Resisting DfID's destruction - Public meeting - 17 April
Sasg | 09.04.2010 13:28 | Analysis | Globalisation
Saving the world the New Labour way: the Department for International Destruction (DfID)
Saving the world the New Labour way: the Department for International Destruction (DfID)
Saturday 17th April, 6pm
West London Trade Union Club, 33-35 High Street, London, W3 6ND Tube: Acton Town (Piccadilly line), Acton Central (North London Line)
Buses: 207/607
Where is UK aid really going?
What is it actually doing?
PUBLIC MEETING with Film Showing
Samarendra Das (South Asia Solidarity Group)
Kofi Mawuli Klu (London Coalition Against Poverty)
Film Excerpts from:
‘Wira Pdika (Earthworm and Company Man)’
Samarendra Das’ film in which people speak about their struggles against Vedanta, which came to displace them from their lands after the DFID’s reforms had ‘developed’ their state.
‘Dodgy Development: A DFID Education’
Indian teachers and academics speak about the decline in public education which the DFID has contributed to, and its use of education aid to ‘get in’ to the Indian economy
During this election campaign New Labour will boast how it has increased foreign aid through its Department for International Development (DFID) and been a leader in the fight against global poverty. The Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats have both agreed to continue DFID’s work along the same lines.
But the so-called beneficiaries of this aid have seen it privatize and commercialize their public services, displace people from their homes and further open up their countries to multinational corporations – in other words exactly the same policies that New Labour have been pushing on us here!
Set up by the New Labour government, DfID has been driven by a ‘corporate imperative’. In the name of development, it has facilitated the take over by multinational companies of land and resources (minerals, oil, forests and fertile land) across countries in Asia, Africa, the Middle East, Latin America and the Caribbean.
Because of the nature of global capital and the key role which DFID has in implementing neoliberal policies, it is clearly a key link in the process of looting of resources outlined above. Increasingly, people who live in Britain and North America, where the main centres of decision making about neoliberalism are based, have a role to play in exposing and pressurizing organizations such as DFID. Because of this, International groups in solidarity with people’s movements, workers’, women’s, and other progressive organisations in the countries of Africa, the Middle East, Latin America and the Caribbean, can now achieve more than ever before.
Come to the West London Trade Union Club on 17th April to hear about the exploits of ‘the Department of Labour’s conscience’ over the last ten years and take inspiration from movements around the world that are opposing the DFID’s discredited vision of development.
Called by: South Asia Solidarity Group, London Coalition Against Poverty, Corporate Watch.
Email: sasg@southasiasolidarity.org, tel: 07944 565620
Sasg