2013 will be one of the biggest years in the fight against extreme poverty since millions wore a white band, and hundreds of thousands marched in Edinburgh as part of Make Poverty History, and thousands attended Live 8 concerts throughout the world in 2005.
We need you to be a big part of this.
This year will hopefully see the UK Government hit the UN’s target of spending just 0.7% of national income on international aid – that’s less than a penny in the pound.
The UK will also Chair the G8 this summer – the first time since Gleneagles in 2005 – and we have a real chance to call for leadership in changing lives and stabilising communities in some of the world’s poorest countries.
With election season moving over to Germany this year, we’re hoping to see strong commitments to keep promises to the world’s poor from all candidates.
But it won’t happen without your help. Please email 5 friends right now, and make asking them to join ONE your New Year’s resolution.
As a ONE member, you helped us achieve so much in 2012. Thank you:
- 291,011 voices called on the G8 to put hunger and food security first. Your tweets came in from all over the world, and we printed them on Washington DC’s streets ahead of the G8 summit. Thanks to your pressure we saw the G8 commit to lifting 50 million people out of poverty over the next 10 years.
- We got into the Olympic spirit and held a Race Against Hunger along Downing St with Olympic Champions Mo Farah, Haile Gebrselassie, footballing hero Pelé and the British Prime Minister. One of the strong outcomes was a pledge from the European Commission to reduce the number of stunted children by 7 million by 2025 – and we’ll be calling on the G8 here in the UK to go even further this year.
- Over 8,000 ONE members sent postcards to key Members of the European Parliament. Weeks later they voted in favour of tough transparency laws for the oil, gas, mining and forestry industries, meaning we are now only weeks away from a new European law that will end secret deals and allow citizens in Africa to hold their own governments to account for huge amounts of money.
- Against the odds, and thanks to campaigners, a vulture fund was stopped in Jersey from collecting $100 million from the Democratic Republic of Congo for an old, escalated debt. Jersey has since announced plans to adopt the UK’s vulture fund law, ensuring such cases never happen again.
Thank you for all you’ve done so far – each petition, letter and tweet really does count.
We want 2013 to be much bigger. So please do ONE small thing today, and email 5 friends, family members or colleagues, and ask them to join you in the fight against extreme poverty.
I look forward to working with you in 2013!