"The Global Citizen platform ignites a global movement, encouraging tens of thousands of people around the world to easily voice their support for children everywhere being free from polio and other vaccine-preventable diseases. Engaging the broader public on these issues is critical if we’re going to succeed in helping all children, no matter where they live, lead healthy, productive lives." - Melissa Covelli, Senior Program Officer, The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
The Global Citizen movement is about action. People around the world are learning more about issues of extreme poverty, sharing content through social media, signing petitions, asking world leaders to take a stand and donating to causes for which they are newly impassioned.
The Global Citizen Festival was a singular moment in a movement that will continue to grow and continue to bring together partners under the objective of ending extreme poverty within our generation. We brought together an incredible coalition of NGO partners spanning the entirety f the Millennium Development Goals. We drove these partners to reach far above and beyond their current ambitions. We set out to secure commitments that were entirely new and larger than what had been done before. Then, we set up a truly world stage with a 60,000 person live audience and through a massive online broadcast to ensure accountability in achieving these ambitious commitments. The platform offered by the Festival as well as the monitoring and evaluation plan that will be implemented by the Global Poverty Project will hold these organizations accountable to achieve these ambitious new commitments in the coming years.
We utilized the following framework for new commitments to be considered for the Global Citizen Festival:
1) A financial announcement that will not been broadcast in any other forum and was not announced before September 29, 2012 (i.e. can not also be announced at Clinton Global Initiative)
2) A financial impact that will have significant consequence for the world’s poor in the relative near future (up to or over the course of the next 5 years)
3) An announcement of new money for a specific programmatic objective OR a commitment to fundraise a specific amount of money for a specific programmatic objective in the near future (within 5 years)
Global Poverty Project will meet with each NGO to evaluate progress in six months time. GPP will produce a Post-Global Festival Review Document to evaluate progress of the NGO partners in meeting commitments and accomplishments at one year, two year and in five years time.
Half the Sky was a Principal Partner that brought a large commitment announcement to the stage. A spokesman from Half the Sky commented, “Because of the platform offered by the Global Citizen Festival, 15 of our partner nonprofit organizations declared bold commitments to achieve incredible outcomes for women and girls living in extreme poverty. The Global Citizen platform drove new and incredible attention to issues facing women and girls around the world. The coalition of 15 NGOs representing the Half the Sky Movement announced $167.5 million in new commitments.”
In total, at the Global Citizen Festival, $1,314,700,000 in new financial commitments were announced to benefit the extreme poor.
- The Half the Sky Movement commits to raise $167.5 Million for women's empowerment through a coalition of 15 NGO partners.
- The U.S. Fund for UNICEF will raise $500 million by 2015 to fight for the survival and development of children.
- charity: water commits to raise $100 million by 2015 for clean drinking water, 100% of which will directly fund water project costs in the field.
- Pencils of Promise will generate a movement of 500,000 actions toward education for all.
- World Vision commits to raise $14.5 million for advocacy to reduce child and maternal mortality rates.
- World Food Program USA commits $15 million towards reducing childhood malnutrition in Central America.
- Global Partnership for Education will raise $500 million to help 5 million children in crisis and conflict areas get in school and learn
- Malaria No More will raise up to $1.5 million to expand life-saving health education programs in central Africa.
- The Earth Institute commits $6.2 million for food security throughout the Horn of Africa.
- Earth Day Network commits $10 million to plant 10 million trees over 5 years around the world.
Global Poverty Project is mobilizing a growing movement of young people to be actively engaged and then using that social movement to hold NGOs and governments accountable. The platform offered by the Global Citizen Festival allowed for increased impact for the world’s poor from a financial perspective but also introduced greater accountability and re-energized a youth movement. All of these elements are absolutely fundamental in the movement to end extreme poverty within our lifetime. |
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