Make Poverty History-Is it really possible?

Many of you may remember the slogan " Make Poverty History " wear everyone was encouraged to wear the white bands, Live 8 concert and attending the march in Edinburgh during the same week as when the G8 summit was held in Gleneagles in Scotland. There are some of you who may wear the white band as a fashion accessory but I hope that most people wore it because of what the white band stands for.

So...Make Poverty History..is it really possible?? I went to a talk by the Director of Oxfam in UK (Barbara Stocking) earlier this week who is one of many people that believe it is possible.

Make Poverty History has been a long campaign but 2005 is a special year as many charities, NGOs and various organisations came together to make the world leaders listen and actually start taking action in eradicating poverty.

Ok, we know that we will never be able to eradicate poverty altogether but there are many children dying of hunger because of extreme poverty and we all need to do something about it before it's too late.

What is Make Poverty History campaigning for?

It's fighting for three main things: More aid, Fair Trade and eradicate debt of third world countries.

Currently, we need GBP 50billion a year of aid money. It may seem a lot but if we put it in perspective GBP1 trilion is being spent on arms a year. I'm not against the armed forces (my dad is in the navy) equipping themselves with arms and security equipment in order to protect the interests of the people of the country. But if we can spend a significant amount of money on arms..surely we can spare some cash for aid too.

So how successful has the campaign been?

Debt relief: world leaders have accepted that multilateral debt should be written off but no action has yet been finalised by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Trade Organisation (WTO).

Aid Money: by 2010 it was decided that GBP48 billion aid will be given. It isn't the best outcome as 2010 is five years away...how many more innocent people will die by that time???

Trade justice: this is the most difficult part of the deal. We shouldn't get confused with free trade and trade justice. Trade justice stands for:

• ending export subsidies
• opening trade borders
• enforcing laws to stop big multinational companies profiting at the expense of local people and the environment

Even before the G8 summit took place, world leaders had decided to get rid of export subsidies and this was reaffirmed again in 2005. Unfortunately, no set timetable was set. This isn't an easy thing to solve because eradicating export subsidies would mean farmers and similar people working in agricultural industries may suffer. e.g. agriculture industry in Scotland, cotton farm industry in America.

The WTO 2005 summit will start on 13 December in Hong Kong and we hope that these issues will be discussed and we can make progress and move forward.

What difference can we make?

Well, eradicating extreme poverty won't be something that can be solved overnight. I do agree that Making Poverty History is possible. It will not be easy but it we put enough pressure and keep the public engaged and interested in the campaign we may have a chance in making a difference.