22 April, 7pm

The 2010 election campaign saw tens of thousands of people across the country contacting their candidates about global poverty.

Over 40, 000 emails have been sent demanding a Robin Hood Tax and 13, 000 people have emailed their candidates calling for a reduction of CO2 emissions of 40% by 2020.  Over 100 hustings events on global issues were held.

Many tens of thousands also got involved in Bond member campaigns. For example over 7,000 people signed ONE’s ‘On the Record’ petition asking party leaders to publish their party’s plans to fight global poverty, leading to all 3 party leaders making videos outlining their plans. Over 18,000 people signed Save the Children’s election petition leading to 531 candidates pledging to work to tackle child poverty at home and abroad.

The campaign also saw party leaders profile international development issues in the media and to supporters. On election 2010 World Poverty Day Gordon Brown and Nick Clegg made speeches at churches and David Cameron paid a visit to an aid distribution depot in Birmingham.

Thanks to persistent campaigning, the Conservatives, Labour and Liberal Democrats have all pledged to introduce legislation to deliver aid spending targets of 0.7% of GNI by 2013.

More information is available about the development content of the Conservative, Labour, Liberal Democrat, Green, SNP and Plaid Cymru manifestos.

With polling day arriving, party plans to maintain the internationally promised international development aid spending targets of 0.7% are hitting the news papers once again. We need to keep up the letters to the editor and the messages to candidates displaying that this is the right thing to do.

We also need to keep up the pressure on the wider development agenda – calling on the next government to crack down on the tax havens that rob poor countries of billions each year, to curb CO2 emissions and to introduce a Robin Hood Tax to finance measures to tackle poverty and the mitigate the effects of climate change.

Over the last month, thousands of ordinary people concerned about global issues have been attending hustings, writing letters and questioning candidates.

Now it is time to consider what you have heard, compare manifestos, and to Vote Global.

Name of action / event: General Election Debate
Kind of event: Hustings
Cornerstone Didcot OX11 7NE
Event date: 4th May 2010
Event time: 7:30pm
Email contact election@ctdd.org.uk
Name of group Churches Together in Didcot and District
Name of constituency: Wantage

Tuesday 4 May, 6pm

The following speech was given by ActionAid campaigner Chris Jordan on the steps of the Bank of England earlier today, as part of an event organised by the Justshare coalition of churches in the City of London

I have an amazing job as a campaigner with ActionAid, where I get to work with inspiring, passionate people from developing countries every day. But I don’t want to be doing this job forever.

In this day and age, we know what needs to be done to end poverty – but we’re just choosing not to do it.

I’m sure we can all agree it’s a scandal that nearly 1 billion people will be going to bed hungry tonight; that 72 million kids don’t get a primary education and that women make up 70% of the world’s poorest people. Meanwhile the threat of climate chaos looms over all of us.

These are fundamentally international problems, with international solutions – and that’s why we should be voting global. To me, that doesn’t just mean making our choices for the things that will help those ‘poor people living thousands of miles away’ out of pity.

It’s about fundamentally altering the way we do business, here and abroad, to put people first – not markets or bankers. Its will benefit us, just as much as it will benefit people in poor countries.

You might remember the amazing coalition that sprang up in response to the financial crisis and the London G20 – with hundreds of groups – from development, faith, domestic poverty, trade unions and green campaigns.

We all came together to demonstrate the huge appetite in this country for the big decisions to be taken that would benefit ordinary people in this country and around the world – instead of running the whole country for the benefit of the City of London.

The financial crisis showed quite how interdependent our world is today.  Many of the countries that felt the effects most, we’re developing countries that did least to cause the problems in the first place.

The thing is – we know what needs to be done – we have the big answers to the big questions. Since the G20, and during this election, ActionAid has been campaigning hard for tax justice.  This means 2 things.

First, we need to stop tax dodging – particularly by multinationals – which mean ordinary people have to pay more in tax, or that result in spending cuts on public services.

In developing countries, the multinationals who operate there illegally evade $160bn in taxes they owe. That’s far more than those countries ever receive in aid, and means we’re quite literally giving with one hand and taking with the other.

And it’s not just poor countries that lose out – tax dodging costs the government here billions – far outstripping the amounts fiddled by benefits cheat’s that we hear so much about.

