Global Citizen turns focus to poverty eradication and women’s rights for September campaign

The advocacy organisation Global Citizen is targeting awareness and change in issues perpetuating extreme poverty, the impacts of climate change and the inequities affecting women and girls around the world in its latest campaign.

The gathering of world leaders in the UN General Assembly will take place in New York this September.

“COP27, this year’s G7, the World Bank spring meetings and the Paris climate finance summit all failed to deliver tangible results or disruption of the world’s unjust systems.

“But complacency can’t win. If we want to see breakthroughs in development and climate change, we need the US, UK, Canada, Australia, and all G7 nations to meet the urgency of the hour.

“Every citizen has a vital role to play, and together we must be laser-focused on driving results and impact in September,” said Hugh Evans, CEO of Global Citizen.

According to the UN Population Fund (UNFPA), 257-million women globally want to avoid pregnancy but lack access to safe and modern contraceptives.

“To meet this need, the UNFPA Supplies Partnership, which provides life-saving sexual and reproductive health services, requires an additional $100m [about R1.8bn] from long-standing gender equality champions including Norway, Canada and Japan, which holds this year’s G7 presidency, as well as businesses and philanthropic foundations,” said Global Citizen.

Continuing on the momentum generated at last month’s “Power Our Planet: Live in Paris” event, this year’s Global Citizen Festival will pressure governments and multilateral development banks to urgently mobilise funding to enable climate-vulnerable countries to adapt and mitigate the effects of climate change.

The organisation lamented that Africa has sufficient arable land to be the world's breadbasket, but instead, rural communities are being devastated by the impacts of climate change and conflict, leaving smallholder farmers unable to work or generate sufficient food for their populations.

“The International Fund for Agricultural Development has the potential to improve the lives of up to 110-million small-scale farmers and their communities now,” it said.

TimesLIVE

Support independent journalism by subscribing to the Sunday Times. Just R20 for the first month.