Category: October 2019

By Citizens for Financial Justice

Citizens for Financial Justice new report – Spotlight on financial justice: understanding global inequalities to overcome financial injustice – is being released on Thursday, 26 September 2019, to coincide with the High Level Dialogue on Financing for Development at the UN.

The report was compiled by Citizens for Financial Justice partners and other contributors, coordinated by Flora Sonkin and Stefano Prato, Society for International Development (SID); Ida Quarteyson and Matti Kohonen, Christian Aid; and Nicola Scherer, Debt Observatory in Globalisation (ODG).

Authors and contributors have come from the following organisations: Christian Aid; Counter Balance; Debt Observatory in Globalisation (ODG); DemNet; FIAN International; Financial Justice Ireland; Globalinfo; KULU – Women and Development; Polska Zielona Siec /Polish Green Network; Recommon; Sempreviva Organização Feminista (SOF); Society for International Development (SID). Special thanks to Karen Judd for copyediting.

Rising inequalities between the global North and South, the economically privileged and the marginalized, between different genders and racial identities, have been historically reproduced and intensified across generations, and are defining features of our times. For instance, while global challenges such as climate change and environmental degradation undoubtedly affect all of us as humans living on Earth, they certainly do not affect us all equally. Differences in geographic location, economic status, gender, age, all come into play if we look at the groups who are systematically suffering from climate change’s harsh consequences.

This is because the current rules of our global economy reproduce a vicious circle of inequality: growing economic inequality and wealth concentration increase political inequality by expanding the ability of corporate and financial elites to influence policy-making and protect their wealth and privileges. Higher levels of inequalities are then passed on to the next generations, culminating in long-term disparities and unfairness felt by marginalized groups.

Especially since the 2008 global financial crisis hit, the governance structures and economic (de)regulations that got us there, especially the unchecked expansion of the financial sector over the rest of the economy or ‘financialization’, finally raised enough red flags. While major banks were bailed out by taxpayer’s money, states neglected their basic human rights obligations by turning to austerity measures, creating pervasive impacts on people’s lives around the globe. Consequences include reducing communities’ access to common natural resources and restricting the delivery of basic public services such as healthcare and housing to the most disadvantaged groups.

In recent years, a significant increase of disparities within and between countries has finally put inequalities under the spotlight within international development debates.[4] The 2030 Agenda recognized addressing their multiple facets (economic, political, social) as one of its Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), signalling the international community’s commitment to reducing inequalities.

To take advantage of this momentum, understanding the main contemporary drivers of inequalities and finding common strategies to address them are necessary steps towards systemic socio-economic transformation and social justice. Looking at our current challenges through the lens of inequalities offers then a remarkable transformational potential: tackling inequalities in their multidimensional character – social, political, economic, spatial and intergenerational – can become a sort of guiding star in a complex world, an overarching goal to advance sustainable development and address the root causes of marginalization. As part of this effort, this report tackles the inequalities question by looking at one of its main current drivers, the financialization of our global economy, as well as at its counterpart, financial justice.

Through five thematic chapters –

1. Food and land
2. Health
3. Women’s rights
4. Housing
5. Infrastructure

– the report shows that rising inequalities, and the overexpansion of the finance industry as one of its key contemporary drivers, have been created and reproduced by skewed and unfair rules of the game. There is therefore an urgent need for peoples’ movements to converge around a common agenda for taking back our economies, reclaiming public services, and protecting our common natural resources. Through this report it becomes evident that local level resistance to financial actors’ penetration is extremely important, but that confronting the drivers of inequality which are now global, such as financialization, requires concerted efforts at higher levels of policy-making as well.

