Preceding ASAP\’s 2017 conference on 26 October, 2017, ASAP held an intensive workshop for its chapter network, with the goal of carrying forward our new chapter-centric strategic plan and building greater capacity to affect poverty around the world. Representatives from Brazil, Cambodia, Chile, Romania, the United Kingdom, USA and West Africa participated in the event. Activities included capacity building, sharing of achievements, networking, and brainstorming new collaborative project ideas and fundraising strategies. The day was charged with enthusiasm for our common mission and many new connections and ideas were formed.

The fourth annual Amartya Sen Prize was awarded on 27 October, 2017 by Academics Stand Against Poverty and Global Financial Integrity for the best original essay on the moral assessment of tax dodging. This year’s recipient is Mattia Anesa, Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the University of Queensland, Australia.

The award was presented during the first day of the conference Onslaughts on the Poor: Corruption, Emissions, Violence, jointly organized by Yale University, Academics Stand Against Poverty and Global Financial Integrity, during which Mattia presented his work to the conference audience.

There’s still time to organise activities for Global Climate Change Week 2017 (Oct 9-15). Here are a few suggestions, with links to some examples universities organised for GCCWeek in 2015 and 2016.

• Panel discussions on one or another aspect of climate change (like this one at North Western University (South Africa), this one at the University of Zanjan (Iran), and this one at the University of California Berkeley (USA))
• Divestment events (like this one at the University of New South Wales (Australia), and this one at the University of East Anglia (UK)) (for information about divestment see 350.org)
• Meetings with local groups fighting climate change like this event at Willamette University (USA)
• Movie showings (such as The Age of Consequences, Chasing Ice, Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Sequel, and many more)

For more ideas for activities see the links given here and here to GCCWeek activities in 2015 and 2016, and our How to organize Global Climate Change Week at your university guide.

So please spread the word, follow GCCWeek on twitter (hashtag #GCCW17), and register for GCCWeek (you can register your interesthere and register activities here).

Best of luck from the GCCWeek team!

Global Climate Change Week (http://globalclimatechangeweek.com/) aims to encourage academic communities – including academics, students, and professional staff at universities – in all disciplines and countries to engage with each other, their communities, and policy makers on climate change action and solutions.

Academics Stand Against Poverty (http://academicsstand.org/) is an international association focused on helping researchers and teachers enhance their impact on poverty.

ASAP member Tendayi Bloom has published a new blog post for the Refugee Law Initiative blog at the School of Advanced Study University of London. The post addresses the issue of statelessness and its relevance to the Global Compact on Migration:

Statelessness need not have anything to do with crossing borders, but it is essential to consider in the context of the global compact for migration.

After providing a thorough overview of the issues facing stateless persons and how the international community should respond, she concludes:

When individuals have no formal citizenship and no route to a formal citizenship, and when access to human rights including the right to move are contingent on being a citizen somewhere, this is in effect a denial of this basic truth: that each of us must live somewhere and must satisfy our basic needs somewhere on earth.

Read the full blog post on the RLI blog

Tendayi Bloom is a Lecturer in Politics and International Studies at The Open University in the UK and member of Academics Stand Against Poverty. Her work explores questions of noncitizenship, migration, statelessness and justice. Her work on statelessness can be found in a recent Discover Society blog series, and in a book, Understanding Statelessness, which she co-edited with Katherine Tonkiss and Phillip Cole. A more detailed treatment of Dr Bloom’s own position on the nature of the noncitizen-State relationship is developed in her forthcoming book, Noncitizenism: Recognising Noncitizen Capabilities in a World of Citizens.

ASAP\’s Membership Director Jason Hickel has written a new book titled The Divide: A Brief Guide to Global Inequality and its Solutions.

For decades we have been told a story about the divide between rich countries and poor countries.

We have been told that development is working: that the global South is catching up to the North, that poverty has been cut in half over the past thirty years, and will be eradicated by 2030. It’s a comforting tale, and one that is endorsed by the world’s most powerful governments and corporations. But is it true?

Since 1960, the income gap between the North and South has roughly tripled in size. Today 4.3 billion people, 60 per cent of the world\’s population, live on less than $5 per day. Some 1 billion live on less than $1 a day. The richest eight people now control the same amount of wealth as the poorest half of the world combined.

