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World Development Movement blog

4 July 2012

As I approached the registration desk and collected my identity badge I was glad I’d followed my better senses. Blending in as I seated myself and took in the lavish corporate backdrop, it was clear that upholding sartorial conventions is taken seriously. As the Libor scandal envelops the financial world perhaps I wasn’t alone in quipping to myself that these conventions seem to be taken rather more seriously than following financial regulations or, dare I say it, any ethical code.

29 June 2012

The World Development Movement joined forces with the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) in 2008 to campaign for the UK government to accede to the UN Watercourses Convention, to help ensure that the world’s 263 international boundary crossing rivers are protected and peacefully shared.

Our local groups took the message (and their water pistols) to the streets of the UK explaining why, in the light of increasing demand for water and the unavoidable impacts of climate change, it was important for the UK to support this initiative.

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29 June 2012

How can one lowly individual go about fighting the lucrative monster that constitutes the global arms trade? Living in Brighton, the company EDO / ITT is on my doorstep, located on Home Farm Road, Moulsecoomb. Yet what is it that they actually do?

29 June 2012

Last month, our director, Deborah Doane, blogged about the worrying noises coming out of DFID lately on aid. Indeed, the past few months have seen proposals like moving towards a ‘sovereign wealth fund’ model of aid that would see ‘returns for the UK taxpayer’. And Andrew Mitchell has been busy recasting aid as something that we give because it is in the UK national interest, rather than as a purely altruistic gesture.

29 June 2012

This month's Ben Jenning's cartoon, inspired by Magritte's famous painting, looks at our recent work around the green economy and financialisation of natural resources. It's a 'financial reign forest' indeed. 

28 June 2012

It is difficult to watch Africa in the midst of yet another food crisis and hear the plea from aid agencies desperately searching for more funds. Organisations such as Action Against Hunger and World Vision, have estimated that a further $200 million is needed to fight the growing food crisis and more than 15 million people are now said to be at risk, including many from some of the poorest countries in the world: Chad, Mali, Niger, Mauritania and Burkina Faso . 

27 June 2012

Ayrshire Power has just announced that it is shelving its plans for a new coal-fired power station at Hunterton in Ayrshire. This is great news – and reflects the huge amount of opposition that there’s been to the power plant ever since the proposal first came to light three years ago. 

26 June 2012

Last week we launched our exposé of the Financial Services Authority (FSA) – UK's supposedly 'independent' regulator of the financial services sector. We revealed how the FSA – funded by the banks and staffed by ex-bankers – acts as a lobby arm for the banks.

Anonymous

26 June 2012

Sarah Reader, campaigns and network assistant

The Rio+20 People's Summit took place from 15-22 June in the run up and alongside the official Rio+20 summit. I have tried to capture some of the atmosphere of the summit in this blog post.

25 June 2012

Guest blog post by Oscar Reyes, writer and activist on climate and energy finance, and associate fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies

Given how backwards the Rio Summit’s priorities were, it's hardly surprising that negotiations ended before they began. But a slow swarm of black ministerial limousines has crawled across Rio regardless, with Ministers, Presidents and Prime Ministers queuing up to talk the language of sustainability, while mostly advancing corporate interests. It came to a close yesterday with the adoption of a final  declaration called, without hint of irony, "The Future We Want."

22 June 2012

Researching the report we’ve released this week on how to regulate food speculation, I was struck by a sense of déjà vu.

Back to fundamentals: why position limits are needed to prevent food price hikes charts the debate in 1930s America around the introduction of regulation to prevent future crises caused by reckless behaviour by financial speculators. Sound familiar...?

19 June 2012

After my brief encounter with Barclays, where I presented them with a “shame” award for their role in food speculation, I was eager to cause some more mischief, this time with the Financial Service Authority (FSA).

15 June 2012

The ominous grey skies of Thursday 7 June did nothing to dampen the high spirits of the pilgrims congregating on the steps of St Paul’s Cathedral that lunchtime. I went there to join them at the beginning of the pilgrimage.

7 June 2012

On 23 May I went along to an event organised by Friends of the Earth in North London, an evening of discussion with incredibly inspiring Palestinian water activist Zayneb Al Shalafeh. Part of the grassroots Palestinian group Lifesource which has been campaigning for water justice for Palestinians since 2007, Zayneb focussed on the fact that the right to water is a right explicitly recognised under international law. 

6 June 2012

One of the major challenges facing global justice campaigners today is stopping Europe forcing 'economic partnership agreements' (EPAs) on African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries.  

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