We are thrilled to announce that Cat Tully has joined the ASAP Board of Directors. Cat is director of FromOverHere, a consultancy providing strategy and foreign policy advice. Cat has been a major contributor to ASAP\’s growing global network as co-chair of ASAP UK with Meera Tiwari. ASAP UK recently hosted a very successful workshop on curbing illicit financial flows post-2015.
Three leaders of civil society organizations have joined the ASAP Advisory Board, once entirely composed of academics. Raymond Baker, President of Global Financial Integrity, Alnoor Ladha, Co-founder of The Rules, and Leila Janah Founder and CEO of Samasource will sit on the 21-person board, providing direction and advice to ASAP’s Board of Directors and staff.
ASAP President Thomas Pogge speaking at the RSA in London on February 27, 2013, presenting his argument for a new global institutional commitment to the swift and complete eradication of severe poverty.
In conversation with Stephen Lewis, Distinguished Visiting Professor, Ryerson University and former UN Special Envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa. Lewis gives his assessment of the strengths and weaknesses of the Millennium Development Goals.
Produced by: Mitu Sengupta (Director, ASAP Canada) & James Loney
(0:16): Aspirations
(2:00): Gender Equality
(5:09): On Process
(8:06): MDGs Replacements
(9:30): Who is Responsible?
(12:31): Accountability
(14:24): Naming and Shaming
(16:22): Three Must-Have Features
(21:10): Why Global Poverty Persists
(23:32): Opportunities for Advocacy
(27:11): MDGs and Human Rights
(28:50) Three Ways to Beat Global Poverty
(32:13): What Canadians Can Do
Thomas Pogge, President of ASAP, and Mitu Sengupta, ASAP Board Member and President of ASAP Canada, published an essay in the Guardian\’s development blog, Poverty Matters. Sengupta and Pogge argue that affluent people have influenced the shape global rules and institutions to their own advantage. Some of these structures–like the TRIPS agreement and the global network of tax havens–are perpetuating poverty. The authors argue that the global development framework that will succeed the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in 2015 ought to catalyze the reform of these harmful arrangements. To put such reforms into motion, the post-2015 development agenda must identify specific steps to be taken by specific actors; without such actor responsibility, the MDG successors will fall short of their potential to benefit people in poverty.
Read the full article on the Guardian website.
ASAP Oceania, a new ASAP chapter, recently asked a number of leading academics to analyse the poverty implications of some of the policies of the three major parties in Australia (the Labor Party, the Liberal-National Coalition, and the Greens). It is federal election year in Australia, and the idea was to draw on the expertise of local academics to produce material for public release that will ensure that the question of poverty is given prominence in public debates in the lead up to the election.
Now the election date has been announced (September 7) and the report has been released. It contains 12 short, readable pieces that analyse how the three major parties\’ policies are likely to impact poverty in key policy areas such as education, housing, indigenous policy, refugee and asylum seeker policy, and foreign aid.
Our aim is that the report will stimulate discussion about the poverty implications of the policies of the parties that are seeking the votes of Australians. We hope that it will be followed by more pieces by more scholars who wish to add their analyses. Most importantly, we hope that Australians and our neighbours take account of these pieces and insist that the question of poverty in Australia and the world be moved from the remote periphery to the centre of our debates.
In this second piece in ASAP’s series on the Millennium Development Goals replacement dialogue, contributing writer Robaiya Nusrat speaks to Professor David Hulme, Executive Director of the Brooks World Poverty Institute at the University of Manchester in the United Kingdom. He is a leading researcher and commentator on rural development, microfinance and the MDG efforts.
In this article, we outline reasons why researchers and teachers should want to join Academics Stand Against Poverty, and we discuss the kinds of impact gains that might be realized through collaboration in the ASAP network.
The UN’s High-Level Panel has now issued its detailed recommendations for global poverty alleviation efforts to replace the Millennium Development Goals project, which expires in 2015. The panel, headed by UK Prime Minister David Cameron and including political leaders, diplomats and poverty experts from around the world, has called for the eradication of severe poverty by 2030 and vigorously addressing climate change, among numerous other proposals (http://www.post2015hlp.org/). The recommendations will form the basis for dialogue between UN member states over the next two years about a new global agreement on poverty and development. ASAP is interviewing experts on global poverty about the new recommendations and the likely
ASAP President Thomas Pogge has an original prescription for the post-MDG agenda, according to The Guardian.
Pogge argues that the post-2015 global development framework must be fundamentally different than the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) it is replacing. According to Mark Tran\’s post on Poverty Matters, the Guardian\’s development blog, Pogge sees two major failings in the MDGs: lack of ambition and lack of accountability for developed countries. With the MDGs, deeply unambitious poverty alleviation goals were masked by shifting methodology for poverty measurement. The framework also failed to put clear demands on developed countries to contribute to poverty alleviation. MDG 8, the only goal that applies to the developed world, is entirely devoid of measurable targets.
Pogge argues that the persistence of poverty can to a large extent be attributed to global practices, like trade protectionism, corporate tax dodging, and arms export, that can only be stopped by developing countries. In his view, a truly effective post-MDG agenda must target these practices through global reform goals, coupled with precise and consistent goals and indicators for poverty alleviation.