What is causing this growing divide? We are told that poverty is a natural phenomenon that can be fixed with aid. But in reality it is a political problem: poverty doesn’t just exist, it has been created.

Poor countries are poor because they are integrated into the global economic system on unequal terms. Aid only works to hide the deep patterns of wealth extraction that cause poverty and inequality in the first place: rigged trade deals, tax evasion, land grabs and the costs associated with climate change. The Divide tracks the evolution of this system, from the expeditions of Christopher Columbus in the 1490s to the international debt regime, which has allowed a handful of rich countries to effectively control economic policies in the rest of the world.

Because poverty is a political problem, it requires political solutions. The Divide offers a range of revelatory answers, but also explains that something much more radical is needed – a revolution in our way of thinking. Drawing on pioneering research, detailed analysis and years of first-hand experience, The Divide is a provocative, urgent and ultimately uplifting account of how the world works, and how it can change.

Jason Hickel is an anthropologist at the London School of Economics. Originally from Swaziland, he spent a number of years living with migrant workers in South Africa, studying patterns of exploitation and political resistance in the wake of apartheid. Alongside his ethnographic work, he writes about development, inequality, and global political economy, contributing regularly to the Guardian, Al Jazeera and other online outlets. His work has been funded by Fulbright-Hays Program, the National Science Foundation, the Wenner-Gren Foundation, the Charlotte Newcombe Foundation and the Leverhulme Trust. He lives in London.

You can purchase The Divide on the Penguin Press website

ASAP was recently cited on Channel 4 in a segment titled \”Poverty ‘neglected’ in party manifestos\”. The segment echos the conclusion of ASAP UK\’s audit of the major parties\’ manifestos in the 2017 UK General Election: that political parties are failing to address growing levels of poverty across the country. Presenter Jackie Long then visits housing estates on North Tyneside to interview residents about the election and political parties.

Watch the segment and learn more about the UK election audit at the audit website.

An audit of the major UK political parties’ manifestos by a group of leading academics and ASAP (Academics Stand Against Poverty UK) has revealed a failure to grasp the key issues behind growing levels of poverty in the UK and the lack of a realistic path for a sustainable and prosperous future.
Using a scoring system to assess the likely effectiveness of party policies to reduce poverty, the Conservatives, with a score of less than two out of five, were substantially behind Labour and the Liberal Democrats, who both score more than 3.6 and 3.2 respectively.

The key results were:

• Labour scored highest across all policy areas except the Environment and Sustainability, with an overall score of 3.6, compared to 3.2 for the Liberal Democrats and just 1.5 for the Conservatives
• The Liberal Democrats came a close second to Labour, and stand out in comparison to the other parties for their environmental policies
• The Conservatives scored worst in every topic, never scoring higher than 2, indicating low confidence in their policies across the board

Catarina Tully, Co-Chair of ASAP UK, said, “According to ASAP’s audit, Labour’s plans are the most transparent and detailed, and most likely to lead to improved quality of life for British society generally. The Conservative Party’s manifesto is the vaguest and offers little that is concrete in the way of plans for raising quality of life. The truth is that, across the board, the parties fail to mention Britain’s deep economic sustainability problems: significant current account and trade deficits plus rising household debt. Since our last audit prior to the 2015 General Election, the Conservatives have gone backwards, scoring no more than two out of five across all policy areas, whilst the Labour Party has leapfrogged the Liberal Democrats, standing out particularly for their social agenda.”

The audit is a detailed analysis of each of the parties’ manifesto commitments by experts in a range of policy areas. Each area was rated on a scale of one to five of confidence level in how each party’s manifesto addresses poverty and enables a flourishing life for the UK public.

The audit was undertaken by leading academics from 23 universities across the UK to help voters make informed decisions on election day. ASAP believes that recent trends in poverty have become more acute over the last two years suggesting austerity is affecting the most vulnerable in society disproportionately. It also has specific concerns about the quality of information and use of manifestos in the political debates.

Catarina Tully added, “Never has the need for credible and authoritative analysis been more important. The proliferation of fake news weakens democratic systems, meaning trust in politicians, the media, and even institutions like charities is at an all time low. ASAP UK believes academics and their expertise play a critical role in better informing the debate around the election.”

For more information about the audit, please visit ukpovertyaudit.academicsstand.org.

