Activists discuss direction, future of global anti-poverty campaign at Uruguay

03 May 2007

Montevideo, May 3: Uruguayan Vice President Rodolfo Nin Novoa inaugurated a meeting of Global Call to Action against Poverty (GCAP), a worldwide coalition of civil society organisations lobbying governments to eradicate poverty, with a call to the campaign to help bring down poverty and a promise to halve Uruguayan poverty levels by 2015.

GCAP logo.

The GCAP which is one of the largest anti-poverty movements, with hundreds of organisations representing over 150 million people in over 80 countries, has chosen Uruguayan capital Montevideo to introspect its work since 2005, the year it launched, and to chalk out its future course of direction over issues that relate to global poverty, inequity and lopsided human development.

Since its launch by Brazilian President Lula da Silva at Porto Alegre in 2005, GCAP has lobbied with the governments of rich nations to increase development aid to poor nations, waive the debt of the poorest countries and also make the international trading system fair. The campaign has also mobilised people worldwide to ask their governments to do more on health, education, gender � issues that improve the lives of people and help bring down poverty.

Funded by donors that include international charities like Oxfam GB, ActionAid, Oxfam Novib, the United Nations Millennium Campaign (UNMC), amongst others, currently the campaign has funding only till December 2007.

Commenting on the future of GCAP, CIVICUS secretary general Kumi Naidoo said: �The feedback we have from people is that it should continue at least till 2010 if not 2015. This is one of the main issues that we will take up during the next three days. We are optimistic that GCAP will last much beyond 2007 particularly as we have made major gains in some of our campaign areas.�

Mentioning the high points of the two-year old campaign, Naidoo emphasised that a few years back anyone who spoke about debt cancellation would be immediately labelled a �leftie�. �It is no longer such an unthinkable demand but we plan to press the rich governments to cancel the debt of not only the poorest of the poor countries but the poor countries as well. Another major success of GCAP has been to rope in the common man in the struggle against poverty.�

At the same time the campaign has not been able to meet the expectations of some of its constituents who are hoping that the Montevideo meeting will take care of some of those issues.

G8 demonstration, July 2005 © Peter Armstrong

South African GCAP representative Hassen Lorgat said: �There has to be a greater political context to the campaign as sometimes we feel that the mobilisations and certain events overwhelm the real issues that the campaign stands for. Sometimes some of these stunts may be big but may not impact poverty or bring about a change on the ground.�

He also felt that systems that breed poverty or inequality have not been addressed and many times campaigners shy away from discussing such issues. Lorgat added: �We also want the campaign to learn to grapple with multiple strategies and not lose track of important local issues in the face of global issues like the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).�

Speaking at the inaugural Naidoo accused the rich nations of going back on their aid commitments. He said: �The rich governments should know that they are far behind their own people in the fight to eradicate poverty. The aid (almost $8 billion) that they had promised to give to the poor nations by 2010 has still not been given. But over $400 billion was raised overnight for what has been described by former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan as �an illegal war in Iraq�.�

Boy supporting ActionAid wearing MPH headband, July 2005

Naidoo also emphasised that South Asian nations have to show more resolve to improve the standards of living of their people. He said: �South Asia has more people living in extreme poverty as compared to Africa. Interestingly African countries have been able to garner more international aid as compared to South Asia because of the large number of countries in the continent. But the reality is that South Asia has more poor as compared to Africa.�

Naidoo suggested making the GCAP movement in South Asia inclusive with the involvement of diverse groups like trade unions, faith groups and other campaigns if poverty and inequity had to be tackled.

Giving the inaugural address, the Uruguayan Vice President said: �In Latin America more than half of the population is under poverty despite vast natural resources... the actions of the government have to be such that it meet the needs of the poorest of the poor. Though Uruguay has a high Gross Domestic Product (GDP) inequality here has led to the concentration of wealth which in turn has increased poverty levels.�

Uruguay, with a population of 3.5 million did not have a department of social welfare till 2005. Speaking at the inaugural, Minister for Social Development Ana Olivera said: �In 2002 the country witnessed an economic upheaval when the economy collapsed and poverty numbers doubled. It was then that the government framed coherent policies on work, health and housing.�

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