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BONO’S
SPEECH TO LABOUR PARTY CONFERENCE Thank you. My name is Bono and I'm a rock star.
Brighton - rock - star. Excuse me if I appear a little nervous.
I'm not used to appearing before crowds of less than 80,000
people. I heard the word party - obviously got the wrong idea. I've been here in Brighton before...
March 13, 1983. That time I had the greatest rock band on the stage behind
me, they looked a little different from you.
I think I was climbing the PA stacks, waving a white flag… and
yes, I had a mullet from the 80s. We played a song called 'Out of Control', and yes sometimes I
am! It must have been at that point when a young Tony Blair
stroked his chin and said, 'Someday, when I come to lead this great land, I must
have this man address my party conference.' Well, 20 years later, here we are. I've come because Prime Minister Blair asked me. He might well regret it. In the larger sense, I'm here as part of a journey that began
in 1984-85, with BandAid and LiveAid. Another very talll, grizzled rock star, my friend Sir Bob
Geldof, issued a challenge to 'feed the world.' It was a great moment, it changed my life. That summer, my wife Ali and I went to Ethiopia, on the
quiet, to see for ourselves what was going on. We lived there for a month, working at an orphanage.
The locals knew me as 'Dr Good Morning'.
The children called me 'The Girl with the Beard.'
Don't ask. But let me say this - Africa is a magical place.
And anybody who ever gave anything there got a lot more back.
A shining shining continent, with beautiful royal faces… Ethiopia not just blew my mind, it opened my mind. On our last day at the orphanage a man handed me his baby and
said: take him with you.
He knew in Ireland his son would live; in Ethiopia his son would die.
I turned him down. In that moment, I started this journey.
In that moment, I became the worst thing of all:
a rock star with a cause. Except this isn't a cause.
6,500 Africans dying a day of treatable, preventable disease-dying for
want of medicines you and I can get at our local chemist-that's not a cause,
that's an emergency. That's why I'm here today.
You know, I could make the soft argument for action-or I
could make the more muscular one. The soft argument you've all heard before.
People are dying over there, needlessly dying, at a
ridiculous rate and for the stupidest of reasons: money. They're dying because they don't have a pound a day to pay
for the drugs that could save their lives.
Pound or Euro, they really don't care. There are hard facts that make up the soft argument. This soft, moral case I know you understand.
And if you're already converted, you don't need me preaching
at you. Though I must admit enjoy it. So let me make the other, more muscular argument.
I know you can take it.
You're Labour, aren't you?
You're tough. Keir
Hardie was a tough guy, wasn't he?, down the pits at the age of 11.
Clement Attlee was tough, right: fought in the Great War, worked in the slums.
Blair, Brown, they're tough guys. The Labour Party has never been a garden party, has it.
I mean the reddest of roses has thorns. Let's get real here on a couple of things - let's get to some
uncomfortable truths. Let's be clear about what this problem is and what this
problem isn't. Firstly, this is not about charity, it's about justice.
Let me repeat that: This is not about charity, this is about justice. And that's too bad. Because you're good at charity. The British, like the Irish, are good at it.
Even the poorest neighbourhoods give more than they can
afford. We like to give, and we give a lot.
But justice is a tougher standard. Africa makes a fool of our idea of justice; it makes a farce
of our idea of equality. It mocks our pieties, it doubts our concern, it questions our
commitment. Because there's no way we can look at Africa- a continent
bursting into flames -and if we're honest conclude that it would ever be allowed
to happen anywhere else. Anywhere else. Certainly not here. In Europe. Or America. Or Australia, or Canada.
There's just no chance.
You see, deep down, if we really accepted that Africans were
equal to us, we would all do more to put the fire out.
We've got watering cans; when what we really need are the
fire brigades. That's the first tough truth. The second is that to fight AIDS, and its root cause, the
extreme poverty in which it thrives, it's not just development policy.
It's a security strategy.
