In the UK women’s jobs are often the first to go, and their care burden will increase if public services are decimated.

But for women in developing countries, the likely impact of the economic meltdown is much more disastrous. And economic inequalities at the local, national & global level can:
·        exacerbate violence against women;
·        increase discrimination against women in employment; and
·        decrease women’s access to resources

As WOMANKIND’s new report, Who Pays the Price? shows, poor women in developing countries are particularly at risk. WOMANKIND Worldwide is calling on the G20 to ensure that responses to the financial crisis involve women in the solutions — and for governments to comply with their international and domestic obligations to end all discrimination against women.

Click here to download Who Pays the Price?

Women marchers on Saturday may also like to know that there will be a women’s contingent marching behind the slogan PUT PEOPLE FIRST – BUT DON’T PUT WOMEN SECOND.  Women are assembling in Embankment Gardens at 10.30 am (near the coffee kiosk) ready to join the march leaving around 12pm.

It’s only a couple of days until Saturday’s march.  The more awareness we can get the better and you can help!  So, we’ve got three little requests for you to help us make the march count…

1. Pledge your status and tell everyone that you’re coming: whether it’s Facebook, twitter or anywhere else on the web, change your status to show that you’re marching on Saturday.
2. Plaster your profile: Share the event with friends, use the Obama-izer to create your own campaign pic, and get this Put People First application up on your page!
3. Flyer your friends: Get an email out to interested mates and invite them along! Why not download some posters from our site? You could even stick one up at work or in your front window!

Until Saturday,
Put People First

The MegaMouth wants London to turn out in force for the Put People First rally on 28 March. Every day from 23-28 March, The MegaMouth will be traipsing the streets of London with a megaphone, shouting slogans to get people to come to the G20 Put People First rally… but the best bit is you control what he says!

Simply go to ActionAid’s website, or text ‘SHOUT’ to 80010 (standard network rates – no nasty charges), followed by your suggested slogan. Then, wait for your shout to appear in Megamouth’s video stream! (Do you Tweet? Try replying to @TheMegaMouth for an alternative way to submit a shout!)

Getting ready:  Calling any interested women to come to 52-54 Featherstone Street (near Old Street) on Saturday 21st March 1-4pm to prepare placards and banners and meet like minded women.

Why women first?  “We need to make both our fellow marchers and decision makers aware that the economic crisis affects women most acutely, after all 70% of the poorest people in the world are women.” said Sheila Triggs from WILPF.

“We need to emphasise that cuts in social and welfare services whether in the UK or in the developing world mean women carry the extra burden as carers.  In Africa women produce 60-80% of the food consumption but own hardly any land.  They are the hardest hit by climate change, as they cope with pollution, flooding and drought.  You only have to look at the D. R. Congo to see how women are most affected by the conflicts that are resulting from the scramble for resources“

Baby Bloc is an informal and unofficial initiative to create an environment where parents interested in attending the demonstration can come together with their young children. It will be a good day out with like minded parents and lots of children to play together – all a few hundred metres from where the Put People First demonstration will converge in Hyde Park in the early afternoon.

Baby Bloc will meet on 28 March from 11 am at the ‘Year of the Child Fountain’ next to ‘The Lookout’ in Hyde Park (see map) This location is both accessible to toilets and to the Serpentine while being a few hundred metres from the demonstration endpoint. From 11 am, there is time to settle before ensuring children (and adults) are fed before the marchers arrive.

Everyone joining is expected to make their own arrangements for food (picnic, cafe) and activities. However if participants wish to propose activities they could organise (e.g. placard/banner making, read-ins), then please email Duane at BabyBloc@fairsay.com to coordinate.

While waiting for the marchers to arrive, children could also explore the Serpentine, the Diana Memorial Playground and other activities within walking distance.

In case of bad weather, Baby Bloc will likely be called off, so if you intend to join, please email Duane at BabyBloc@fairsay.com so he can email everyone updates as the day approaches and new of cancellation if it is necessary. Duane can be reached on the day at 0777 3303 211

Baby Bloc is simply a child-friendly gathering space for like-minded adults and children to join the Put People First demonstration. It’s an entirely informal event, and not officially organised by Put People First. Beyond that the only things special for the day is what other participants want to volunteer to organise. However with some creative volunteers, it could be a very special day for all.

