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Campaigners in Tanzania have called on their government not to repay $61.5 million to the World Bank on loans for a water project which yielded ‘no positive results’.

The Dar es Salaam water supply and sanitation project, which lasted from 2003 to 2010, also included loans of $48 million from the African Development Bank and $34 million from the European Investment Bank. The loans are due to begin being repaid later this year.

A condition of the loans, as well as debt relief for Tanzania, was the privatisation of Dar es Salaam's water. City Water, a consortium which included Biwater from the UK and HP Gauff Inegnieure GmbH from Germany, began operating Dar es Salaam’s water in 2003.  However, as the World Bank says, City Water “was unable to meet many of its targets and obligations from the start”. One of the reasons was because shareholders failed to invest promised equity. In May 2005, fearing that City Water was about to collapse, the Dar es Salaam water authority terminated their contract, and on 1 June the company’s three British managers were deported.

In 2007, a UN arbitration ruled that...

Yesterday was the Barclays AGM in London. Together with two of my colleagues I went inside to ask the board of directors why they continue to help institutional investors to speculate on food, even though they are well aware that this pushes prices up and forces people into hunger.

The AGM is hosted at the grandiose Royal Festival Hall in central London. After passing the initial airport-like security checks and registering our questions we queue up in front of the big hall. The nearest security guard informs us that a protest is taking place outside the venue.

A group of World Development Movement campaigners are outside dressed up as blue Barclays eagles. Both shareholders and journalists will have to pass them to get in here.

We are some of the first people to get into the grand hall where the AGM will take place. We want to make sure that we get an opportunity to ask our questions. While we wait for the ‘show’ to start, I get a text informing us that since yesterday almost 1,500 people have emailed Antony Jenkins, Barclays’ CEO, in the last 24 hours asking him to withdraw completely...

I am gathered with around 20 other protesters from four different continents outside the AGM of Anglo-American, a global mining corporation responsible for depriving thousands of people of their land and livelihood, ruining the health of workers in their mines, as well as enormous contributions to climate change. To put it bluntly, they ‘reap’ their profits of other people’s misery.

That is why I am dressed up as the Grim Reaper. I’m representing a company built on destruction and misery. A company that recently proposed to divert a major river in Colombia to feed its coal production. And a company that continuously refuses to pay compensation to the thousands of miners in South Africa suffering from silicosis.

...

Tomorrow, 17 April, is international peasant struggle day. This day is for celebrating peasant and small farmer movements across the world, each one fighting for a food system that respects human rights rather than making them subservient to private profit. This day has been heralded by the international food sovereignty movement as a day to take action and raise awareness about the problems with, and alternatives to, a corporate-run and over-industrialised food system.

Currently, however, it is still food security that holds the main stage when it comes to national and international research and policy-making. The food security banner remains as the undertone to the IF campaign , the latest major joint NGO action on food, and has made its place onto most social science syllabuses and the agendas of countless policy centres.  

Harmful chemical fertilisers are key to food security - Photo credit: soil science

At the World Food Summit in 1996, food security was defined as "when all people at all times have access to sufficient, safe...

Today’s Guardian website features an article about “food crime” mentioning thieves who stole five tonnes of Nutella in Germany as a key example. But at the same time, food prices remain at close to record levels as bankers speculate on food, resulting in falling living standards in the UK and in hunger elsewhere. It makes you wonder: What is the real food crime here? Depriving a few people of Nutella or forcing millions into starvation?

Personally, I am in no doubt that global hunger is a more urgent issue than some missing chocolate spread, and that it should therefore be a main priority to solve the problem of bankers’ apparent addiction to gambling on food. Unfortunately the UK government seems to be of a different opinion.

On average, treasury ministers are wined and dined by bankers or financial lobbyists every ten days. And the result? The UK is currently trying to water down new EU regulations restrict food speculation. We need to change that.

Now it is time for you to dine with the Treasury
This week we’ve launched step four of our Bankers Anonymous campaign in the fight to cure bankers of their addition to gambling on food. Of course we ‘common people’ do not have the privilege of inviting treasury ministers for dinner to...

For all those who knew her, I am writing to let you know the sad news that Sarah Berger, a dedicated WDM campaigner and fellow member of the Brighton and Hove WDM group, passed away on 23 March, after a long battle against cancer.

She was an amazing campaigner and wonderful person. Words used to describe her have included: determined, wise, articulate, intelligent, passionate, committed, dramatic, practical, organised, courageous, media-savvy, upbeat and positive. I knew her from being a fellow activist at Brighton and Hove WDM and as a friend. Here’s some of the stuff that she did:

Sarah once appeared in the press as a grandmother pretending to row a boat to Genoa for the G8 protests, she dressed up as a first-aid box for a London march, crashed to the floor with a “debt-laden” sack in a tug of war, dressed all in white as a goal post in an unfair football match or as a trade barrier in Churchill Square, her theatricality was there for all to see.