The war against terror is bound up in the war against
poverty, I didn't say that, Colin Powell said that. And when a military man from the right starts talking like
that maybe we should listen! Because maybe, today, these are one and the same. People get nervous when I talk like this.
I get nervous when I talk like this.
But in these distressing and disturbing times,
surely it's cheaper, and smarter, to make friends out of potential enemies than
it is to defend yourself against them. Can I just say that again?
Surely it's cheaper, and smarter, to make friends
out of potential enemies than it is to defend yourself against them.
Africa is not the frontline on the war against terror. But it could be soon. Justice is the surest way to get to peace. So how are we doing, on this other war, that will affect so
many many more lives than the war I read about every day. Well, I'm going to tell you what I think, but you're probably
better off asking an economist. An NGO. An African farmer. In fact, anyone but a rock star. I mean, get yourself a source you can trust-one who, say when
he hears the word 'drugs,' probably thinks 'life-saving,' rather than
'mind-altering.' Let's just say that when the government sends a fact-finding
mission somewhere in the world, there's probably a good reason they don't send a
delegation of rock stars. But actually, I can see through these goggles.
I know progress when I see it. And I know forward momentum when I feel it.
And I do feel it. There is a lot for Britain to get excited about. And with that in mind, I want to say a few words about two remarkable
men. Like a lot of great partners, they didn't always get along as
the years passed. They didn't always agree.
They drifted apart. They did incredible things on their own, as individuals. But they did their best work as a pair. I love them both: John Lennon… and Paul McCartney. I'm also fond of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown.
They are kind of the John and Paul of the global development
stage, in my opinion. But the point is, Lennon and McCartney changed my interior
world - Blair and Brown can change the Real World. And that's why I'm here.
You know as transcendent as I'd like to think a
U2 show can be, it isn't life or death. This
is. And I've met people whose lives
will depend on the decisions taken by these two great men.
They have great ideas. And
the promises they have already made will save hundreds of thousands of lives --
if they follow through, and you don't let them forget who they are. Don't let them forget who they are, promise me that,
conference. Growing up in Dublin in the Seventies, I didn't think much of
politics, and I thought even less of politicians. I had no idea they worked as hard as they do.
I had no idea what it takes to make good on your ideals.
Hillary Benn is doing a great job, with big shoes to fill.
I'd like to thank Clare Short, for letting me in.
The Chancellor's spending review showed me this is a serious
moment in time. And the IFF, what a brilliant idea. The Prime Minister's Africa Commission.
This can be a radical landmark - like the Brandt report -
certainly if Bob Geldof has his way, and it's hard not to give him his way. The Irish don't you love them. Anyway, what I'm telling you is 2005,
when Britain takes the reins of the G-8 and EU, this is it.
And if we don't get there in 2005 -- if we don't get
there in 2005 -- I know where these people park their cars.
Listen, this is a real moment coming up, this could be real
history, this could be something that your children, your childrens children,
that our whole generation, will be remembered for at the beginning of the 21st
century. Putting right a relationship that has been so very wrong for
so very long. The North, the South, the Have Nots, the have yachts. Britain is in a unique position here.
I know you've got a chequered past.
I'm Irish, let's not go there. Forget the plundering of Empire, I wont even bring it up….
You have real relationships in these places - real
relationships-right across the developing world. You could be the interface - there's a 21st
century thought for you, - interface - as opposed to just-in-your-face -between the
worlds of the haves and the-have-nothing-at alls. But Empire aside, we have to accept that even people with
short memories are not sure they like the look of us. In certain quarters of the world, Brand UK, Brand EU not to
mention Brand USA-are not their shiniest. They're in real trouble. The neon sign is fizzing and crackling a bit, isn't it?
The storefront's a little grubby. Our regional branch managers are getting nervous. Let's cut the crap. The problems facing the developing world afford us in the
developed world a chance to redescribe ourselves in very dangerous times.
