The World Development Movement

[ForemanRules]

About WDM

Invalid Embedded Image Removed The World Development Movement (WDM) tackles the underlying causes of poverty. We lobby decision makers to change the policies that keep people poor. We research and promote positive alternatives. We work alongside people in the developing world who are standing up to injustice.
The world has the wealth and means to end poverty. Yet nearly half of the world's population live on less than 1.40 a day. And over 11 million children will die from poverty-related illness this year alone.
Policies of governments and companies are keeping people poor. Policies that ensure global trade benefits the rich, not the poor.The three richest men in the world are wealthier than the 48 poorest countries combined. Policies that give increasing power to multinational companies. For every 1 of aid going into poor countries, multinationals take 66p of profits out.
The powerful are exploiting the poor to make bigger and bigger profits. Unless we challenge them, we are allowing this injustice to continue. In rich countries like Britain, decisions are made which can make or break the lives of the poor. We can influence those decisions. That's why our action matters so much.
WDM campaigns against the root causes
of poverty
We lobby decision-makers to stop policies that hurt the worlds poor. We research and develop new, positive policy options that support sustainable development.
WDM challenges the powerful
We mobilise consumers, shareholders and governments to hold multinational companies accountable for abuses of power. We are lobbing for reform of the World Trade Organisation (WTO). We support people in the developing world who are standing up to injustice.
WDM changes agendas
After years of campaigning, debt cancellation is now on the international agenda. WDMs High Court victory over the Government stopped British aid budgets being used to support the arms trade instead of the poor. These are just two examples of WDM's campaign successes.
Read our Annual Review for 2004
How WDM works

Invalid Embedded Image RemovedFounded in 1970, WDM is a democratic movement of individual supporters, campaigners and local groups. Much of our work is in partnership with other organisations in the UK and around the world.

WDM produces a range of campaign resources to inform
the public and lobby decision-makers. And we send our supporters and local groups regular mailings with campaign actions to take and our quarterly magazine Action.

WDM has an active network of local groups across the UK. We have offices, in London and Edinburgh, staffed by professional campaigners and volunteers. The direction of WDM's work is decided by our elected Council.
Two thirds of WDM's income is provided by donations from our supporters. We also receive funding from grant-making bodies and trusts. The World Development Movement Trust is WDM's associated charity that provides funds for WDM's research and education on the causes of poverty and possible solutions.
You can help win real and lasting change for the world's poorest people by supporting WDM. You'll be part of an active network of supporters, groups and campaigners, who all want a fairer world. We're a small organisation that gets big results. And we can only do it with the support of people like you.



Home page
http://www.wdm.org.uk/index.htm

 

[ForemanRules]

Press release

For immediate release: Sunday 18 December 2005

WDM response to final declaration: A bad deal for developing countries caps a year of broken promises

Responding to the final Ministerial declaration of the WTO talks in Hong Kong, Peter Hardstaff, Head of Policy at the World Development Movement said: "2005 offered UK campaigners an unprecedented opportunity to achieve real policy changes at the G8, the EU presidency and WTO trade talks. In the end we got inadequate aid promises, a G8 debt deal for just 18 countries that has got lost in the post and now a trade deal that traps developing countries into a cycle of failed free trade policies. Never has so much been promised to so many by so few and so little delivered."
"This is a bad deal for developing countries. Developing countries have traded off some short term gains in agriculture in exchange for the long term loss of economic sovereignty and forced opening of their markets. This is a deal for multinational companies not for the world's poor."
"It is increasingly clear that free trade is not working. Those countries that have opened their markets quickest and most fully have seen increasing poverty. The WTO is ten years old this year and it has entirely failed to address the concerns of the majority of its members - developing countries. Millions around the world see that trade liberalisation threatens their livelihoods and have no faith that the WTO will deliver anything resembling a development agenda. These trade talks have done nothing to change that."
"Developing countries have finally been able to secure some minor measures promised years ago. They have been forced to spend most of their energy attempting fighting off aggressive attempts by the EU to open their markets rather than making any real gains. This declaration marks another large step in the wrong direction for poor countries."
"Setting a date of 2013 to end export subsides is a symbolic gesture of marginal benefit, made ten years late. The gains pail into insignificance compared to the damage that will be done to developing countries by the radical cuts in industrial tariffs and open up trade in services being demanded in return."
In 2004, EU export subsidies amounted to 3 billion Euros, out of a total European agricultural subsidy budget of 58 billion Euros.

 

[Bob Smith]

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