What next for the Make Poverty History campaign?

Following an animated debate at Sheffield University, Charlotte Stemmer discusses the way forward.

The Make Poverty History white band

The University of Sheffield lecture theatre was filled with students eager to hear an interesting debate about Make Poverty History. I decided to go along because I have been interested in the campaign since I attended the G8 rally on 2 July. I joined over 225,000 people who formed the world's largest human white band around the city centre. I thought it was really important to go to Edinburgh, to show world leaders that the general public wants an end to poverty.

The Oxfam coordinator of the event, Ben Margolis, said that Make Poverty History had two main arms: policy and popular. The policy element asked for trade justice, debt cancellation and more and better aid. Although these changes have not fully occurred, there has been a step in the right direction. The popular arm, however, was the real success. A huge amount of poverty awareness has been raised through the white wristbands, the rally and the online campaign.

Professor Payne, a lecturer of politics at the university, endorsed the popular aspect but had a more pessimistic view of the campaign's impact on policy. He pointed out that the most powerful countries are also pursuing development strategies for their people, and there will always be winners and losers when different countries' development strategies come into conflict. Added to this, Dr. Harrison, a senior politics lecturer who conducts research into Africa, believed that making poverty history is an African affair and cannot be done by western institutions.

Ben Margolis concluded the debate by saying that there has been too much focus on the words MAKING HISTORY when what is important is to focus on POVERTY. It was unrealistic to expect poverty to be eradicated in 2005, but the whole campaign has acted as an important springboard for future changes.

I found the debate really useful because the speakers looked at the Make Poverty History from different perspectives. I agree with Ben Margolis and think that the amount of public support and interest in poverty issues that was generated by the campaign was amazing.

Raising awareness of the issues was an important first step, but now more public pressure is needed to show world leaders that poverty is unacceptable and policy changes are needed to eradicate it. In my opinion this could be achieved by more protests and publicity events, like the Edinburgh rally, to show that people have not forgotten about people suffering from poverty. Hopefully by doing this, governments will be persuaded to keep their promises, and world poverty will have been halved by 2015.