This is not just heart - it's smart. Onerous debt burdens, decreasing aid levels, duplicitious
trade rules, no wonder people are pissed off with us. Listen, I know what this looks like, rock star standing up
here, shouting imperatives others have to fulfill. But that's what we do, rock stars. Rock stars get to wave flags, shout at the barricades, and
escape to the South of France. We're unaccountable. We behave accordingly. But not you. You can't. You can't do that. See, we're actually counting on you.
Politicians have to make the fight, do the work, and get
judged by the results. The weight of expectation is a heavy burden.
Hang it on a rock band and that's usually when they make a
crap album. The weight of history is so heavy. It's a huge responsibility to be the repository of people's
dreams, to be their hope for the future. So Tony… Gordon… I don't envy you. Because there's a lot of work to do. There is progress, but it's incremental.
History never notices that, and the lives that are depending
on it don't deserve the wait. You know we made a promise to half poverty by the year 2015 -
a big millennium promise - but we're not even going to make it by 2115. It's not enough to describe Everest, we've got climb it and
we've got to bring everyone else along. George,
Jacques, Silvio, Gerhardt, Paul, Junichiro - they've all got to come up the
hill. Because this is the big year, 2005.
All of you have to double aid, double it's effectiveness, and
double trouble for corrupt leaders. The G8 - people look at these meetings and wonder whether
they ever achieve anything. I stood in Cologne, with how many thousands of people.
We got that announcement on debt cancellation which now means
that three times as many children in Uganda are going to school.
Finish what you started in Cologne. Thank you for last weekend, Gordon.
And trade. Our badge of shame. We in the rich countries shuffle the poorest into a backroom,
tie their hands and feet with our conditionalities and then use our subsidies to
deliver the final blow. We have to reform the CAP, and we have to let
democratically elected governments -- not the IMF, not the World Bank, not the
WTO, not the EU -- decide what policies work best. We can't fix every problem, but the ones we can we must. But it's going to cost you. Justice, equality, these ideas
aren't cheap. They're expensive - I know that. And while I'm sure you care about education in Africa, I know
you also care about schools at home. You care about AIDS clinics in Africa, but there's a hospital
right down the road you're not sure you can get in.
These are hard choices. And I'm probably the wrong person to ask you to make them. And I know that on certain issues this room is already
divided. I know many people - and I include myself - were very unhappy
about the war in Iraq. Still are. But ending extreme poverty, disease and despair- this is one
thing everybody can agree on. These efforts can be a force not only for progress but for
unity - not only in Labour but around the world. Can you take this from a rockstar, 'All You Need is Love' when all you need are groceries.
Now you know why Tony Blair and Gordon Brown are really
excited that U2's got a new album coming out - why? Because I'll be away on tour next year. But even from a tour bus I can be a pain in the arse. That's
my job. And I've got some very interesting friends, there's as many
of them in mothers unions as trade unions.
It's not just purple Mohawks we've got going, it's blue
rinses. It's the Temperance League of Tunbridge Wells. The Wigan Bowling Society.
The Chipping Camden Ladies Cricket Club. OK, I'm made those up. But
don't mess with us. As I say, next year, 2005,
Great Britain is on the door
at the EU and G-8. So this is the
time to unlock something really big. Excuses? Horseshit. Earlier I described the deaths of 6,500 Africans
a day from a preventable treatable disease like aids: I watched people queuing up to die, three in a bed in Malawi.
That's Africa's crisis.
But the fact that we in Europe or America are not
treating it like an emergency-and the fact that its not every day on the news,
well that is our crisis. And that's not horseshit, that's something much
worse, I don't even know what that says about us. There will be books written. Think about it. Think about who you are, who you've been, who you want to be.
I don't care if you are Old Labour or New Labour, what is
your party about if it's not about this - if it's not about equality, about
justice, the right to make a living, the right to go on living? Simply agreeing with us is not enough.
If Britain can't turn its values into action against extreme,
stupid poverty… if this rich country, with the reins in its hands, can't lead
other countries along this path to equality, then the critics tomorrow will be
right: I am Tony Blair's apologist. The rock star pulled out of the hat at the Labour Party
Conference. I've more faith in the room than that.
