Micah Challenge in International Team for renewed Global Call to Action against Poverty (GCAP)

Micah Challenge in International Team for renewed Global Call to Action against Poverty (GCAP)

The Global Call to Action Against Poverty (GCAP) has been re-ignited by more than 170 civil society representatives who met in Beirut from March 13-15.

Micah Challenge’s Andean Coordinator, Erika Izquierdo was appointed as one of the six international NGO (INGO) representatives in the new ‘International Facilitation Team’.

Ms Izquierdo said the gathering had critically assessed 2005 but that there had been a passionate consensus to go on. One external reviewer said that in just one year GCAP had generated an extraordinary global influence and media presence. Another leader said that GCAP was not a ‘campaign project’! She said it was like the anti-apartheid movement, and had to set its vision to the long term, at least to the achievement of the MDGs by 2015, while strategizing now for 2006-2007.

The consultation adopted the “Beirut Declaration” and developed a strategic outline for 2006-2007. This new policy platform replaces the Johannesberg Declaration that united ‘white band’ campaigns, like Make Poverty History, globally in 2005.

In addition to ‘eradicating poverty and achieving the Millennium Development Goals’, GCAP now aims to ‘dramatically lessen inequality’.

GCAP renewed its key demands for Trade Justice and Debt Cancellation, and broadened the scope of its call for ‘more and better aid’ to ‘more and better resources for development’, so that it now addresses capital flight and other financing issues.

But elevated above these three demands is a call for ‘public accountability, just governance and human rights’.

The next global ‘white band’ day will be on October 17, 2006, which is the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty. This day of action will be the culmination of a month of mobilisation that will commence on the eve of the World Bank and IMF Meetings in mid-September.

It is likely a similar period mobilisation will be conceived for 2007 to encompass the G8 in and the mid-point of the MDGs.

Micah Challenge International Coordinator, Michael Smitheram said Micah Challenge plans for Micah Sunday, October 15, 2006 and for the “Blow the Whistle” Campaign in 2007 would harmonise well with the GCAP strategy.

Chairperson of the Jubilee Centre, , Mrs Prisca Kambole said she was particularly pleased that a new dialogue among faith based groups in GCAP had commenced in Beirut .