The XXVIII World Congress of the International Association for the Philosophy of Law and Social Philosophy (IVR) will be held in Lisbon, Portugal from July 17 to July 21, 2017.

The Congress theme will be \”Peace Based on Human Rights\”. The languages of the Congress will be English, French, German, Spanish and Portuguese.

Special Workshops must be proposed by May 15

Abstracts for Working Groups must be submitted by May 15

For more information and to register for the meeting, please visit ivr2017lisbon.org.

2016 was a dynamic year for the ASAP network, with exciting developments at the global level and among our growing network of chapters.

ASAP Global

• ASAP Global held two successful conferences at Yale University: “The New Philanthropy: Effective Altruism and Beyond” (May 2016) and “New Topics in Global Justice” (October 2016). These conferences convened many forward-thinking academics to debate burning issues related to philanthropy, global poverty and justice.
• ASAP Global completed a number of major capacity-building efforts, introducing a new administrative system, accounting system and database, positioning the organisation for successful growth and increased impact in 2017.

ASAP Chapters

ASAP\’s Chapter Network produced prolific outputs in 2016. What follows is a selection of achievements shared by representatives of ASAP chapters.

ASAP Cambodia

• ASAP Cambodia produced twelve senior project research studies on various issues related to poverty alleviation through Pannasastra University of Cambodia\’s Faculty of Social Sciences and International Relations (SSIR).
• The chapter provided technical assistance to the Cambodia Council of Ministers in assessing the needs of four impoverished villages in Takeo Province and conducted an inspection of these villages in January 2016. The inspection revealed that access to primary health care services and basic water and sanitation facilities were major concerns by the poor village population.
• To assist the villagers in the provision of curative and preventive health care services, ASAP Cambodia coordinated with the Rotary Club of Metro Phnom Penh to send an American medical team to these villages in the early part of 2017. ASAP Cambodia arranged for 10 university students to assist the team, and a total of 4,320 indigent patients were able to access curative and preventive health care services during five days of clinic outreach.
• The chapter enabled Pannasastra University\’s Student Senate to incorporate poverty alleviation programs and projects in their community outreach activities, facilitating a high level of awareness on poverty issues among student leaders and sharing of resources for community action projects for the poor.

ASAP Germany & Austria

• Members of ASAP Germany and Austria started a book series on Philosophy and Poverty through Springer Publishing, the Advisory Board of which also includes members of ASAP Spain and Canada.

ASAP Greece

• ASAP Greece launched a new academic series with Papazisis Publishing on \”The Reform of the Social State\”, with the first book Flagship Initiatives to Safeguard Social Cohesion During Austerity Times – The Paradigm of the Greek Social Inclusion Strategy by ASAP Greece Coordinator Gabriel Amitsis published in 2016.
• Several other publications were produced by chapter members, including:
  • Amitsis G. (2016): \”The Development of National Asylum Policies in Times of Economic Recession: Challenges for Greece\”, Transnational Social Review, 2016, 6(1-2), 204-208.
  • Chtouris S. et ot. (2016): \”A Concept on the Dialectical Methodology of Empirical Research – The Paradigm of Focus Groups on the Social and Labour Integration of Young People\”, Greek Social Research Journal, 145 (in Greek).
  • Papatheodoridis, G., Thomas H. C. …., Yfantopoulos J. et ot. (2016): \”Addressing Barriers to the Prevention, Diagnosis and Treatment of Hepatitis B and C in the Face of Persisting Fiscal Constraints in Europe – Report from a High Level Conference\”, Journal of Viral Hepatitis, 23 (Suppl. 1), 10-12.
  • Stergiou A. (2016): \”The Development of Second Pillar Pensions in the Greek Framework\”, Labour Law Review, 75(10) (in Greek).

ASAP Oceania

• ASAP Oceania conducted the Australian Poverty Audit, turning the spotlight on the poverty reduction policies of the major political parties to inform policy debate during the July 2016 election. Parts of the report were published in local news media outlets as well as academic blogs.

ASAP Romania

• ASAP Romania organised and participated in meetings with government officials and poverty/development experts, leading to a new governmental programme for poverty reduction at a national level. This effort followed on successful efforts in the previous year to inform and advise the UN delegation to Romania led by Special Rapporteur on Extreme Poverty Philip Alston, resulting in partial inclusion of ASAP Romania\’s analysis in the delegation\’s preliminary report.
• ASAP Romania subsequently organised a press conference for the Rapporteur and publicised the report extensively on social media, which were critical in influencing the new government.

