Empower Girls, End Poverty Now, Global Citizen Urges World Leaders

Posted by Eric Ojo Latest Headlines, U.S./Canada Saturday, August 13th, 2022

(AFRICAN EXAMINER) – Global Citizen, a frontline international education and advocacy organization and convener of the annual Global Citizen Festival has called on world leaders and donors to empower girls and intensify efforts aimed at ending poverty.

The organization with a mandate of working to catalyze the movement to end extreme poverty, was founded by Hugh Evans, Simon Moss and Wei Soo, and aims to increase the number and effectiveness of people taking action to support the cause.

The call is coming ahead of this year’s edition of the Global Citizen Festival holding in Citizen Festival holding New York’s Central Park on 24 September. The festival will be hosted by actor, producer, author, and Global Citizen Ambassador Priyanka Chopra Jonas.

The annual music festival started in 2012 and iconic musicians such as Metallica, Mariah Carey, Jonas Brothers, Charlie Puth, Måneskin, Mickey Guyton and Rosalía, are set to perform at the 2022 edition of the event and more artiste will announced subsequently.

Meanwhile, tickets to the event are free and can be earned by downloading the Global Citizen app or visiting www.globalcitizen.org to take action on the campaign’s issues. For each action taken, users earn points that can be redeemed for tickets to the festivals.

Since it began lighting up Central Park’s Great Lawn in 2012, the Global Citizen Festival has become the world’s longest-running global campaign calling for an end to extreme poverty that unites millions of voices, amplified by the world’s biggest artists, demanding world leaders take action now, and supporting the campaign that led to the creation of Education Cannot Wait (ECW), ), the United Nations (UN) global fund for education in emergencies and protracted crisis.

Since its inception, Global Citizen and ECW have worked together as strategic partners to advance Goal 4 of the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
Participants at the festival will call on world leaders at the UN General Assembly – and ahead of the G20 and COP27 in November, to step up and invest $600 million into the future of women and girls, close the annual $10 billion climate financing shortfall, deliver $500 million to help African farmers respond to the global food crisis, and provide relief from crushing debts to End Extreme Poverty Now.

Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Global Citizen, Hugh Evans who gave the charge in a statement made available to the media by ECW, noted that decades of systemic and political failures have led humanity into the midst of converging and rapidly deteriorating crises – climate, hunger, health, war and conflict.

“Millions of lives, and the future of our planet, are at stake. We refuse to just stand by and watch! We demand a secure future for girls everywhere. We demand governments keep their promises on climate funding. We demand relief from debts unjustly crushing economies. And we demand action NOW, while there’s still time to change our collective trajectory.

“Global Citizen calls on world leaders, major corporations and philanthropic foundations to take to the Global Citizen Festival stages and announce new commitments to End Extreme Poverty Now, including to provide critical investments into girls’ education and economic empowerment”, he said.

In the last two years, more than 47 million women and girls have been pushed back into extreme poverty, and the pandemic has forced millions of girls out of the classroom and into unpaid care work.

Donors can change this by pledging $600 million in financial support towards ECW and other partners to support new policies addressing access to education and other related issues.

Director of ECW, Yasmine Sherif said the number of crisis-affected, school-aged children requiring urgent education support has grown from an estimated 75 million in 2016 to 222 million today.

This, according to her, is unacceptable at a time when the response to education in emergencies and protracted crises remains chronically underfunded.

“With global citizens, and through ECW’s new #222MillionDreams resource mobilization campaign, we call on donors, the private sector, philanthropic foundations and high-net-worth individuals to urgently mobilize more resources to further scale up ECW and our strategic partners work to deliver quality education to crisis-affected girls and boys around the world”, she stressed.

Sherif also expressed ECW’s unflinching support for and resolve to participate in this year’s Global Citizen Festival as well.

Marking the 65th anniversary of Ghana’s independence and the 20th anniversary of the African Union, Accra’s iconic Black Star Square will see live performances from Usher, SZA, Stormzy, Gyakie, H.E.R., Sarkodie, Stonebwoy and TEMS with more to be announced.

ECW supports quality education outcomes for refugee, internally displaced and other crisis-affected girls and boys, so that no one is left behind. The organization also works through the multilateral system to both increase the speed of responses in crises and connect immediate relief and longer-term interventions through multi-year programming.

Notably, ECW works in close partnership with governments, public and private donors, UN agencies, civil society organizations, and other humanitarian and development aid actors to increase efficiencies and end siloed responses.