The End Austerity Activism Festival is a 3-day virtual event that will take place from Wednesday 28th of September through Friday 30th of September 2022.
It will officially launch the End Austerity Campaign, calling on activists and organisations from all around the world to denounce the new wave of austerity spreading across the world, amid the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic and the food and energy crisis brought about by the Ukraine war.
The campaign will call for more ambitious recovery packages to focus on a feminist, green and care-led recovery rather than corporate hand-outs and social protection cuts, resisting an economic model that puts profit before people and the planet.
Register for the different side sessions:
Facing the austere world
Thursday 29 September, 09h UTC
Registration link: https://eurodad-org.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_HkNEVYtQRgavfw0kni1Szg
What is austerity, who are the faces of austerity today and what could a future free from austerity look like? IBON International invites you to explore these and other questions while visiting their virtual gallery, which will run throughout October. At this launch event you will hear from the artists themselves, andwhat how their submission speaks to the topic of austerity.
End Austerity Campaign and Festival launch event
Thursday 29 September, 11h UTC
Registration link: https://us06web.zoom.us/j/84067767761
Officially launching the End Austerity Activism Festival, this event will feature detailed presentations of three flagships reports by the Financial Transparency Coalition, Isabel Ortiz and Matthew Cummins and Oxfam, with new figures on the spread of austerity around the world, and how Covid-19 recovery funds have mainly benefited big corporations in the Global South.
Fight Inequality Alliance (I)
Thursday 29 September, 13h UTC
Registration link: https://us06web.zoom.us/j/83075976616
This session will be a space for FIA activists at the sharp end of IMF austerity measures in Zambia, Kenya and elsewhere to share and strategise. We envisage a space to learn about the situation in other countries as well as how people have been organising in response. The event will also be an opportunity to share successes and ideas on scaling up these wins for a global campaign.
European Youth Forum
Friday 30 September, 09h UTC
Registration link: https://eurodad-org.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_ogTrUcJGTaysglVPo5BiQQ
What does it mean to grow up under austerity? A new report “Generation Austerity” aims to answer this question, based on the experiences of young people in Spain. In this event, the European Youth Forum will present this report, raising questions on the generational impact of long-term austerity measures.
Tax Justice vs Austerity: Alternatives for a People-centred and Southern-led Recovery
Friday 30 September, 11h UTC
Registration link: https://us06web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_oLcASnQ1QnyvP6RL4e77SQ
Nearly three years into the covid-19 pandemic, conditionality-based loan agreements are making a return as the predominant IMF lending instrument. This means that at a time when government spending in public health, education and social protection should be being expanded, these sectors are instead seeing budget cuts, privatisation and regresive taxation.
Organised by the Global Alliance for Tax Justice (GATJ), its regional networks – Red de Justicia Fiscal de América Latina y el Caribe (RJFALC), Tax Justice Network Africa (TJNA) and Tax and Fiscal Justice Asia (TAFJA) -, and the Financial Transparency Coalition (FTC), this event aims to create space for a discussion on alternatives to such policies, highlighting the ways in which the tax justice agenda can be articulated into a broader push back against austerity.
Fight Inequality Alliance (II)
Friday 30 September, 13h UTC
Registration link: To be confirmed
Next year’s IMF/ World Bank Annual Meetings will be held in Marrakech – the first time the meetings will be held outside of the USA since 2018. This session will explore the idea of holding an alternative Annual Meetings at the same time, based on the idea of a Peoples’ Assembly or Tribunal, to give voice to alternatives to Bank and Fund-promoted austerity measures.
Can leopards change their spots? A critical analysis of the World Bank’s ‘progressive universalism’ approach to social protection
Friday 30 September, 15h UTC
Registration link: https://us06web.zoom.us/j/82971385439
In a global context where food and economic crises are exacerbating nutrition and income insecurity for all, the universal social protection agenda is more urgent than ever. And yet, in the context of austerity and limited resources for public services, the World Bank aims to “re-brand” its social protection programs to fit under a rights-based approach while in fact limiting access to social protection. This event will explore the findings of a joint ACT-Church of Sweden/ Development Pathways/ ACF France.
