SEVILLE, Spain 鈥 Activists marched in blistering heat through southern Spain鈥檚 Seville on Sunday, calling for debt cancellation, climate justice and taxing the super rich on the eve of a United Nations (UN) summit on financing development that critics say lacks ambition and scope.
The four-day meeting 鈥 held once every decade 鈥 promises to take on poverty, disease and climate change by mapping out the global framework for development. But the United States鈥 decision to pull out and wealthy countries鈥 shrinking appetite for foreign aid have dampened hopes that the summit will bring about significant change.
Greenpeace members carried a float depicting billionaire Elon Musk as a baby wielding a chainsaw, seated atop a terrestrial globe. Others held up banners reading 鈥淢ake Human Rights Great Again,鈥 鈥淭ax justice now鈥 or 鈥淢ake polluters pay.鈥
Beauty Narteh of Ghana鈥檚 Anti-Corruption Coalition said her group wanted a fairer tax system and 鈥渄ignity, not handouts.鈥
Sokhna Ndiaye, of the Africa Development Interchange Network, called on the public and private sectors to be 鈥渓ess selfish and show more solidarity鈥 with developing countries.
Hours earlier, however, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said that 鈥渢he very fact that this conference is happening while conflict is raging across the globe is a reason to be hopeful.鈥
Speaking at an event by non-profit Global Citizen, Mr. Sanchez reiterated Madrid鈥檚 commitment to reach 0.7% of gross domestic product in development aid and urged other countries to do the same.
Jason Braganza, executive director of pan-African advocacy group AFRODAD who took part in the year-long negotiation on the conference鈥檚 final outcome document, said countries including the US, the European Union and Britain had obstructed efforts to organize a UN convention on sovereign debt.
鈥淚t鈥檚 a shame these countries have opted to protect their own interests and those of creditors over lives that are being lost,鈥 he added. 鈥 Reuters