Four main pillars for action are proposed:

Promote shared understanding and ongoing questioning of the dynamics of financialization

It is essential to raise people’s awareness around the very real impacts of financialization on their lives and to provide fresh analytical tools to question current dynamics. Challenging the inequalities problem and how the multiplicity and expansion of financial actors and services is contributing to the problem can avoid unintended complicity, particularly given the insidious and overly covert manner in which these dynamics infiltrate multiple domains of life;

Resist ongoing attempts to shift decision-making away from legitimate and democratic policy spaces, often in the name of ‘financing opportunities’ to advance progress

At the local and national levels, supporting social movements’ resistance to harmful projects, policies and other interventions backed by global financial actors can create tangible wins and can put a face and shape onto a struggle that can so often feel immaterial and hard to grasp;

Reaffirm national sovereignty to re-establish healthy boundaries to financial liberalization and provide critical financing to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

The latest global financial crisis has critically exposed the vulnerabilities of a liberalized, privately focused financial system. However, many underlying structural conditions that led to the crisis have been only mildly addressed, if at all. It is therefore essential to re-establish national sovereignty to help prevent the next crisis while providing critical financing for sustainable development. This calls for exploring the potential of national development banks, restoring the management of capital accounts within the standard policy toolkits of governments, and, introduce a system of financial transaction taxes, among other measures;

Democratize global economic governance

At the global level, social justice and rights-based narratives should be at the heart of the process of reshaping powerful global institutions and reforming global economic governance. Different sectoral struggles should unite under a common agenda, advocating for the reform of existing institutions and the establishment of new ones which are able to regulate the new and fast evolving financial actors, and can bring finance back into democratic accountability and control. This calls not only for building convergence on existing proposals regarding critical new pillars of a democratized economic governance ecosystem, such as an intergovernmental tax body and sovereign debt workout institution under the aegis of the United Nations, but also for addressing the institutional vacuum in regulating financial actors, mostly though not exclusively the asset management industry. Such measures could translate in enhanced transparency, participation, and public oversight of domestic and global tax, fiscal and financial policy-making.

The time is ripe for acknowledging people’s struggles to resist the multiple facets of the process of financializaton, and for converging strategies to address multiple dimensions of inequality to reach financial justice. The time for financial justice activism is now!

By Khaled Diab, EEB

Since last Friday, millions of protesters around the world have taken to the streets and even infiltrated the corridors of power for a week of sustained protest to demand climate action and sustainability now.

Friday 20 September 2019 kicked off the week-long Global Climate Strike or Global Week for the Future, which is spearheaded by the Fridays for Future movement, and the Global Week of Action for Sustainable Development which runs under the slogan #StandTogetherNow.

Millions were mobilised worldwide on Friday, with reports suggesting that it was the largest climate protest in history. Protests took place in an estimated 185 countries, with the largest number of protesters reported in Germany, where 1.4 million people joined marches in different parts of the country.

But protests were not just confined to streets and squares. A number of child and youth activists were invited inside the UN’s halls, including Greta Thunberg, the 16-year-old Swede who spearheads the global Fridays for Future movement, which started just a year ago as a one-girl protest outside the Swedish parliament.

“People are suffering; people are dying; entire ecosystems are collapsing. We are in the beginning of a mass extinction and all you can talk about is money and fairy tales of eternal economic growth,” Thunberg told governments at the climate summit. “The eyes of all future generations are upon you. And if you choose to fail us, I say we will never forgive you. We will not let you get away with this. Right here, right now is where we draw the line.”

Words speak as loud as actions

In Brussels, which has been the scene of sustained protest for months with the largest climate demonstration drawing 70,000 in January, an estimated 15,000 people marched through the Belgian and EU capital.

The Brussels march was spearheaded by the Belgian chapter of Fridays for Future, with the EEB as a co-organiser on behalf of SDG Watch Europe.

“We need to put pressure on our politicians to do something about the climate crisis,” Anuna De Wever, the Belgian youth climate activist, told Meta. “They need to show ambition and they need to show courage. We need system change.”

The march ended up on Schuman Square, at the very heart of the European quarter, to send a clear message to EU leaders. There, SDG Watch Europe rallied hundreds of protesters to form three words: ‘climate’, ‘equality’ and ‘voice’.

The word ‘climate’ was chosen for obvious reasons. We are in the midst of a climate emergency, and failure to act now is likely to spell catastrophe for humanity and the natural world.