I've more faith in your leaders than that.
I don't need to have. I'm an Irish rockstar. It looks much better on me to slag you off.
But let me say this again.
For the last time. We're serious, this is gigantic. This stuff is the real reason to be in politics, to go door
to door, to organise and demonstrate and take bold action.
It's every bit as noble as your grandparents fighting the
Nazis. This is not about 'doing our best.'
It's win or lose. Life or death. Literally so. If I could ask you to think a hundred years ahead, to imagine
what we, and our times, will be remembered for, I would venture three things:
the Internet, the war on terror, and the fate of the continent of Africa.
We are the first generation that can look extreme
and stupid poverty in the eye, look across the water to Africa and
elsewhere and say this and mean it: we
have the cash, we have the drugs, we have the science -- but do we have the
will? Do we have the will to make poverty
history? Some say we can't afford to. I say we can't afford not to. Thanks for listening. RICHARD
CURTIS’ ARTICLE IN SUNDAY TIMES 09 Jan 2005
Don't forget the
rest of the world It’s been a terrible and terribly strange 10
days. My girlfriend and I were having breakfast on a beach in the Maldives when
the sea level suddenly rose to our waists. We raced to find our children — and
found one neck-deep in water, surrounded by floating furniture. Two others were
sitting scared on a bench 50 yards inland. We thought it was a local thing and a great
adventure. Then eight hours later someone got a television working and we learnt
of the true and horrible cause. Two days later we got home and, ever since then,
it has just got worse: the number of the dead rising every day, the fear of more
deaths through disease, and the knowledge of how hard the lives of even the
survivors will now be. It’s also been strange because I had written a
New Year’s Day episode of the Vicar of Dibley to try to move people
to thinking about how terrible the lives of the poor are. We’d thought it
would come in the context of a low-calibre news week, lots of stuff about the
sales and Romeo Beckham’s Christmas gifts — but instead it was screened on a
day when every single person in the country was deeply, horrifically aware of
the precariousness of life, particularly for the poor. Now I’m being asked what effect the tsunami
will have on our campaign this year to try to make poverty history — a
campaign to create a popular movement that pushes politicians in the G8
countries once and for all to take decisive steps to eradicate extreme poverty.
An action which is actually within G8 members’ power in this extraordinary
political year — when Britain is both chairman of this club of rich nations
and president of the European Union — if they adopt a crucial cocktail of debt
cancellation, more and better aid, and trade justice. What I hope is this: that this terrible tragedy
will increase people’s passion to see something radical done for the poor this
year. The tsunami is the most horrific demonstration of what is actually going
on in the world every single day, in secret, away from the news. The waves took 150,000 lives or more. The silent
disaster of poverty claims a similar number of children every five days —
30,000 every single day. They die from lack of food and clean water. They die in
their thousands from curable diseases such as pneumonia, measles and malaria —
and from a simple malady like diarrhoea that is just a joke to me and the kids.
