Have you ever wondered if there is anything you can do to contribute to solving global poverty? Did you ever get that sinking feeling that you are just one person who is too insignificant in the face of the forces of global domination and systematic oppression to make any difference? How many times has helplessness at things happening around you or in the wider world force you to conclude that you cannot beat the system
and that at best your only choice is to either join them or drop out?

If you answer yes to one or more or all of these questions do
not be embarrassed at all. You are one among many billions of
us (actually 6.5 billions) who inhabit this earth. Most of us feel helpless, often disapproving of many things happening around us and in the world but feeling we lack or actually lacking any power to change them. There is frustration that no matter what
we may think or do the world would always remain skewed against the poor and powerless, the little men and women, who constitute the majority. Whether it is the environment, the economy, education or health, many have to come to accept that the richest amongst us and the richer nations of the world would always squeeze the poor and get their way.

We all know that Mahatma Gandhi’s famous words ‘there is enough in the world to satisfy our needs but not enough to satisfy our greed’, uttered so many decades ago are as true if not truer today than when they were first uttered. The vast wealth due to improvements in technology, science and genetic
engineering in the last 5 decades is more than enough for all of us, but the structures of power within nations and between nations continue to reward those at the very top while penalizing the majority poor at the bottom of the pile.

Poor people in poorer countries of the world cry out against their rich who also groan at the richer countries and within the richer countries their own poor feel no better. Yet the system that is producing this fabulous wealth in one pole and desperate poverty in another in the same universe is created by human beings. Therefore it can only be changed through their individual and collective efforts sometimes cooperatively but often in confrontations and through contradictions.

The United Nations ushered in the 3rd Millennium (and its 55th anniversary) at the Millennium Summit in 2000 with a declaration that recognized that the world could be made better and we all deserve to treat each other and our shared environment better. This was encapsulated in the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). It was an attempt to create a new social contract between the peoples and governments of the
world committing all to eight goals that range from ending hunger through universal access to basic education, female empowerment, health, environment, reforming the unequal
global trade, increasing the quality as well as quantity of aid, and canceling the debt of poor countries

Since the MDGs became the ‘new’ language of development discourse there continues to be all kinds of debate as to whether they are achievable or not, or even if they are adequate for guaranteeing peace and equal opportunity for development for all peoples. Wherever one stands in the argument nobody will be hurt if they are achieved by 2015.

The UN itself realized that neither the declaration alone nor the official adoption of the MDGs will guarantee their fulfillment both in the north and the south. That is why the UN Millennium Campaign was established to work with citizens to hold their governments accountable for the fulfillment of the MDGs. The Campaign works with and through National Coalitions in various countries allied to the Global Call Against Poverty (GCAP) but also with faith-based groups, local councils, national and regional legislatures, trade unions, youth, student’s, and women’s organisations, to ensure political accountability of all leaders to their peoples at various levels. The MDGs can only be achieved at the local and community level. That is where their impact will be directly felt.

Over the recent years of neo-liberal economic hegemony, economic policies within countries and globally have become even more undemocratic; dominated by technicians and all kinds of latter-day voodoo experts from the Bretton Woods institutions, to the total exclusion of citizens who are the producers of their national and global wealth and a majority of whom are victims of these policies. The MDGs have tremendous potential for opening up democratic spaces for political accountability of leaders. Through the MDGs it is possible to begin to reverse this arrogant trend of making economic issues the sole preserve of economic egg-heads and judge economic policies not just in terms of macroeconomic growth but in terms of development, how they impact on the general welfare of the majority of the peoples of the world who are poor.

As part of efforts to popularize the MDGs and focus global attention on poverty, the UN Millennium Campaign in partnership with GCAP Allies and other international partners including OXFAM, Action Aid International, NOVIB, and the Micah Challenge, has been participating in a one month campaign of activities that began on the 16th of September and will culminate in the marking of the INTERNATIONAL DAY FOR POVERTY ERADICATION on Tuesday 17 October. If you have not been involved it is not too late. You could still join the activities this weekend.

On Sunday, October 15 and Monday 16 October there is STAND UP AGAINST POVERTY Challenge in which anybody who cares can be a full participant.

If you ever imagined a world in which the MDGs are a political
priority for all our governments and other governments in the world. A world without poverty where every child is guaranteed education, where many women do not die in labor and people living with HIV/Aids have universal access to free treatment based on need not cash, and malaria, TB and other preventable diseases no longer kill us in the vast numbers they currently do. A world in which the environment is fully protected and the vast creativity of the human mind and scientific discoveries are used for sustainable development that guarantees that this earth that we are loaning from future generations is handed on safely.

There is a small chance to put your imagination into action. The Goals sound like dreams but even the creation of this world must have begun with a dream. It needs not remain so. It is a world that we can bring about by first making people aware of the MDGs and working with them to demand their fulfillment from their leaders. Holding them to the promise is all that it takes. If the richer countries deliver on Goal 8, the poorer countries can also deliver on goals 1-7. But it is not a conditional process rather it is a complementary process that must run concurrently from goal 1 to 8. You can contribute to making it happen wherever you maybe. Together we can all make the difference between fulfillment and indifference.

This weekend you can add your voice to that of millions of other citizens of the world by joining the campaign against hunger amidst plenty: STAND UP AGAINST POVERTY and STAND UP FOR THE MDGs. It will take not more than 5 minutes and you will also be joining in setting a Guinness Book of records attempt to see how many millions of us care enough to stand up
for what we believe in. STAND UP is an innovative Challenge in which we are attempting to set an OFFICIAL GUINESS WORLD RECORD for the most number of people ever to STAND UP AGAINST POVERTY and STAND UP FOR THE MDGs.

We have just 24 hours to set this record.

Be One in a Million!

Check for details of campaigns near you this Sunday 15 October (from 10.00 am GMT) to (10.00 am GMT) Monday 16 October and also how you can organize your own stand up moment and register it to be counted: www.millenniumcampaign.org and www.standagainstpoverty.org

“Forward ever , backward never” Kwame Nkrumah (1909 – 1972)

……………… DON’T AGONISE! ORGANISE!!……………………..

This entry was posted on Thursday, October 12th, 2006 at 1:35 pm and is filed under Thursday Postcard. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.