At the various demos, stunts and marches she was always ready to carry a banner, keen to use a megaphone and prepared to argue with establishment lackeys (e.g. at climate marches, RBS...

The World Bank has just released its latest statistics on global food prices. The message, although determinedly optimistic, is still one that depicts shocking price increases for a large part of the world. While overall it seems that the price of internationally traded food has slightly fallen between October 2012 and February 2013, food prices are still very high and close to their historical peaks, just 9% below the all time high recorded in August 2012.

Though prices have dropped recently, the international prices of grains in February 2013 remained well above those of a year ago: wheat prices in February 2013 were 15% higher than in February 2012. Maize prices stood 8% higher than a year ago, and rice prices 5% higher than in February 2012.

A closer look at the statistics and it becomes clear that many countries in the global south are still experiencing disastrous price rises. Here are a few of the key facts: 

Since October 2012:

• Wheat prices in Brazil and Bolivia rose by 13% and 11%
• Wheat prices in some markets in Pakistan increased by 14% and in Mumbai, India, they...

I have spent this week at the World Social Forum in Tunis. It’s been a slightly chaotic week of overrunning schedules, last minute room changes and broken translated equipment, but in spite of some frustrations, it is undeniably an incredible feat of organisation.

Run by a group of activists, with no office or paid staff, the World Social Forum has still succeeded in brining together thousands of activists – some reports say as many as 70,000 – together from around the world to discuss where we’re at in the quest for real solutions to the poverty, inequality and injustice we see in the world today.

The main slogan of the World Social Forum ‘Another World is Possible’ – a slogan made real by movements from the host country Tunisia who overthrew a dictatorship two years ago. People have travelled from across the world to discuss what that looks like, and how to work towards it.

One of the key questions I’ve been focusing on here is around how we should move forward in the struggle with climate justice, given the deepening...

Last month we launched Bankers Anonymous – a five step recovery programme to help bankers quit their addiction to gambling on food. So far we've asked people to take two steps: to write to their MP and to spread the word on twitter and Facebook. Now it's time for step three.

Politicians from all parties monitor their local newspapers because they want to find out what their constituents care about. We want to get food speculation into the local press to make it an issue that can't be ignored.

Europe’s finance ministers will be agreeing new rules to tackle food speculation soon, but these could easily be scuppered by the UK government's opposition to tough regulation.

Lets continue to keep up the pressure by getting the media talking about this.

Take action now

Economic growth rates in many African countries have soared in recent years. But real development is still sorely lacking argues Rick Rowden in this guest post for our blog

Recent high growth rates and increased foreign investment in Africa have given rise to the popular idea that the continent may well be on track to become the next global economic powerhouse. A recent cover story in the Economist for instance pointed to Africa’s recent high GDP growth rates, rising per capita incomes and the explosive growth of mobile phones and mobile phone banking as evidence that Africa is ‘developing’. It also cited the growth in the number of African billionaires and the increase in Africa’s trade with the rest of the world.

But these indicators only give a partial picture. Rich countries figured out long ago that if economies are not moving out of dead-end activities that only provide diminishing returns over time (primary agriculture and extractive activities such as mining, logging and fisheries) and into activities that provide increasing returns over time (manufacturing and services), then you can’t really say they are developing.

What’s not mentioned in this and similar articles is the disturbing absence of manufacturing in Africa and...

The Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) reported a £5.2 billion loss as it announced its annual results today The bank’s boss Stephen Hester is four years into his original five-year plan to bring RBS back on track – yet things don’t seem to be getting much better for the publicly owned bank. RBS blames a year of heavy fines. But let’s just remind ourselves of what these fines were:

PPI: The bank knowingly mis-sold its customers insurance which they neither needed nor could use, over a period of years. Fine: £2.2 billion

Libor: The bank illegally manipulated a crucial interest rate to benefit itself whilst negatively affecting mortgage payers in the UK (and elsewhere). Fine: £391 million

Oily bankers: Protest at RBS's 2011 AGM in Edinburgh 

Bankers this year have been rewarded for doing a ‘good job’. Bonus pot: £600,000 million

Some pretty significant figures that the bank should never have been in a position to pay.

If the RBS was really making headway to being sustainable and acting in the interest...

On 10 February, WDM helped organise the first regional food sovereignty meeting in the south west. Food sovereignty advocates that the people who produce, distribute and consume food at the centre of decisions on food systems and policies, rather than the demands of markets and corporations that they believe have come to dominate the global food system. 

This was the first big meeting since the national gathering at OrganicLea on the outskirts of London last July, and it aimed to strengthen regional networks of the food sovereignty movement and make national planning more accessible to people outside of London.

The meeting attracted over 40 people from across the South West, which is testament to the vibrant community food networks alive in the region. There was a lot of energy to coordinate actions, public education materials and events in the South West, including a festival in the summer of 2014 (either in the South West or nationally). There was also an idea to start working on a regional food charter.