ASAP Spain

• ASAP Spain contributed to many conferences and workshops in 2016 including:
  • Masterclass with Noam Chomsky on Migration (United Nations University\’s Center for Globalisation, Culture and Mobility)
  • Conference on Simon Caney\’s On Cosmopolitanism (Center for the Study of Global Ethics, Birmingham University)
  • \”Global Animals\” with Jeff McMahan, J. Mosterin, O. Horta, A. Williams, C. Faria discussing topics at the intersection of animal ethics and global justice (organised by P. Casal)
  • \”Ethics and Child Public Health\” workshop (Madrid, November 10-11, 2016): part of the \”Social Justice and Child Poverty\” research project funded by the Austrian Science Fund (FWF): P 26480 in cooperation with the JuriLog Group of the Institute for Philosophy of the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC)
  • \”The Increasing Demand for Institutional Accountability in the International Order\”, in the Winter School on Soft Law and Legal Theory, organised by the University of Palermo, February 15-19 2016 (Luis Martí)
  • \”Republicanism and Legitimate Constitution Making\”, in the Workshop on the Future of Democracy, organised by the EDDA Research Center of the University of Iceland, May 20-22, 2016
  • \”Compromise and Deliberative Democracy\” in the Workshop on Compromise and Democracy organised by the University of Copenhagen, October 2016
  • \”Domination and the Republican Case for Global Labor Regulations\”, in the \”Workshop on Theories of Domination and Labor Law: A New Conception for Legal Intervention?\”, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow October 2016
  • \”Republican Perspectives on International Courts\” workshop at Pompeu Fabra University, May 6-7, 2016. Speakers included Follesdal, Viehof and Bellamy, among others
• Paula Casal participated in the International Panel on Social Progress
• Members of ASAP Spain received grants for research pertaining to poverty measurement, ethics and global justice and contributed to several publications, including:
  • Un reparto más justo de planeta (Trotta, Madrid 2016) David Rodríguez-Arias, Jordi Maiso and Catherine Heeney (Eds.)
  • Justicia ¿Para todos? Perspectivas filosóficas sobre la Justicia. (Plaza y Valdés, Madrid 2016)
  • Chapter: \”Exclusion from Healthcare in Spain: The Responsibility for Omission of Due Care\” by Rosana Triviño, David Rodríguez-Arias and Txetxu Ausín, in Helmut P. Gaisbauer Gottfried Schweiger and Clemens Sedmak (ed.) Ethical Issues in Poverty Alleviation, Doordrecht, Springer, 2016

ASAP UK

• ASAP UK\’s \’Global Systemic Change\’ Roundtable was hosted by the University of Oxford in March 2016. It explored the different frameworks and assumptions held by various actors working on systemic change. The event was attended by a diverse range of individuals from academia, movements and organisations including Effective Altruists, New Economics Foundation (NEF), Finance Innovation Lab, World Bank, Tax Justice Network, Save the Children and the Department for International Development (DfID)
• The chapter is now delivering a fourteen-chapter publication on systemic change written by event participants, which will launch soon in London and Oxford.

ASAP West Africa

• ASAP West Africa held a successful two day conference at the University of Lagos. Its keynote address titled \”Corruption, Transparency and Accountability in Public and Private Sector Organisations\” was delivered by Mr. Waziri Adio, the Executive Secretary of the Nigerian Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI)
• A policy paper, \”The Power of Infrastructure: How The Post-2015 Architecture of Development Assistance (ODA) will Shape the Future of African Economy\” was written by Saidu Ahmed Enagi (Deputy Coordinator Africa Affairs, CNRJ International and ASAP West Africa Youth Ambassador)
• ASAP West Africa initiated its \”Access to Justice\” program for the poor in December 2016, which will commence in April 2017

New ASAP Chapters

• New ASAP chapters were launched in Ireland, Chile and the Philippines. ASAP Spain assisted in the creation of ASAP Chile and participated in its inaugural conference.

ASAP would like to invite those attending the 2017 ISA Conference in Baltimore to join us for dinner and discussion on Thursday, February 23rd at 7:00 pm at the Baltimore Hilton.

Please contact Kathleen (admin@fromoverhere.co.uk) if you\’d like to attend.