They die from Aids, often contracted from their mother’s milk. They die the
day they are born for lack of basic natal care. In the UK, one in 143 children
dies before their fifth birthday. In some countries in Africa that figure is one
in four. Every day of the year we watch the news, and they
forget to add that item. “Chelsea won again — oh, and 30,000 people died who
didn’t have to.” “The Incredibles went back to number one at the box
office — oh, and 30,000 real people died totally avoidably.” What we have seen over the past few days, in the
astonishing generosity of the public around the world, is that faced by the
reality of unnecessary death people are massively generous and massively
concerned. And countries can suddenly, quite rightly, find large reserves of
money — just as they’ve always been able to do when a Black Wednesday hits
the economy or there’s a war to be fought. I’d ask people not to forget their passion of
the last fortnight. Hold on to it. My friend Kevin says that it’s as if we are all
living with an elephant standing in our living rooms but we just don’t see it:
this huge, simple truth that 15m people will die preventable deaths this year
— twice the population of London. We know how to stop it happening but we
haven’t yet convinced our politicians that we will not tolerate it any more. I, of all people, know how wonky my priorities
are and probably will be again. I’ve spent the past 10 years trying to
convince people that tragedy consists of poor Hugh Grant having a tiny tiff with
Julia Roberts and then wandering through Notting Hill to the tune of another
great Sixties classic. I was deeply chilled by one sentence about the
tsunami that was published recently, a description of bodies on the beach. The
writer was there, he’d seen death, and his last sentence was: “And I thought
heartbreak hurt.” I’m just praying that everyone this year will
take a bit of time out from the way they normally look at things and try to look
at life through the eyes of, say, a woman called Abersh whom Comic Relief filmed
in Ethiopia last month. She had Aids. She had a five-day-old child. She
didn’t have money for drugs for her illness. She didn’t have money to buy
food for her child. But she didn’t dare breastfeed for fear of passing on the
virus. Two days after I’d seen the film I got an
e-mail from someone in the office: “I have just spoken to our contacts in
Ethiopia and she has confirmed that Abersh’s child died on December 4 — this
is such an awful part to our job — oh dear.” Whatever medically took the child’s life, the
real cause was poverty. Someone dies of poverty-related causes every three
seconds. Every day of our lives. Well, I think the time for letting this continue
is gone. As Bob Geldof said: “The tsunami was an act of God. African poverty
is an act of man.” We are fighting against something that is
claiming many more lives than slavery or apartheid ever did. It can be solved.
It needs a plan from the politicians that delivers “trade justice” so that
world trade becomes part of the solution to poverty, not part of the problem. A
plan that ends the Third World debt crisis once and for all. And a plan that
mobilises more and better aid — at least $50 billion (£26.7 billion) more
each year. These are not monstrous and unimaginable things.
But it will require everyone to do something to make them happen this year. I remember when I went to Ethiopia during the
famine in 1985 how struck I was by the steely determination of the people
working there. They didn’t shed many tears. They knew they were there to do a
job, to do practical things, to save lives. The time for crying was over. I feel
the same now. I’d love you, as you read this, to ask
yourself: “What can I do this year?” — and then do it. Everyone: young,
old, rich, poor, trade unionist, businessman, diplomat, Conservative, Labour,
Liberal, Green, churchgoer, concertgoer, teacher, writer, actor. Even —
perhaps most important of all — politicians and journalists: please, I beg
you, don’t see this moment, this possibility for change, and then waste the
opportunity to write about it by pretending that the important thing here, when
so many people are dying, is a feud, real or imagined, between Mr Brown and Mr
Blair. For God’s sake. Every time we do Red Nose Day there’s a whole
bunch of people who give with astonishing generosity. We pray you will give
again; but we also pray you’ll take some kind of action as well to tell
politicians that enough is enough. It’s their turn. Every time we do Red Nose Day, there are those
who don’t care for it, who say: “You can’t solve the problems of the world
by buying a red nose and spraying your hair red — this is politics.” Well,
your moment has arrived too. Make Poverty History is not a fundraising campaign,
so your time to do something has come. I would even ask the real cynics about aid to use
their cynicism to see better aid delivered, rather than just dismiss the whole
thing. I went to Johannesburg recently for a meeting of
leaders of this campaign from 40 countries. There was a lot of talk there of
making sure that aid gets through to the right people. Interestingly, it was the
representatives from Africa and the poorest countries who were most passionate
about forcing their governments to clean up their act. Everything must be done to create good governance
so that aid works. That will be part of the solution. This is not the time to
say: “It’s very tricky, so let’s walk away.” Make Poverty History is already a strange and
broad coalition from faith groups to charities, trade unions to the Mothers’
Union. But we need everyone to ask politicians to really concentrate on this
issue. The simplest thing you can do is go to our website, www.makepovertyhistory.org,
and join our e-mail army. Together we’ll remorselessly e-mail politicians and
policy-makers throughout the world. Or you can contact any of the 157 members of
the coalition. You may belong to one already and work with them. You can write to the prime minister. You can
write to the chancellor. You can write to your MP. You can go to meetings during
the upcoming election campaign and say: “I care about the quality of our
schools and hospitals, but I also care about people who have no schools and who
are dying of Aids, three to a bed in hospitals without drugs. Except the lucky
ones. They get paracetamol.” You can talk to your kids and get them to talk to
their friends. If you deal with people in other G8 countries, you can ask them
to join their local movement. Then you could even join lots of us on February 3
in Trafalgar Square when Nelson Mandela — who with such dignity last week
confirmed that his own eldest son had died of Aids — comes to support our
campaign. Or you can come to Edinburgh on July 2, wearing a
white armband, the simple symbol of our campaign, just as the G8 leaders fly
into Scotland for their summit. Where else would you be? What else are you doing
that day? That day 30,000 people, about as many as you’ve met in your life,
will die preventable deaths. And eight men in one room in the Gleneagles hotel
could stop it happening. Richard Curtis was the scriptwriter on, among other hits, Four Weddings and a Funeral, Notting Hill and Bridget Jones’s Diary, and the director of Love Actually. He is taking a year off film work to campaign for Make Poverty History, which can be contacted at www.makepovertyhistory.org NELSON
