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How your support made a difference at the G20

Nov 10th, 2011 1:04 PM UTC
By Adrian Lovett

Last week, I was in Cannes at the G20 summit.  As you know, media coverage of the meeting was full of the eurozone and Greece, and you might be forgiven for thinking that’s all they discussed. But behind the headlines, something else really important happened.  G20 leaders heard your voice, and the voices of more than 400,000 others who backed our Hungry No More campaign.

What’s more, they committed themselves to a number of the short and long-term agricultural solutions we’ve been pushing for to break the cycle of famine. With over 13 million people still in crisis in the Horn of Africa, I wanted to let you know what the G20 have pledged, how you helped achieve this, and what we need to do next.

In their final declaration, the G20 agreed that there is an urgent need to strengthen emergency and long-term responses to food insecurity and that responsible investment in long-term agricultural solutions in the poorest countries is “essential to promote food security and foster sustainable economic growth,” especially when focused on smallholder farmers.

They also pledged to reduce the dangerous impacts of food price volatility and improve the transparency of agricultural commodity markets. That could make a world of difference. Some of the poorest families have to spend as much as 80% of their household budgets on food, so sudden price rises mean real hardship.

More good news is that President Calderon of Mexico – the next Chair of the G20 – announced in Cannes that food security will be one of the G20’s major priorities in 2012. The G20 has made a good start on a framework to fight poverty through agriculture, and now is the time for countries to step up and turn it into reality.

As a ONE member, you are one of our strongest advocates, and we owe you a big thank you. This campaign was just 30 days long, and here’s a snapshot of what you helped achieve globally:

• 409,000 people signed our petition urging G20 leaders to act, and more than 700,000 viewed our ‘F-word’ TV ad on YouTube
• In just one week in the UK, nearly 500 members searched for their Member of Parliament using our new toolkit, leading to a burst of tweets, personalised emails and meetings with MPs. A few members also represented ONE at Downing Street, and handed in our petition
• ONE members in France joined our Paris team to project our campaign videos and a list of petition signers’ names onto the face of the historic Hôtel de Ville
• In Germany, members’ tweets provoked a response from a Government spokesperson assuring that they considered agriculture, food prices and food security important at the G20
• ONE members in the US handed in our petition on Capitol Hill, taking our message right to the heart of the US government.

But this isn’t the end of our Hungry No More campaign. Although we saw progress, the G20 still have a long way to go to make sure these promises are more than just warm words. We didn’t hear enough urgency or commitment to implementation, and the focus could too easily move away from this crucial issue.

Our job is to stop that from happening, and keep up the pressure. So when the smaller G8 meet in Chicago next year, and when the G20 gather again in Mexico, we will need your support to push for concrete results that make world leaders accountable to their commitments.

We’ll be in touch to let you know how you can help, but for now I simply wanted to say: thank you.

Together as ONE, we are making a difference.

PS. If you haven’t seen our Tigray: Then and Now documentary, then please do take a look and share. This is what your support is helping work towards.

Can South Sudan reunite to create a shared vision for the future?

May 17th, 2011 4:34 PM UTC
By Tom Wallace

The 9th of July is the date that South Sudan will come into being as a new country.  With less than two months to go the South’s leadership are debating the country’s future constitution and development experts are discussing what the priorities of the new country should be.

Developmental economist Abhijit Banerjee recently suggested South Sudan could trial a health insurance policy and a cash giving programme to alleviate poverty.  While interesting suggestions Chris Blattman points out; in a new and fragile nation, with little bureaucratic capacity successful implementation of such policies may be too great a burden.   Before such interesting poverty alleviating policies could be successfully enacted physical and bureaucratic infrastructure needs to be in place. Blattman also notes the importance of increased stability and reduced conflict in Sudan in order to successfully carry out poverty alleviation.