Our list of coaches planned is growing by the day – check it out for one of the easiest, cheapest and greenest ways to travel to the event. We’ve also got a growing list of local events happening in other parts of the country in the run up to the 28th – maybe there’s something near you. We’ve also got details of a special pre-march church service being organised by some of the Put People First organisations, for the morning of the 28th.

And we’re already looking at a great rally event in Hyde Park at the end of the march. Mauritanian musical legend Daby Toure and comedian and professional troublemaker Mark Thomas have confirmed they’ll be appearing on stage. Keep checking the site for information on more speakers and acts for the rally, as we can confirm them.

1. Compel tax havens to abide by strict international rules.
2. Insist on fundamental governance reform of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF).
3. Make all financial institutions, financial products and multinationals transparent and publicly accountable.
4. Ensure a massive investment in a green new deal to build a green economy based on decent work and fair pay.
5. Invest in and strengthen public provision of essential services.
6. Work to ensure sufficient emergency funding to all countries that need it, without damaging conditionalities attached.
7. Deliver 0.7% of national income as aid by 2013, deliver aid more effectively and push for the cancellation of all illegitimate and unpayable developing country debts.
8. Ensure that poorer states are allowed to take responsibility for managing their economies, including controlling
   cross-border capital flows.
9. Stop pushing developing countries to liberalise and deregulate their economies, and do not attempt to rush through a completion of the Doha trade round, a deal that developing countries have rejected several times.
10. In addition to the green new deal, introduce the robust regulatory requirements and financial incentives needed to deliver a green economy.
11. Push for a deal at Copenhagen to agree substantial, verifiable cuts in greenhouse gases, which will limit temperature increases to well below 2°C.
12. Commit to substantial new resource transfer from North to South, additional to Overseas Development Assistance (ODA), to support adaptation and sustainable development in poor countries.

The system we have endured is now proven to be both economically and environmentally unsustainable. There can be no question of world leaders relying on the outdated and proven inefficiencies of a market economy to deliver for all people a world fit to live in. The disasters befalling the lives of real people are all too real; these manifest themselves directly in job losses and wage cuts that worsen living standards for millions across the planet.

Even worse the continued man made environmental damage, fueled by the demands for capitalist growth will lead to scarcity of food, energy and water resources making this world a more volatile and much less attractive place to live. This damage is already costing hundreds of thousands of lives worldwide and it’s time we acted to stop it.

Governments now need to admit their mistakes, stop relying on the failed monetarist system they’ve propped up for years and stop pandering to the greedy elite who run the world economy. The time for a new approach is here and now, and that means putting people first to create real sustainable jobs.

The CWU will be present on the march on 28 March, and as a supporter of Put People First we believe that changing the world for the betterment of the majority and not to increase the wealth of a minority is the unity of purpose that brings us all together. We will be using the opportunity to protest against this Government’s tired and lazy privatisation approach to developing the public service that is Royal Mail and the threat of a pay freeze that our members face in BT. These problems that our members face mirror those being faced by millions of people across the world. It simply can not be right that that in times of economic market failure handing over public resources to profiteers and attacking living standards of workers and the worlds poor is seen as a sane response.

Long term investment in jobs that reflect the changing nature of the planets environment will increase living standards by providing work designed to deliver a better future for all.

It’s time to put a stop to this persistent failure to provide for all people and the march should be a launch for a coming together of all who share this aim.

- Tony Kearns, Senior Deputy General Secretary of the Communication Workers Union.

Visit the CAFOD site to get your own Obama image-making widget

The G20 Summit on the financial crisis will be US President Obama’s first trip to Europe, and everyone is going to want to get a piece of him.

CAFOD have made a nifty little widget to help publicise the Put People First march in London on 28 March, ahead of the summit. Upload your own photo and it will make an image in the style of the iconic poster from the Obama 08 electoral campaign.

Admittedly I’m not sure I look quite as stylish as Obama does in this one, but I guess that’s why I’m never likely to be a President of anything…

Visit CAFOD now to get your own image or widget, and help show President Obama and other world leaders what you expect from them at the London Summit.