MANDELA’S SPEECH TO TRAFALGAR SQUARE CROWD 3rd February,
2005 Nelson Mandela pledges his support Nelson
Mandela has urged leaders to make poverty history, telling them to
"recognise that the world is hungry for action, not words." The former
South African president, was addressing a crowd of thousands in London's
Trafalgar Square at the campaign's first mass rally which also featured speeches
from Bob Geldof and Oxfam's Adrian Lovett. He appealed for G7 leaders to make a
concrete commitment to overcoming poverty at their meeting in London on 4th
February and also emphasised the importance of 2005 as a great opportunity for
change. Mandela's
speech in full "I
am privileged to be here today at the invitation of the campaign to Make Poverty
History. As
you know, I recently formally announced my retirement from public life and
should really not be here. However,
as long as poverty, injustice and gross inequality persist in our world, none of
us can truly rest. Moreover,
the Global Campaign for Action Against Poverty represents such a noble cause
that we could not decline the invitation. Massive
poverty and obscene inequality are such terrible scourges of our times - times
in which the world boasts breathtaking advances in science, technology, industry
and wealth accumulation - that they have to rank alongside slavery and apartheid
as social evils. The
Global Campaign for Action Against Poverty can take its place as a public
movement alongside the movement to abolish slavery and the international
solidarity against apartheid. And
I can never thank the people of Britain enough for their support through those
days of the struggle against apartheid. Many stood in solidarity with us, just a
few yards from this spot. Through
your will and passion, you assisted in consigning that evil system forever to
history. But in this new century, millions of people in the world's poorest
countries remain imprisoned, enslaved, and in chains. They
are trapped in the prison of poverty. It is time to set them free. Like
slavery and apartheid, poverty is not natural. It is man-made and it can be
overcome and eradicated by the actions of human beings. And
overcoming poverty is not a gesture of charity. It is an act of justice. It is
the protection of a fundamental human right, the right to dignity and a decent
life. While
poverty persists, there is no true freedom. The
steps that are needed from the developed nations are clear. The
first is ensuring trade justice. I have said before that trade justice is a
truly meaningful way for the developed countries to show commitment to bringing
about an end to global poverty. The
second is an end to the debt crisis for the poorest countries. The
third is to deliver much more aid and make sure it is of the highest quality. In
2005, there is a unique opportunity for making an impact. In
September, world leaders will gather in New York to measure progress since they
made the Millennium Declaration in the year 2000. That declaration promised to
halve extreme poverty. But
at the moment, the promise is falling tragically behind. Those leaders must now
honour their promises to the world's poorest citizens. Tomorrow,
here in London, the G7 finance ministers can make a significant beginning. I am
happy to have been invited to meet with them. The
G8 leaders, when they meet in Scotland in July, have already promised to focus
on the issue of poverty, especially in Africa. I
say to all those leaders: do not look the other way; do not hesitate. Recognise
that the world is hungry for action, not words. Act with courage and vision. I
am proud to wear the symbol of this global call to action in 2005. This white
band is from my country. In
a moment, I want to give this band to you - young people of Britain - and ask
you to take it forward along with millions of others to the G8 summit in July. I
entrust it to you. I will be watching with anticipation. We
thank you for coming here today. Sometimes it falls upon a generation to be
great. You can be that great generation. Let your greatness blossom. Of
course the task will not be easy. But not to do this would be a crime against
humanity, against which I ask all humanity now to rise up. Make
Poverty History in 2005. Make History in 2005. Then we can all stand with our
heads held high." ADRIAN
LOVETT’S SPEECH TO TRAFALGAR SQUARE CROWD 3rd February,
2005 Thank you.