The UN believes there are now seven rebel groups in the south looking to overthrow the government.  Reports of conflict and death are becoming an almost weekly occurrence.  This conflict undermines attempts at poverty alleviation and the promotion human development in South Sudan.  The US, UK and Norway recently recognised the need to ensure increased stability in Sudan.  A joint statement from USAID’s administrator, Rajiv Shah, with UK and Norwegian development Ministers Andrew Mitchell and Erik Solheim, promised to support stability and spoke of the need to foster economic growth in the region.

However the unfortunate reality is that discussions about South Sudan’s next steps and what is needed should have been resolved already.  In an ideal scenario South Sudan should be in the process of implementing its development strategy already, not debating its content whilst fighting internal conflicts.  The sustained failure to resolve many of the long standing disputes between the north and the south, such as border demarcation, also remains deeply worrying…..

Luckily there is still some time left to address the issues and unify the south.

This week’s anniversary celebrations of the formation of the South’s Sudan People Liberation Movement’s should be used to remind the Southern Sudanese people of their shared vision for a new country and bring the people back together around this unifying idea.  Internal conflicts need to be put aside and the south must be encouraged to work together and also work in successful cooperation with the north.  International advice, training and administrative assistance can help support this process so that by the 9th of July the Southern Sudanese people have a shared vision for the future.

Photo: South Sudan (Creative Commons bartpogoda)

ONE takes Pittsburgh!

Sep 22nd, 2009 10:21 PM UTC
By Jessica Gomez-Duran

In anticipation of this week’s G20 Summit in Pittsburgh, ONE has taken to the streets to make sure all visiting world leaders and visitors will take notice of our message that Africa is part of the global economic recovery.

been blanketing shopfronts, restaurants, bookstores and everywhere in between with posters that read “ONE World. ONE Recovery. Africa is Part of the Solution.” and feature our very own Morgana Wingard’s great design work. Thanks to Nakturnal for the photo!

-Chris Scott

ONE at the G8 Development Ministers’ meeting

Jun 18th, 2009 10:55 AM UTC
By Jessica Gomez-Duran

An update from Francesco Oddone in Italy:

At the end of last week I attended G8 Development Ministers’ meeting in Rome. It fell the day after the launch of ONE’s 2009 DATA Report in Rome. During the final press conference a journalist asked the Italian Foreign Affairs Minister Franco Frattini what his response was to the Report’s findings – Italy has fulfilled only 3% of its commitment and accounts for nearly half the G8′s total gap for 2008. Frattini, without contesting the content of the Report, replied that Italy is aware of the shortfalls and that it would make up for the 2009 financing gap by the end of 2009! This is quite an amazing statement, particularly given what this would mean in dollar terms combined with the government’s deep cuts in bilateral aid that have been foreseen by the 2009 budget.

During the press conference I had the opportunity to ask Frattini when exactly Italy would pay its full 2009 contribution to the Global Fund to fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. Frattini answered that the relevant appropriation law for this will definitely be passed before the end of this year, and that it’s very likely that it may pass before the G8 Summit in L’Aquila.

The 2009 DATA Report has already had a significant impact in Italy and been covered widely in the Italian media. One example of this was during a press conference with Colonel Gaddafi of Libya, also current head of the African Union, someone asked Prime Minister Berlusconi for his response to the DATA Report. Prime Minister Berlusconi confirmed that Italy would certainly honour all of its commitments. He also stated that donors have to be extremely careful to ensure money given reaches the intended recipients.

This Development Ministers’ meeting was followed by the G8 Finance Ministers’ meeting in Lecce, southern Italy. Unfortunately, there were no major agreements or announcements made on our issues. The focus of the meeting was on the “Lecce Framework” – legal standards being drawn up to try and avoid future economic downturns. Here at ONE we are really concerned about the current and future impacts of the recession on the poorest countries around the world. The Managing Director of the International Fund for Agricultural Development, Kanayo Nwanze, also recently echoed this: “the impact of the financial crisis on developing countries is going to be more visible in several months,” he said, warning that African governments would encounter budget problems in paying civil servants and subsidising food in urban areas.”