Take part in the Campaign Week (17-24 October 2008)
"To ensure financing for development and MDGs...
To eradicate poverty...
To abolish usurious debt...
... Reform international institutions
...implement the CTT. The time is ripe"
We are writing to thank you for your interest and for supporting the World Campaign for in-depth Reform of the System of International Institutions, and also to urge you to take part, like last year, in the project the Campaign Week, aimed at achieving a significant surge in the number of supporting individuals..
As you know, this Campaign is a middle and long term challenge and sometimes the efforts and messages can be blurred. For this reason we think that it is important to give a special intensity to the Campaign on a specific days in which all the organisations involved can work together to increase the number of supporters.
The proposal: each organisation collects 50 signatures for the Campaign
Our proposal is for your organisation to collect 50 signatures from individuals in support of the Campaign, over the period from 17 to 24 October.
You would have noticed that the slogan of the Week has changed slightly. The reason is because this year the Campaign has focused on the follow-up of the preparatory process for the Review Conference of the Monterrey Consensus on Financing for Development that will be held in Doha (Qatar) next December.
In this context, we propose: "CTT for FfD"- "CTT for FfD"- "Currency Transaction Tax for Financing for Development". The proposal refers to the application of a tiny levy (in the region of 0.005%) on international currency movements. Given the huge amount of money involved in currency exchanges, applying this tax would enable a very significant amount of resources for development to be collected.
Specifically, we propose that the outcomes of Doha meeting should include the creation of a Global Tax on Currency Transactions (CTT for FfD) as an additional, predictable, stable and sustainable source of Financing for Development, the funds from it being channelled into multilateral funds run by the United Nations for use, initially, in achieving the MDGs by 2015. For more information on the CTT, see the website www.cttforffd.net.
In short we propose that financing for development be based not only on official development assistance (which must of course now be raised without further delays of any kind to 0,7% of the GDP of the rich and powerful countries), but also on the indispensable and just redistribution of the economic wealth generated in the world.
Such redistribution can only be assured by a reformed system of international institutions, one that must evolve, as we always say in the context of the "WORLD CAMPAIGN FOR IN-DEPTH REFORM OF THE SYSTEM OF INTERNATIONAL INSTITUTIONS", towards a new system of Democratic World Governance capable of collecting and managing those global levies, among other things.
A shared moment
As you now, this proposal also brings synergies with other proposals to which the Campaign is linked. This is why we invite you to participate in the activities of the Global Call to Action against Poverty (GCAP), especially on the 17 October (for more information on the GCAP, see their website www.whiteband.org), as well as in the activities of the Global Debt Week which will be held on 14-21 October (for more information on the week of action against debt, see their website www.debtweek.org).
To conclude: for all those reasons, we are inviting you to collect 50 signatures as a sign of support, from 17 to 24 October, thus contributing your irreplaceable collaboration in boosting the Campaign, in synergy with the other mobilisation drives scheduled, and of course with your own activities.
We hope you will find this proposal of interest, and that we can count on a contribution from you as on other occasions.
SOME QUESTIONS:
- Why do we organise the Campaign Week?
- To enable us to feel part of a support network of over 2,100 organisations and more than 41,000 people all over the world;
- To boost the Campaign, and win significantly more support for it among individuals, and
- To make the Campaign and its objectives much more widely known all over the world
- Why those dates?
- October will see activity across the board, and that will make it easy for all organisations to get involved in the project, adapting it to their own way of working. Those dates were chosen on account of their significance in terms of the Campaign:
- 17 October is set as the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty, an objective (what objective is not more a means than an end?) that has always been a top priority in the Campaign, since poverty is a cause, component and consequence of many of the problems we are tackling; and
- 24 October is United Nations Day, the day of an organisation which, once strengthened and democratised, is envisaged by the Campaign as being the centrepiece of the future thoroughly reformed System of International Institutions.
- How should you collect signatures?
- How can you send the signatures to us?
- It would be of great help to us if you could use the form attached (form_org.xls) for recording the data for the signatures collected, and then send the completed form to us by e-mail to this address info@reformcampaign.net.
- Alternatively, you can send us the printed form used to collect the signatures by fax to +34 93 413 77 77 or by ordinary post to:
- Ubuntu Forum
- Edifici Nexus II
- Jordi Girona, 29
- 08034 Barcelona
- How can you collect signatures via the Internet?