Welcome to Mandela Day! This coalition is serious and this campaign is going to win. But first we need to be clear about the challenge to overcome. Five years ago world leaders committed to halving poverty by the year 2015. Five years on, they’re failing on that promise. And they will continue to fail unless they fundamentally change their ways. And they won’t change unless we tell them to. Starting today. This year can be the story of a great generation of leaders and people that recognized their responsibility, seized their own power and transformed the world. Or it can be a year in which that generation looked at the face of poverty and injustice – looked it in the eye – and looked away. Walked away. AND walked away this time WITHOUT the excuse that we didn’t know what was going on. A year of historic breakthrough or a year of criminal neglect. Because this year there’s everything to win and everything to lose. The lost security and dignity of an African family in dire poverty – among the quarter of a billion more living on less than a dollar a day by 2015 if we do not act. The lost life chances of a child – one of the 97 million who will still be out of school in 2015 if we do not act. The lost lives of the unluckiest children – among the 45 million more who will die before 2015 if we do not act. So this isn’t just a
nice thing to do with our time in 2005.
This is about life and death. It’s
not about right and left, it’s about right and wrong.
It’s not about charity, it’s justice.
It’s about people who walk tall despite adversity, and ask us to stand
shoulder to shoulder with them in solidarity.
This is a big coalition.
Maybe the biggest ever assembled in the cause of global justice.
And we’re proud that within that coalition there are different
perspectives. But that doesn’t
stop us pointing out some fundamental realities – even when they make
uncomfortable listening for those finance ministers meeting down the road
tomorrow. Here’s what we know: -
that the target of
halving poverty by 2015 is not only achievable, it is perhaps a little modest; -
that free trade and fair
trade are not the same thing and free trade does not always offer the best
solution in developing countries; -
that the Common
Agricultural Policy as currently constructed is incompatible with Europe’s
claim to be a friend of the world’s poorest people; -
that rich countries –
in the past four decades – have become half as generous in their aid while
becoming twice as rich – and that’s a record of shame; -
that Germany, on current
trends, will reach the 0.7 per cent aid target by the year 2087 – and that’s
unacceptable; -
that seventy in every
hundred United States aid dollars are paid to United States companies – and
that’s not putting poor people first; -
that while countries like
Zambia see life expectancy fall to 33 years and lose half the teachers they
train every year to AIDS, the Global Fund for AIDS has only a quarter of what it
needs in 2005 – and that’s a scandal; -
and that the British
government – despite its rhetoric and its leadership in some areas – still
expects poor countries to sign up to economic programmes that are outdated,
unjust, inappropriate, one-size-fits-all and anti-democratic –policies
that force countries to liberalise trade even when it hurts their most
vulnerable people, to cut social spending, to make people pay for basic services
they can't afford, to cut protection for workers and the environment,
leaving the poorest and most vulnerable more at risk - and that’s got to stop. We want to make poverty a
thing of the past, and we believe it can be done. But we won't succeed if we
tackle only one part of the problem. The injustice of current trade rules, the
burden of debt and the poor quality and quantity of aid all need to be fixed. We
don't think this is a menu where you can pick and choose. On trade, there's
a story from Christian Aid that sums it up well. In Sunyani, Ghana, Agatha
Yumbia struggles to support her family by selling chickens. She can no longer
sell her chickens because she can't compete with the cheap subsidised chickens
imported from Holland and Canada. And while those European and North American
products are heavily subsidised, Ghana's government can't do anything to stop
those imports, or to protect small farmers like Agatha, because the IMF and the
