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World Development Movement blog

16 April 2010

Arriving in a new country is often a total sensory overload: sights, sounds, smells. And then, as you quickly get used to it, things that had once, not long before, seemed so different and fascinating fast become so normal you barely even notice them. With this in mind, having just arrived in Bolivia this evening, I thought I’d try to capture some of my feelings and thoughts.

13 April 2010

Since the failure of the Copenhagen climate talks to both reach an outcome or even to ensure the voices of people who are going to be most effected by climate change were being represented, the Bolivian government have called a people’s conference to create space for the voices of the people – The People’s Summit on Climate Change and Mother Earth Rights

13 April 2010

Alex Wood, used to be Campaigns and Policy Assistant

On Thursday 8 April, the World Bank Board approved a $3.75 billion loan to the South African energy giant Eskom. The loan was opposed by an international coalition of 200 civil society groups lead by 65 South African social and environmental organisations. Despite a huge amount of green spin from the World Bank the core element of this loan is $3.05 billion for the completion of the 4800 MW Medupi coal-fired power station which will be the fourth biggest coal power station in the world.

7 April 2010

Patrick Bond and Desmond D'Sa

It is very important for Brits to not only keep the coal in the hole at home, as so many activists are doing. It's also the responsibility of the British citizen to watch your tax monies, and if via the World Bank they fund climate destruction, poverty and privatisation, to please speak out. 

7 April 2010

May Abdalla

As Gordon Brown makes his visit to Her Majesty to call a UK election, there is a parallel campaign unfolding in Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Ghana.

29 March 2010

Tim Gee

It is 12 months since 35,000 people took to the streets, days before the London G20 Summit, for the Put People First march, calling for decent work, an end to global poverty and a safe climate.

16 March 2010

Here in the UK, the review of legislation on dangerous dogs has caught media attention – how some dogs are being bred as weapons to intimate others and at times have attacked vulnerable people like children. It’s a strange analogy, and one which I probably would not have made myself, but this morning European campaigners wanted to make a point that EU trade policy is like a dangerous dog - it’s predatory, aggressive and dangerous to the poorest people in the world.
 

23 February 2010

Ahead of the 2010 UK general election, WDM policy officer Tim Jones gives a snapshot of where the parties stand on issues that affect the world’s poorest people.

WDM and over 100 other organisations have challenged the major political parties to back a development manifesto, Vote Global. So how do the main parties stack up on key global poverty issues?

23 February 2010

Yesterday the Fairtrade Foundation launched the start of their annual campaigning event: ‘Fairtrade Fortnight’ with the news that the value of Fairtrade sales, was up on 2008 by 12% to an estimated retail value of over £800m.

15 February 2010

Earlier today, WDM held a protest outside the Department for International Development to oppose the UK’s plans for how climate finance should be administered; plans that WDM are concerned would lock Bangladesh into further poverty.

10 February 2010

So far the US and Europe has managed to find $3 trillion to bail out the banks, more than $1 trillion of which has gone to the UK banking sector. The financial crisis, caused by the banks themselves, has cased significant increases in poverty and inequality in both the developed and developing world.

5 February 2010

Julian Oram, used to be Head of Policy and Campaigns

Here’s a puzzler: what is the UK’s biggest contributor to climate change? Did you answer coal? Good guess, but no. Transport? It’s a biggy for sure, but not the largest. Farming? A distant fourth.

Give up? OK, Britain’s number one contributor is… the banking industry! And top of the list within the sector is the taxpayers’ very own, and much unloved, Royal Bank of Scotland.

27 January 2010

Earlier this week, the World Trade Organisation (WTO) announced a new programme to support teaching on trade policy and ‘WTO-related matters’ in universities in developing countries. This programme would fund teaching, research and outreach on trade issues à la WTO.

22 January 2010

Like many ‘natural disasters’, the earthquake in Haiti may have had a natural cause, but what has made it such a disaster was more political and economic than tectonic.

21 January 2010

This is a guest post by Adam Ramsay who writes for the blog brightgreenscotland.org

It was President Eisenhower, I think, who coined the phrase “The Military Industrial Complex”. West Wing geeks know why he did so: if he couldn’t dismantle the monster he had helped create, he could at least describe it.

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