TRAVEL LIGHT

THE CRUCIAL PART. WHAT WE ARE ASKING FOR.

In 9 words… TRADE JUSTICE. DROP THE DEBT. MORE AND BETTER AID.

The gap between the worlds’s rich and poor has never been wider. Malnutrition, AIDS, conflict and illiteracy are a daily reality for millions.

But it isn’t chance or bad luck that keeps people trapped in bitter, unrelenting poverty. It’s man-made factors like a glaringly unjust global trade system, a debt burden so great that it suffocates any chance of recovery and insufficient and ineffective aid .

It doesn’t have to be this way though.

In fact, back in 2001 the governments of the eight wealthiest nations on the planet said that they were going to do something about it - in what was seen as a breakthrough, they promised to halve world poverty by 2015.

Four years later the world is failing dismally to reach those targets.

But we have been given another, maybe even a final chance – 2005.

This year offers a truly exceptional set of opportunities for the UK to take a lead internationally and say that enough is enough.

With the UK hosting the G7 Finance Ministers meeting in February and the G8 gathering of powerful world leaders as well as holding the presidency of the European Union (EU), our Government and particularly Gordon Brown and Tony Blair, will be influential players on the world stage – we must make sure they play their part.

They have the power and we can make them use it.