World Bank don't allow it. We have to end those rich country subsidies that
leave the world's poorest farmers on the edge of survival. We have to ensure
that elected governments in poor countries have the power to act in the
interests of their own people – to make trade part of the solution to
overcoming poverty, not part of the problem. Debt is the
unfinished business of the 20th century. In the debt crisis, we see both the
incredible potential for progress in the fight against poverty AND the risk of
shameful failure. From the $100 billion in debt cancellation promised six years
ago at the G8 in Cologne, $40 billion has now been delivered – and I could
take you to schools that no longer charge fees and clinics that now have
medicines across Africa as a result. But still, ten out
of fourteen countries that have been through the debt relief process are still
spending more on servicing their debt than on the health of their people. In a
continent shell-shocked by HIV/AIDS, that has to change – BUT IT WON'T change
unless we go further on debt. And that leaves aid.
We need more of it and we need it to work better. It will work better if it is
focused much more on the poorest countries and supports the priorities
identified by those countries, their parliaments and their people. It will work
better if it doesn't come with externally-imposed economic policy conditions, or
tied to buying goods and services in donor countries. It will work better if it
is predictable and sustained over the medium and long term. And of course it
will work better if there is more of it. Much more. There’s a lot of
pride that this country now has – at last – a firm timetable to reach the
agreed aid target of 0.7 per cent of national income. Last year, more than a
hundred thousand people emailed and wrote to Tony Blair and Gordon Brown telling
them they had to set a timetable to reach that target and deliver more aid now.
Weeks later they set a timetable – not short enough, but they set a
timetable - and announced an increase in aid by more than a billion dollars
every year. It was great news. In
some ways it’s even more exciting that a couple of weeks ago, the Conservative
party declared that it would maintain that increase if it were in power.
Not long ago in Britain we had a cross-party consensus to say as little
as possible about aid spending in the confidence that no-one within the UK was
particularly interested. Now we
have a beauty contest between parties who recognize not only that this is the
right thing to do, but that there are votes in it too.
And that’s because of you. Thank
you. But to focus the
efforts of decision makers and to make an immediate impact, we believe rich
countries must now agree AT LEAST an extra $50 billion each year, starting in
2005 – and make it better aid, that works for people in poverty, not just in
the interests of those who give it. We
believe that without it, the 2015 targets will never be achieved, any benefits
from progress on trade and debt will be undermined, and those who pay the
highest price will be the poorest, the sickest, the youngest, the forgotten, the
vulnerable, the excluded. So we say to make
poverty history we need trade justice, drop the debt, and more and better aid.
We know there’s a lot of other things the government have to worry
about. But when ministers ask us
how much they have to do to make poverty history in 2005 – when they ask how
much pressure they have to put on other world leaders, how many resources they
need to find of their own, how many meetings and summits and communiqués they
need to go through this year to get this done… we say, three words Tony Blair:
WHATEVER IT TAKES. And now I want you
to take action with me. Let’s
tell Tony Blair what we think. There
are about 8,000 mobile phones in this Square.
Let’s text him now. I’m
serious. Type it in: MAKE POVERTY
HISTORY. Send it now to 80205.
We’ll make sure Tony Blair hears your voice. Finally I want to
introduce some young people, from Langdon School in East London and from Lourdes
Secondary School in Glasgow. They’ve
got something to say. [CHILDREN] Thank you for being here
today. We will be told we are
impatient. But never forget that we
are impatient because of our passion for justice, and we are passionate for
justice because of our humanity. Let’s Make Poverty History. Thank
you.
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