Updated 28 April 2010

On 18 April 2010, UKs Prime Minister Gordon Brown wrote an open letter to the UK development NGOs outlining his vision for action and his party’s plan on tackling global poverty. The UK is currently in the midst of campaigning for the upcoming General Election to be held on 6 May 2010. The 18th of April was confirmed as World Poverty Day after being facilitated by Bond, a time when all party leaders publicly addressed international development and explained their campaign manifesto positions. Mr. Brown is the Prime Minister candidate from the UKs Labour Party. All three main political parties have all submitted comprehensive documents highlighting their policies on international development. Click here for more information.

Bond had drawn the Vote Global Manifesto which has now been endorsed by The World Federation of KSIMC among over 160 organisations. Vote Global is a manifesto that serves as the basis for the sector-wide campaign to ensure pushing forward Britain’s commitment to fighting global poverty. Bond has also produced a website, Voteglobal.org.uk, which summarises the international development content from all major parties.

The text of the letter sent to the members of Bond, is below:

18 April 2010

Dear Directors of Britain's Development NGOs ,

I wanted to write to you on today’s Global Poverty Day to set out my thinking on how we take forward our shared great cause in a crucial year.

I know I don’t need to tell you that 2010 is critical – ten years on from Jubilee 2000, five years since Gleneagles and Make Poverty History and five years before our promises to the world’s poor are due to be delivered.

We will be building on major progress; almost 50 million more children in school than ten years ago, record low deaths among under fives and millions more getting lifesaving healthcare. But despite this progress and momentum, we face an uphill struggle.  

The global financial crisis has set back progress in poor countries and constrained budgets in rich ones. The Doha trade round has stalled and risks petering out altogether. And climate change is already chipping away at the resilience of vulnerable communities across the developing world.

Unless we take on these challenges - there is a risk that the 2010’s could become a lost decade.  But with the right international drive, there is no reason why this has to happen.

In the last thirteen years the UK has led global efforts to tackle poverty. It has taken centre stage in our foreign policy in a way that has never happened before. And I can assure you that despite the challenges and despite the pressures – our passion for this cause has grown rather than shrunk.

I have an ambitious agenda for 2010.

On education, the 1-Goal Summit, as part of the South African World Cup, will be a defining moment. Through a partnership between developing and developed countries – led by the South Africans – I believe it is possible that we could fill the gap in education budgets so that by 2015 every child in the world has access to a primary school education.

On health, last September I believe we saw the start of a seismic movement in healthcare in the developing world. The commitment to free healthcare from a whole host of governments now needs to be supported and reinforced. Starting with women and children we must ensure everyone has access to free healthcare.

On aid - I believe we can strike a $200bn aid deal for 2015 in September. If we can firm up the 0.7% pledges from the EU, build on the US commitment to double foreign assistance and encourage other G8 countries to lift their budgets, we can turn on real new resources. We will start this with the EU process this summer and encourage others to put their aid targets into law as we are doing, or at the very least set out a clear timeline.

But we must also move beyond this traditional development agenda and focus more on the empowerment of people and countries through their equitable and sustainable growth. One part of this will be how we restart the Doha round – or whether we look for a package of measures outside the Doha round that can help the poorest countries and also build broader confidence. But there are other policies too that the G20 must consider to support sustainable growth in developing countries, from more enabling rules on intellectual property and technology transfer to improving skills for the jobs market and building more effective tax systems. The Korean G20 will be a critical moment to address this agenda.

Finally on climate change. We must stop simply talking about it being the biggest threat, and start acting as if it is. I know that this will take new and additional resources and I promise to leave no stone unturned in getting international agreement for innovative sources of finance. Through the UN panel that I co-chair I will ensure that all of the options are properly considered, from a tax on bunker fuels to a global financial levy.
I have been committed all of my life to these great causes. It’s not just about speeches and policies and it’s not just about what we do at home. It’s about the grind of international negotiations, refusing to water down a communiqué, taking the time to call other leaders and encourage them to go further than they want. I will keep forcing this agenda forward.

But progress in this area relies as much on campaigners such as you. When there is no global campaign on these issues, our ability to bring change is much less. When the public are unaware of the way aid works, we cannot inspire the confidence we need.

2010 will be remembered as a critical year for global poverty – a year when other global problems could overwhelm our commitment to removing poverty, or a year in which we could seize the opportunities to increase our momentum and set a path to achieve the goals we have committed to. We have the ability to shape how it is remembered.

Best wishes,
Gordon Brown

More information Bond
More information on Vote Global

For more information email ngo@world-federation.org