Below is a selection of Put People First member reactions to the G20 Summit Communique

ActionAid

Christian Aid

Friends of the Earth

Greenpeace

Jubilee Debt Campaign

Oxfam

Tearfund

Trade Justice Movement

TUC

Save the Children

War on Want

World Development Movement

April 7th, 2009 BOND

Loads more great films to check out:

• You count how many people were there
  An arial view of the whole march
• Interviews with marchers
  Fourman films meets people on the march to ask why they attended
• Kumi Naidoo speech
  GCAP co-chair Kumi Naidoo opens the rally
• Mark Thomas speech
  Activist Comedian Mark Thomas ridicules neo-liberal capitalism
• Mary Lou Malig speech
  Trade campaigner Mary Lou Malig explains how the unjust trade policies of rich countries hurt the poor.
• Brendan Barber speech
  The TUC General Secretary looks at solutions to the financial crisis that work for workers
• Susan George speech
  Ground breaking author Susan George says ‘they’re our banks’
• Sharan Burrow speech
  ITUC President Sharan Burrow brings greetings from the rest of the world
• Tony Juniper speech
  Pioneering environmentalist Tony Juniper says a greener world is possible

April 6th, 2009 BOND

Put People First press release – April 2 2009

Gordon Brown and his fellow G20 leaders must agree an overhaul of the global economy to promote jobs, justice and climate when they meet today in London, according to Put People First (www.putpeoplefirst.org.uk), an unprecedented alliance of more than 160 unions, development, environment and faith groups.

Blind faith in markets must be replaced with an economic system that works in the interests of people and planet and provides sturdy foundations for future prosperity.

That means a strong package of reform including:

• Making financial institutions and multinationals transparent and publicly accountable
• Action on tax havens to stop business and rich people avoiding their social responsibilities at the expense of the poor
• An end to efforts to push developing countries to liberalise and deregulate their economies
• Massive investment in a ‘green new deal’ based on decent work and fair pay
• Increasing overseas aid and strengthening health, education and other public services at home and abroad
• Real progress towards a climate deal that will limit temperature increases to well below 2o°c
• Fundamentally reforming global institutions such as the World Bank and IMF to give poor countries a say in the decisions that affect their lives

More than 35,000 people protested in London on Saturday in support of ‘jobs, justice and climate’ – a visible demonstration that people from across the political spectrum support real change.

Barbara Stocking, Oxfam Chief Executive, said: “The time for talking by G20 leaders is over. Warm words must now be replaced by action to tackle poverty.

“The world cannot afford attempts to return to ‘business as usual’. Nor should differences between rich countries be used as an excuse for inaction. Millions of already poor men, women and children are becoming much more vulnerable, with many pushed to the edges of destitution.”

Ashok Sinha, Director of Stop Climate Chaos, said: “The heat is on to get a fair international climate change deal at Copenhagen in December that keeps global warming under 2C. The G20 is a major stepping-stone towards that goal.

“Instead of boosting more unsustainable consumption the hundreds of billions of dollars on the G20 table for a fiscal stimulus must be used to invest away from using fossil fuels in favour of low carbon economies, as well as supporting low carbon development in poor countries.

“With bold action G20 leaders can seize the opportunity to tackle both climate change and the economic downturn together at the same time.”

TUC General Secretary Brendan Barber said: “There will be radical voices at the summit, with at least some leaders signed up for a big fiscal stimulus, a green new deal, tough global regulation and action on inequality. The question is whether those voices will carry the day. If they don’t, our campaign goes on to the G8, the UN and other G20 meetings.

“This is a decisive year for the whole planet. A heavy responsibility lies on every nation to ensure that we don’t just counter the recession but set in place the structures and policies that will ensure the world is never again threatened by financial meltdown and emerges as a greener and fairer place.”

April 2nd, 2009 BOND

This article first appeared at http://www.newstatesman.com/global-issues/2009/03/climate-change-crisis-g20 on 27 March 2009

G20 leaders must decide to turn this crisis into an opportunity. We want to see radical change that will make this a world fit for purpose in the 21st century

How times change. Seems like only yesterday that those of us who dared to oppose and expose the failures of free market economics were shouted down. Now a movement openly challenging the system and calling for the G20 to Put People First is gaining broad support.

The first manifestation, on Saturday, will see thousands of protesters drawn from a hugely diverse range of interests gather and demand fundamental change. We are spending billions of pounds of our money; we want a lot more bang for our buck than propping up banks. Put People First, represents unity amongst all sectors of society, and has a solid vision for what the G20 leaders must decide in order to turn this crisis into an opportunity. We want to see radical change that will make this a world fit for purpose in the 21st century.

