Thousands of activists flooded the streets of Seville on Sunday, demanding an end to the debt crisis, ahead of the United Nations’ global development summit, the Financing for Development conference. The protest was organized by ActionAid in collaboration with other NGO partners.
The protesters emphasized that most countries in the Global South are being crushed under the weight of unsustainable debt. Moreover, the current global financial system perpetuates cycles of poverty and undermines efforts to achieve genuine development.
Arthur Larok, the Secretary General of ActionAid, who participated in the march, said,
“As we marched, we made it clear that the time for empty rhetoric is over; the world needs action on ending the debt and climate crisis. We urgently need to overhaul and transform the current global financial system, which is no longer fit for purpose. It is time we called out the hypocrisy of rich nations to preach sustainable development while clinging to a broken system that extracts wealth from the Global South, fosters public cuts and excludes them from decision-making processes.”
Arthur added:
“This summit presents a lifetime opportunity to address the moral failure of the countries that keep holding on to the colonial system. Over the years, we have witnessed countless pledges, endless discussions, yet a lamentable lack of tangible commitment to truly ending this debt crisis and re-establishing a bold, transformative global economic system under the United Nations.”
Over the course of this week at the Fourth Financing for Development conference, activists vowed to maintain pressure on delegates to ensure a genuine commitment to securing economic justice and systemic change.
Roos Saalbrink, the Global Lead on Economic Justice at ActionAid, said
“While rich countries continue to play the disappearing act and neglect their responsibility to cancel sovereign debts owed by Global South countries, millions of people are in a debt crisis and paying the price of cuts in government spending on basic public services such as education and healthcare. This is regressing hard-won gains on gender equality.
ActionAid has it on record that more than three-quarters of all low- and lower-middle-income countries spend more on debt servicing than they do on health. The impact of this has been untold suffering of communities marginalised by an unjust global system. We need to see systems change now.”
Ends
Spokespeople are available for interview. ActionAid has spokespeople in Seville during FFD4. Please contact the press office at media-enquiries@actionaid.org or on +263776665065 or +44 7592 302293 to arrange.
List of ActionAid spokespeople at FFD4
- Arthur Larok, Secretary General at ActionAid International
- Faides TembaTemba, Country Director of ActionAid Zambia
- Wangari Kinoti, Lead for Women’s Rights at ActionAid International
- Cristina Munoz, Director at ActionAid Spain
- Ashina Mtsumi, Co-ordinator for the Tax and Education Alliance, ActionAid International
- David Archer, Head of Programmes at ActionAid International
- Roos Saalbrink, Lead for Economic Justice at ActionAid International
Notes to editors
Photos of the march are available here.
About ActionAid
ActionAid is a global federation working with more than 41 million people living in more than 71 countries, including some of the world’s poorest countries. We want to see a just, fair, and sustainable world in which everybody enjoys the right to a life of dignity and freedom from poverty and oppression. We work to achieve social justice and gender equality and to eradicate poverty, including by shifting power to local organizations and movements.