raising charity for Africa, it was about raising awareness of the plight of that Continent.

To make it brief, what the MPH campaign and Live8 wanted was: 1.To make the worlds leaders recognise the plight of Africa’s people 2.To make the people of the western world aware of the problem 3.To get the G8 summit to commit to several crucial agreements that would end the poverty in Africa and other underdeveloped nations.

How could the problems be dealt with? Simply throwing vast amounts of Aid money at the problem was not enough. What MPH demanded was that the Debt of small nations within Africa be cancelled and the World Trade Rules rewritten to allow Africa to compete in the fair trade with other countries. At the moment as the European Union and the USA subsidise their farmers at a cost of approximately 1 billion dollars a day. This allows them to sell their produce in Africa at a fraction of the cost of the same produce grown by nonsubsidised African farmers. So what money there is already in the local community is going to the already oversubsidised developed countries. Africa is in a no win situation. The local farmers cannot produce enough to support the entire population but to get imported produce, African governments have to agree to the *free trade* rules which allows the produce to be sold at whatever price the exporters decide. Again, this is often set at a fraction of the cost of local goods. All MPH asks is, that if it is for export then do not subsidise it. It really is that simple.

Over $25 million each day is paid by the worlds poorest countries to the worlds richest countries. A debt that will never be paid off and so no hope of economic recovery for these poorer countries. The finance ministers of the seven richest countries have already agreed to cancel the debt of the 18 most poor, but at a price. The present agreement is that for every dollar in debt you get cancelled you also lose a dollar in aid support. What this means that these countries are still paying the debt. Simple mathematics show 1 minus 1 equals no better off at all. The west can afford to write off these debts entirely with a gradual cut in aid given as that country begins to prosper. MPH see this as the only solution.

So now the G8 summit has come to a close, and the Live8 concerts are a fast fading memory, what now?

Well, after the delivery of the 200 million signature petition to the G8, they did make some decisions that will have some effect on the African problem but not enough.

There will be an increase in Aid to Africa from 25 billion to 50 billion dollars, effective from 2010. The G8 are not in a position to legislate on Trade (so they claim) so they have referred to the World Trade Organisation who will hold a summit in November when the issue will be “further discussed”. The cancellation of debt to the 18 poorest countries of this world will go ahead but the dollar gained = dollar lost in aid is still subject to consideration and this will probably be in 2012 at the earliest. Meanwhile the Richest countries will continue to sell arms to the rebel regimes of Africa. These weapons that are used in the bloody civil wars that further drain the meagre financial resources of these poor countries, but that’s another topic all together.

So, did the MPH and Live8 campaign achieve anything? In a word yes. It has made the G8 leaders sit up and notice the word of the people. It has let them see that we collectively are not happy with their current regime and demand change either by their decisions or by our vote at the ballot box. Change is what they have agreed to in the near future. Effectively, as the result of the G8 decisions on Friday 8th July 2005 a child will no longer die every 3 seconds in Africa. Now, a child will die every 3 ˝ seconds. It’s a very slight improvement but it IS a start at least. Please if you have a wristband supporting the MPH campaign, remember the campaign goes on and did not end with the last concert in Edinburgh. Please wear it to show your continued support for the campaign.

Liam Britten