World Development Movement blog

Rosie Rogers, used to be at WDM

Last night, a host of NGO’s, members of the global climate movement and the intrigued met at Bolivar hall to evoke the spirit of the first World People’s Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth in Cochabamba, Bolivia.

Adriane Chalastra

Last Monday, several WDM representatives attended a seminar entitled “Mobilising the UK Bangladeshi Community for Action on Climate Justice”, where Tim Jones, WDM’s recently departed policy officer was one of the speakers. The event took place at the new City Hall building on Queen’s Walk. It was organised by the Bond Development and Environment Sub-group on Bangladesh and Climate Change, who organised the seminar to raise awareness about the issue of climate change and its impacts on Bangladesh, with a focus on how the Bangladeshi community in the UK can be mobilised to take action.

We sit in anticipation of the full extent of the cuts today. Of course, they’re only the headlines, and one can only guess at how they’ll play out over time. People (on the right) tell us not to worry: they’ll be painful, but necessary.

The experience of developing countries should be sounding alarm bells for us all. Austerity measures in the form of structural adjustment plans pushed by the IMF and World Bank in the 1980s and 1990s had devastating effects on the world’s poor. Poverty, inequality and injustice all increased massively as safety nets for the poorest where slashed in favour of big business.

Since I joined WDM last year, I’ve been thinking a lot about “narrative”. WDM is against injustice; against poverty; against inequality. A quick trawl through our campaigns and you’ll often see us saying “stop” something – stop betting on hunger; stop RBS from spending money on tar sands: stop, stop, stop.

WDM mourns the passing of Lord Bingham who presided over the Pergau Dam case.

Howard Reed

The recently published report A Bank for the Future by James Leaton and myself recommends that the government should reform RBS into a Green Investment Bank to provide financial support for the UK's transition to a low carbon economy. In the report we argue that the alternative to a Green Investment Bank – carrying on with 'business as usual' – risks imposing huge costs on the UK economy, in terms of making it more vulnerable to future systemic financial crises of the type that almost brought down the entire banking system.