We are calling for jobs and public services for all. Globally, millions are in danger of losing their jobs and their homes because the banks gambled the economies money away and the government cheered them on. Now ordinary working people are paying a huge price for the greedy deals that were allowed to take place virtually unchecked.

A typical government response would be to use the global economic slowdown as an excuse to cut back on public expenditure programmes.

Not good enough! Public service must be assured so that the people who did the least to cause this problem do not pay the highest price. Bringing forward public works programmes could also help create jobs and help countries out of recession.

We are demanding an end to global poverty and inequality. No one is pretending poverty is a consequence of the crisis. Long before the collapse of Bear Stearns rang alarm bells on Wall Street, people in the developing world have faced crisis after crisis in: food; energy and climate. This latest crisis has just compounded that. It’s now time to take their unemployment, cuts in public services and deepening poverty as seriously as we take our own.

In the coming days Put People First will be crystal clear about our demands. The G20 leaders cannot be allowed to simply reaffirm pledges on aid. Aid alone is not enough. And we must not be drawn into an overly simplistic argument between protectionism vs free trade. Trade is vital for the economies of developing countries, but this trade system is fundamentally flawed because it is rigged in favour of the rich nations.
And we are imploring the G20 to deal with the climate crisis. The G20 leaders don’t want to talk about climate change; but they must. Climate change is affecting us all and fundamentally challenging our economic system, hitting the world’s poorest people first and worst. Poor people are already experiencing the climate crisis and are suffering from loss of livelihoods and lives in increasingly unstable environments.

The G20 must recognise that ever increasing consumption and reliance on fossil fuels is unsustainable will lead us to runaway climate change. The G20
must agree a Green New Deal which prioritises a transition to a global low carbon economy.

If it sounds like we are asking for a lot, we are unapologetic. This time, the stakes are too high for our voices to be side-lined, fobbed off or shouted down.

Benedict Southworth is director of the World Development Movement

March 27th, 2009 BOND

New speaker confirmations for the Hyde Park rally include Bianca Jagger (Chair of the World Future Council and President, of the Bianca Jagger Human Rights Foundation),  Eulogio Rusoke (Fairtrade Coffee producer),  Leo Gerrard  (US Steelworkers’ Leader) and Father  Joe Komakoma,  (General Secretary of the Zambian Episcopal Conference).

They will join Susan George (groundbreaking academic and author), Mark Thomas (activist comedian), Mary Lou Malig (Trade campaigner), Brendan Barber (TUC General Secretary), Sharan Burrow (ITUC President), Tony Juniper (Environmentalist), Tony Robinson (Actor/TV presenter), Derek Simpson (UNITE General Secretary), Dave Prentis (UNISON General Secretary) and others.

Musical entertainment will be provided by Kooks frontman Luke Pritchard and Malian megastar Daby Toure.

March 27th, 2009 BOND

War on Want report: Millions face free trade axe

Millions of people will lose their jobs in developing countries and millions more in Europe under free trade plans to be promoted by British prime minister Gordon Brown next month at the G20 summit of the world’s leading economies.

This warning comes today from the charity War on Want in the first-ever report to calculate the numbers of jobs lost globally in the wake of trade liberalisation and to analyse the impact of free trade on employment.

It comes at a time when global unemployment is already rising fast, with the International Labour Organisation forecasting over 50 million more people worldwide could lose their jobs by the end of this year, and 200 million workers fall into extreme poverty. The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development says that by next year jobless numbers in rich nations could rise by eight million to 42 million. And last week British unemployment rose above two million for the first time since 1997.

Now Brown’s call to other G20 leaders to complete the Doha trade round puts 7.5 million workers at risk in Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Costa Rica, Indonesia, Mexico, Philippines, Tunisia and Uruguay, and millions more in other rich and poor countries, according to War on Want.

War on Want Executive Director John Hilary said: “Our report exposes how trade liberalisation has thrown millions of people into grim poverty and threatens to devastate many further lives. Gordon Brown’s free market fundamentalism will condemn millions to a bleak and jobless future. Instead of repeating the failed policies of the past, the prime minister and the other G20 leaders must put people first.”

Following two decades of free market policies, 50 million more Africans are now trapped in poverty than in 1997.

Three in four workers in sub-Saharan Africa now face insecure employment as a result of three decades of neoliberal economics, with only a quarter in waged and salaried posts, according to the study. Four in five Zambian workers struggle to survive as street traders, 95 per cent of them earning only two dollars a day, and over three quarters less than a dollar a day.

Zambian tailor Matthews Nkhoma says of big foreign exporters: “Instead of bringing raw materials, they bring finished goods at a cheaper price. We cannot compete and have really lost out.”

Malawi’s real wages in manufacturing plunged by 73 per cent between 1990 and 1995. Trade liberalisation in the 1980s and 1990s also brought huge job losses in Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, Kenya, Morocco and Zimbabwe.

