Citizens for the World

The Reality

• Approximately 790 million people in the developing world are still chronically under-nourished, almost two-thirds of whom reside in Asia and the Pacific.
• The lives of 1.7 million children will be needlessly lost because world governments have failed to reduce poverty levels.
  
• The poorer the country, the more likely it is that debt repayments are being extracted directly from people who neither contracted the loans nor received any of the money.

The Truth

• “We also know that disparities in progress, both among and within countries, are vast, and that the poorest among us, mostly those in remote rural areas, are being left behind.” — Jose Ocampo, UN Under-Secretary-General for Economic and Social Affairs
• “Almost half the world’s population lives on less then two dollars a day, yet even this statistic fails to capture the humiliation, powerlessness and brutal hardship that is the daily lot of the world’s poor.” — Kofi Annan, former UN Secretary General
• “It’s hard to escape the conclusion that in our world, some lives are seen as worth saving, but others are not.” — Bill Gates

The Solution: Poverty Eradication Proposals

Citizens for the World supports and fights hard for:

• Debt Cancellation: debt repayments severely hurt economic and social progress for developing countries. Each year, many countries spend more paying back debt than on health care or education. Why? Some of the loans went to prop up governments or military regimes that are now long gone. Some were given by rich countries in ways that served their own self-interest. Whatever the reason, today the poorest countries are saddled with debts they have to pay back at the expense of their own people. We need to look forward instead of backward, therefore Citizens for the World champion 100% debt cancellation for developing countries.
• Fair Trade: fair trade promotes equitable standards for international labour, environmentalism, and social policy. It is a trading partnership, based on dialogue, transparency and respect, which seeks greater equity in international trade. It contributes to sustainable development by offering better trading conditions to, and securing the rights of, marginalized producers and workers in Asia. Fair trade organizations (backed by consumers) are engaged actively in supporting producers, awareness raising and in campaigning for changes in the rules and practice of conventional international trade.
• Micro-financing: the extension of very small loans (microloans) to the unemployed, and to others living in poverty who are not bankable. These individuals lack collateral, steady employment and a verifiable credit history and therefore cannot meet even the most minimum qualifications to gain access to traditional credit. Micro-financing is a financial innovation which originated in developing countries where it has successfully enabled extremely impoverished people to engage in self-employment projects that allow them to generate an income and, in many cases, begin to build wealth and exit poverty.