This has been accepted as ‘business as usual’ for far too long.  We’ve made some progress since the G20, but much more needs to be done.
Second, we need a Robin Hood Tax.  Taxing the banks to raise billions to address poverty and climate change, both here and abroad is a no brainer!

Our campaign has already mobilised massive public support – but the politicians are yet to commit to a plan that would do more than just insure the banks against future bail outs.

As I said to begin with, I really don’t want to be having to do this job forever, so it’s high time to build a fairer system. We know what needs to be done – we have the solutions.

Make sure you get out on vote next Thursday – and vote global!

With just days to go until the UK election, people here in Malawi are hoping British voters will look beyond their borders and support bold action on international development on May 6.

We are still the poorest nation in Africa. Over recent years, we have seen how decisions taken in Whitehall directly affect the education of our children, the health of our families and the long-term progress of our country.

The UK, by far our largest donor, is spending £70 million in Malawi each year. The results are palpable. Direct support for our agricultural programme, including subsidies for many of the country’s 11.5 million small-scale farmers, raised our maize harvest dramatically in 2008/9 helping us achieve food security for the last four years. We have more doctors and nurses; education has improved in certain areas; crime and corruption are slowly coming down while life expectancy is gradually edging up.

But there is still a vast amount to do. Nearly 40% of Malawians continue to live below the poverty line, two thirds of the female population are illiterate and 930,000 Malawians face a future living with HIV and AIDS. While we are making great strides ourselves, the UK remains a vital lifeline for thousands of our people as they seek to gain power over their own lives and overcome barriers that keep them poor.

Whichever political party triumphs in the polls will have its work cut out – not just here, but in many corners of the developing world from Somalia to Yemen and Haiti to Zimbabwe. And, as the world strives to meet the Millennium Development Goals to halve global poverty in just five years’ time, the UK’s leadership will be crucial.

In Malawi, we have shown how international development assistance, if used in the right way to tackle the root causes of poverty, can help set a country on the path to a better future.

Lloyd Simwaka, Progressio Country Manager, Malawi

30 April, 7.00pm

Global justice activists in Leeds have not let the general election pass quietly. What started with an open meeting to discuss how we might work together on the election has evolved into a fully-fledged campaign – the Fair 10 Challenge. The idea is simple; we’ve created a 10-point manifesto with ambitious and specific pledges we’d like Leeds’ candidates to make. We’ve asked them to sign up to as many of the pledges as they wish, and will publish the results on a constituency by constituency basis a few days before the election.

It’s an ambitious plan for what is essentially a group of volunteers, but luckily we have a large coalition of local groups working to pull it off, including Leeds Friends of the Earth, Leeds Oxfam Group, supporters of Christian Aid, Leeds Palestine Solidarity Campaign, supporters of CAFOD, Leeds SPEAK, local group Living in the Age of Stupid and TIDAL.

The first task was to agree a joint platform. We invited the city’s global justice activists to submit points for the manifesto, and once these had been collated we invited people to vote on them. In the end over 100 people cast their votes, and and the top ten points became our manifesto.

Second, we set out to get the campaign on the radar of candidates. With so many people vying for their attention, we wanted to do something that would really stand out. We came up with the idea of delivering chocolate-filled Easter baskets to the offices of the candidates; this way we would provide a physical reminder of the campaign that all the people in the office would interact with.

We’re now at the stage of getting people to show they support the campaign by signing an online petition. We’re hoping that by demonstrating public support for the manifesto, candidates will be more inclined to be ambitious in their pledges.

On May 1st this phase of the challenge will close and the results will be promoted to as many people as we can reach. As well as raising the ambition of candidates in the run-up to the election, we aim to use the challenge over the next parliamentary term to hold the next generation of Leeds MPs to their word.

We’ve had a positive reaction so far, but there’s still plenty work to do before we get to polling day. To find out more about the campaign – and maybe even to promote it! – check out www.fair10challengeleeds.org.uk

Chris Johnston is Coordinator of TIDAL, an organisation working to support global justice activism in Leeds.

Regent Street Presbyterian Church, 48a Regent Street, Newtownards. BT23 4LP

29/04/2010

7:30pm