During the free trade 1990s, the jobless in Latin America soared from 7.6 million to 18.1 million, with unemployment rises in Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Paraguay, Uruguay and Venezuela. Between the early 1990s and 2006, farming jobs in Mexico slumped from 8.1 million to around six million as a result of trade liberalisation. Now a third of all the region’s workers face insecure employment.

Trading Away Our Jobs: How free trade threatens employment around the world can be downloaded here

March 26th, 2009 BOND

Why Tearfund is marching for Jobs, Justice and Climate
Alisha Sanvicens

Tearfund is passionate about the local church bringing about justice and transforming lives – overcoming global poverty. Because the financial crisis is disproportionately impacting the world’s poorest and most vulnerable people, we are responding with urgency.

On 2 April when the G20 leaders meet in London to tackle the crisis, Tearfund wants to ensure that they remember those most affected. That’s why Tearfund has joined the Put People First platform to put the pressure on; when the church takes its part in a broad alliance like this, it catches governments’ attention.

We need world leaders to ensure that economic systems and banking restructuring tackles inequality, poverty and climate chaos – issues that acutely affect the poorest people in society worldwide. Governments must provide enough resources to enable the poorest countries to protect their vulnerable people.

For a sustainable global economy we need reform of the institutions that have proved themselves unable to govern the global economy fairly or effectively – particularly the World Bank and the International Monitory Fund (IMF).

Churches have been historically crucial in bringing about social change. They represent a huge section of society. Often it is local and global churches in the thick of responding to calamity, restoring social cohesion and fighting poverty in the poorest communities.

Poor people need to be at the forefront of decision makers’ minds as they try to salvage a beleaguered and broken economic system and work to reverse the damaging affects on the environment. Tearfund is making sure that the church – both locally and globally – is actively involved in creating a just, fair and sustainable world that can benefit all in society.

March 26th, 2009 BOND

Put People First supporters Synergy and Pants to Poverty present the official PUT PEOPLE FIRST march after party.

28 March 2009 – 6:00pm to 11:00pm – The Chapel pub, Chapel Street NW1 5DP.

The location is an award-winning gastro pub near Edgware road, which is only a ten minute walk from the rally in Hyde Park. The event will now be a one-room intimate gathering featuring ACOUSTIC PERFORMANCES FROM: Susie Ro & Ayla, Corneilius, Sarah Bear, Diana Rosa, Glod. Read more…

March 25th, 2009 BOND

Co-operatives ^UK is encouraging its members to support calls on G20 leaders, when they meet in London on 2 April, to put people first by providing decent jobs and public services for all, an end to global inequalities of wealth and power, and a green economy.

In a week of action in the run up to the G20 Summit, development NGOs, trade unions, faith groups, anti-poverty campaigners and international social movements are uniting to make their voices heard.

Co-operatives are founded on values of equality and solidarity and they believe in social responsibility, caring for others and protecting the environment, says Dame Pauline Green, Chief Executive of Co-operatives^UK. The G20 Summit in London is a terrific opportunity to get our message across that more should be done to end global inequality, provide fair employment opportunities for all and help protect the planet.

The experience of the world economy over the last few months has highlighted the inadequacies of the financial and economic system and lessons need to be learned. Co operative businesses, like all businesses, are being affected by the economic downturn and more co-ordinated action needs to be taken by governments.

This is the best opportunity for a generation to learn from the mistakes of the past and to create a more inclusive global system that offers fairness and opportunity for all. This isn’t the time for retrenchment and protectionism, but for reaching out to create a new global system which rewards self-help and recognises the importance of community.

Pauline Green adds: Co-operation as a business model is recognised the world over as a sustainable and people-centred way of doing business that understands the importance of ‘fair globalisation’. It provides a means of helping developing countries maximise their potential and thus helping their people live better lives.

Co-operatives^UK is also supporting calls for change from the International Co-operative Alliance (ICA), whose members represent over 800 million individuals in co-operatives around the world.

The ICA has issued an Open Letter to the governments of the G20.

The ICA is particularly concerned that the G20 examines every option in seeking to overcome the current financial crisis, says Iain Macdonald, Director General.

We are asking the G20 governments to give serious consideration to the advantages of the co operative model of business. With over 150 years of commercial success in all economic fields, it is our conviction that co-operative enterprise, with its unique set of values and principles, can provide possible solutions particularly in promoting stability in the global economy.

March 24th, 2009 BOND

The SOAS G20 activist forum invites students and staff from the University of London and beyond to meet at  1030am,  outside the the Brunei Gallery at SOAS on 28 March to go to the Put People First demonstration.

For more information email SOAS union co-President Ben Sellers on bs27@soas.ac.uk

March 20th, 2009 BOND