It was also agreed to plan an action for 17 April to tie in with the...

Yesterday was the end of a European conference against debt and austerity being held in Thessaloniki, Greece. The conference was organised by the recently established International Citizen Debt Audit Network (ICAN), which advocates public audits of national debt to determine what is illegitimate and shouldn't be paid - a model used successfully in Ecuador to achieve a measure of social justice. Delegates from across Europe are also taking the opportunity to meet Greeks and see for themselves the terrible poverty into which they are now being thrown as a result of the austerity meted out by EU institutions and the International Monetary Fund.

Nick Dearden, director of Jubilee Debt Campaign in the UK, has been blogging about it all on the ICAN website. In the blog post below he draws some parallels with Greece and the experience of Latin America in previous decades:

We met three people today who summed up the depth of the crisis being experienced by Greek people, but also the courageous attempts to build a new, more democratic society. I had to pinch myself to remember I was in Europe, the stories are...

Along with its annual results yesterday, Barclays revealed its new strategic plan to haul the bank from the pits of public disdain. As part of its new direction, Barclays – the UK’s leading commodities speculator - announced it is pulling out of food speculation. After three years of public campaigning and calling on the bank to stop betting on hunger, this is very exciting news!

Barclays had a massive PR job on its hands to mend its toxic reputation, earned from the Libor rate scam, the PPI mis-selling scandal and the interest-rate swaps rip-off of small businesses. It could have left its agricultural commodities division untouched. But it couldn't afford to ignore commodities.

Why? Well with three years of protests outside its local branches, protests outside and inside its AGM, media stories exposing Barclays’ leading...

A guest blog by Kate Griffin from Oxford WDM.

If the world produces enough food to feed everybody, how come hundreds of millions of people don’t get enough to eat? Last night’s film screening made it clear that the problem is with food distribution rather than production.

Growing Change is a documentary about Venezuela’s food revolution with an inspiring message. Despite the rainy January weather, nearly 70 people came to the screening, which was organised by Oxford World Development Movement (WDM).

We learnt that Venezuela used to be a victim of its own success; after tapping into enormous oil wealth, it was no longer worth it economically for the country to grow its own food. Instead, it began heavy reliance on imports, an all-too-common phenomenon apparently known as the “Dutch disease”. It happens when countries see food supply in purely economic terms. But reliance on imports makes a country vulnerable to global food shocks.

Global free-market economics isn’t good for small producers either. Cocoa producers told stories of buyers holding off until supplies were piled up and money was low. Then the buyers could turn up and use their stronger position to negotiate a lower...

The UK government is yet again undermining grassroots poverty alleviation by channelling UK aid towards huge agribusiness. The Hunger Games, a report recently published by War on Want, criticises the Department for International Development (DfID) for working with the ‘who’s who’ of agrochemical and GM seed companies including Monsanto, Unilever and Syngenta.

In coalition with these companies, DfID is funding dodgy agricultural initiatives such as the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA). This initiative in particular seeks to “trigger a uniquely African green revolution” by promoting networks of GM seed and agrochemical providers to small farmers.

The companies working beneath this banner, posing under a guise of African development, are seeking to extend their reach over emerging markets in countries like Malawi. Monsanto, a company that originally made its money from making chemical weapons but has now switched to agrochemicals, has openly declared its intention to control all of Malawi’s 30,000 tonne seed market. This transition, if it was allowed to happen, would decimate traditional seed markets, and lock local farmers further into a dependency on foreign inputs....

The green promises have turned toxic.

And in Ben Jennings’ depiction, so too have Cameron and Osborne.

David Cameron made the headlines back in 2006, visiting the Arctic and posing for photos with huskies to prove his green credentials.

But 2012 has been the year that finally put the nail in the coffin of the Conservatives’ promises to be the greenest government ever.

We’ve seen Tory MPs openly calling for the Climate Change Act to be scrapped. We’ve seen George Osborne pushing for more money for oil and gas at the expense of renewable energy. We’ve seen David Cameron veto the appointment of a new Permanent Secretary at the Department of Energy and Climate...

During the first week of the UN Climate talks in Doha, campaigners from Kingston and Richmond World Development Movement group met with Ed Davey, secretary of state for energy and climate change, to discuss the government’s contributions to climate finance. As WDM members, the group were concerned that the UK is pushing developing countries deeper into debt through climate loans.

Members of WDM Richmond and Kingston WDM local group present Ed Davey with paper ‘chains of debt’

The group delivered paper ‘chains of debt’ to Ed Davey, with handwritten messages from constituents asking him to ensure that the UK’s climate policies do not drive the world’s most vulnerable people deeper into poverty.

It is the world’s poorest people who are suffering the worst effects of climate change, and it is wealthy countries like the UK who are overwhelmingly responsible for the emissions causing the damage. We owe those worst effected by climate change a large ‘climate debt’. 

The UK government has been contributing to the World Bank’s Climate Investment Funds (CIFs). One of these funds,...