The word ‘voice’ signifies that everyone has the right to speak their mind and to speak up for their rights, no matter their background or circumstances, and opposes attempts to silence people, especially the vulnerable and marginalised.

The word ‘equality’ was selected to highlight how alarmingly inequalities have widened in Europe and around the world and to demand action to create a world of greater equality and justice.

These three words were selected to represent some of the key demands of the #StandTogetherNow campaign, which seeks to draw attention to the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

“This week, all around the globe people are taking action with a clear call to policymakers: we want to see more ambition in order to achieve the SDGs by 2030,” says the EEB’s Director of Global Policies and Sustainability Patrizia Heidegger. “Four years of inaction have passed: 2020 to 2030 must now be the decade of action in which we change course and lead humanity on the path of sustainability.”

Wanted: Sustainability Heroes

The action week coincided with the fourth anniversary of the Sustainable Development Goals, a set of 17 ambitious targets agreed by the international community which seek, among other things, to eradicate poverty, narrow inequalities, tackle global warming, protect nature and ensure that humanity lives within the boundaries of the planet.

To mark the fourth anniversary, an SDG Summit was hosted by the United Nations in New York. “Half the wealth around the world is held by people who could fit around a conference table, and, at the current pace, almost 500 million people could remain in extreme poverty by 2030,” noted UN Secretary-General António Guterres. “We must step up our efforts. Now.”

Despite progress in some areas, Europe, like most of the world, is way behind on its implementation of the SDGs, both at home and abroad, as reflected in the widening inequalities within Europe and in how the EU exports misery to other parts of the world.

To convince policymakers and politicians of the importance of championing not only the climate crisis but also of pursuing the holistic approach to the environmental, economic and social challenges facing us represented by the SDGs, the EEB and its Make Europe Sustainable for All (MESA) partners organised events and actions across the EU.

On behalf of SDG Watch Europe, the EEB sent out a job ad for ‘Sustainability Heroes’ to members of the European Parliament. The EEB also took to filmmaking. In a light-hearted animated film produced on behalf of SDG Watch Europe, a selection panel inspired by the pantheon of ancient gods interview prospective MEPs for the role of Sustainability Heroes. Watch the video here.

By Khaled Diab, EEB

As part of the global climate strike on Friday 20 September, hundreds of protesters in the EU district in Brussels stood together to form the words ‘climate’, ‘equality’ and ‘voice’ to send a symbolic message to European Union leaders.

At the culmination of the march in the Belgian and EU capital, at Schuman Square, outside the EU Council and the European Commission, volunteers came together to from three words, ‘climate’, ‘equality’ and ‘voice’ (a high-resolution photos are available here – credit: Sonia Goicoechea, EEB).

These three words were selected to represent the key demands of the #StandTogetherNow campaign, which is being co-organised by SDG Watch Europe to draw attention to the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

The word ‘climate’ was chosen to highlight the need for climate and environmental justice. We are in the midst of a climate emergency, and failure to act now is likely to spell catastrophe for humanity and the natural world.

The word ‘voice’ signifies that everyone, especially the vulnerable and marginalised, has the right to speak their mind and to speak up for their rights, no matter their background or circumstances and to highlight shrinking civic space.

The ‘equality’ symbol was selected to highlight how alarmingly inequalities have widened in Europe and around the world and to demand action to create a world of greater equality and justice.

“Today we sent a strong signal to the new political leadership of the EU. Young and old, individuals and whole organisations marched hand in hand towards the European Commission building with our message: we need politics for people and planet,” said EEB’s Director of Global Policies and Sustainability Patrizia Heidegger, who is also a member of the SDG Watch Europe steering group. “We need more ambition. We need political leaders to now deliver concrete steps for a healthy climate, thriving nature, and happy people.”

The European Environmental Bureau (EEB), as lead partner of the Make Europe Sustainable for All (MESA) project and a member of SDG Watch Europe, as well as Global Call to Action Against Poverty (GCAP), teamed up with the Fridays for Future movement to co-organise the ‘Global Strike for Future Belgium III’ in Brussels as part of the Global Week of Action (20-27 September).