Background
Here’s the stark truth: One out of every five people in the world survives on less than $1 a day. One out of every seven people goes to bed hungry each night. More than 38 million people across the world are affected by AIDS/HIV. And every single day 30,000 children die of hunger and disease related to extreme poverty. It doesn’t have to be this way.
Oxfam America and its partners in the ONE Campaign are leading the fight to Make Poverty History, a global struggle for fair trade, debt relief and increased aid to the world’s poorest nations. World leaders have begun to listen, making 2005 the year to join ONE in the struggle for social and economic justice.
When the G8 met in Edinburgh in July, a ONE delegation of 150 community leaders and activists from across the United States was there, demanding that the world’s eight wealthiest nations bring an end to extreme poverty. They heard us. They promised to increase global aid to $50 billion by 2010, and they reaffirmed a commitment to provide $40 billion in debt relief to 18 of the world’s poorest countries. But that was just the beginning. Much more needs to be done.
In September, the UN General Assembly will meet to review the progress that’s been made since 2000, when all 191 UN member states agreed that by 2015 they will cut in half the proportion of people living in poverty. Oxfam will be there, insisting that the leaders keep their promise.
And in December, when the World Trade Organization meets in Hong Kong to discuss agriculture, we’ll be there, too. We want a reform of U.S. subsidies that lead to the dumping of farm surpluses on developing countries, pushing millions of poor farmers out of business and further into poverty. Poor nations must have the power to act in the interests of their own people, to make trade part of the solution to overcoming poverty rather than part of the problem.