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Make Poverty History
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Make Poverty History
Method(s) Used
Name of person who posted the project:Dominic Potter
Location of project:United Kingdom
Date when the project started:2005
Date when the project ended/project ongoing:2006
Background to project:2005 had been identified by the UK government, media and NGOs as a key year for progressing UK national policy on international development because the UK took presidency of the EU and the G8, as well as heralding World Trade Organisation (WTO) negotiations and key UN meetings.. This presented an opportunity for action to be taken on one of the largest global problems yet to be successfully tackled; poverty. In 2004 the Treasury held a conference bringing many development agencies together to discuss opportunities in this area for 2005. A shared understanding of the political and social space was developed, and what had started as an informal coalition of NGOs developed into a movement of 540 members broadly representative of UK civil society. . The organisation this eventually created was called Make Poverty History. The coalition was officially launched in January 2005 as part of a global network calling for a breakthrough on the issue of poverty in 2005 called the Global Campaign Against Poverty. The campaign that followed lead to an unprecedented increase in UK awareness on poverty and as a consequence mobilised large numbers of citizens to put pressure on politicians to act. . Because of the sheer scale of the campaign, and the nature of its objectives, public engagement was a central focus of the Make Poverty History strategy to affect public policy. In order to achieve the level of public mobilisation required to maximise political awareness and action, the Make Poverty History campaign had to be centred upon getting the UK public to hear, understand and act upon an agenda and then to act on this in lobbying political representatives and other members of the public. . The M public mobilisation campaign was framed around a series of key events in 2005 and focused on getting a complex meaning to as many people in the UK as possible using a simple message. The message was symbolised by the white band, which people were encouraged to wear, wrap around buildings or use however they wished. . The Make Poverty History coalition took much inspiration from previous social movements such as CND and the anti-apartheid movement. Like these activities, Make Poverty History began as a set of fixed events focussed around key moments in 2005 and it became a tapestry of activities, taking on its own life as people hooked into the simplicity of action. . The budget for the movement began at £250,000, with a final total of £860,000 central expenditure. However, those organisations involved also covered various other costs of campaign materials etc along the way. . Purpose of project:MAKE POVERTY HISTORY had three broad objectives:
Project activities:The key engagement milestones in the year of the MAKE POVERTY HISTORY movement were as follows:
Project results:The G8 Summit at Gleneagles agreed to increase aid to developing countries by £28.8 billion and to cancel the debt of the 18 poorest countries in Africa. There was also a commitment to work towards cutting trade subsidies and tariffs. It was also felt that Live8 had a big impact in terms of applying pressure on international governments.. However, evaluation of the campaign suggested that whilst it supported real achievements in the areas of aid and debt, there was less success with their trade policy proposals other than the linkage of trade and development in the same sentence. At present it is not clear how many of the policy objectives set by the campaign will be achieved. . "Africa is all too easy to nudge into the background. A year ago, amid the excitement surrounding Live8, the Make Poverty History campaign and the Group of Eight leading industrial nations summit in Gleneagles, it was said that the hype could result in raising expectations about what could be done for the continent's development to over-optimistic and unrealistic levels." The Guardian, July 19 2006 . Contact details:http://www.makepovertyhistory.org/ .. |
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