Welcome Ajay Banga, the World's New Bank Manager
The World Bank has a new President, my trip to Australia, and the latest on Power Our Planet
Dear Friends and Supporters,
Hard to believe it’s already June!
We’ve been busy as always this week, so read on for more, starting with our warm welcome to the newest World Bank President. Also, Global Citizen has an upcoming virtual roundtable this Tuesday. See details below.
World Bank Stunt - Welcome Ajay Banga
As of June 1, the World Bank newest president, Ajay Banga, former CEO of Mastercard has now taken up a new role, marking the potential start of a transformative era for the nearly 80-year-old institution. This transition presents a significant opportunity for renewed leadership and accelerated support in addressing poverty and climate change.
To welcome Banga to the role, Global Citizen put together a stunt in Washington, DC this morning, featuring large banners and placards in Power Our Planet color schemes, and carrying condensed messaging pressing for Ajay Banga to take strong leadership. The stunt was covered by AP News, and GC also put together a series of actions you can take:
In addition, we published this explainer piece Countries Can’t Tackle Climate Change as They’re Drowning in Debt. This ‘Pause Clause’ Could Change That, and will keep the content coming over the coming week.
Finally, I wrote my latest Forbes piece on Ajay Banga’s new role here.
Calling on Secretary Yellen in Politico
In order to make global financial reform happen, US leadership is critical. That’s why GC is calling on United States Secretary of the Treasury, Janet Yellen, via Politico, to join world leaders to commit to end extreme poverty and fight climate change at The Summit for New Financing Pact in Paris In June to Power Our Planet.
GC published this open letter to Secretary Yellen on Politio (here) on May 30, and also promoted it on social media and will share it with her team, with whom GC spoke to about Paris a couple days before print.
Rotary International Convention
You may remember my trip to Kiribati and Fiji earlier this year, where I joined Rotary International President Jennifer Jones to see UNICEF’s on-the-ground work in delivering vaccines to these regions. Well, this week, I had the pleasure of speaking to an audience of around 14,000 people at the closing ceremony of the Rotary International Convention in Melbourne on Wednesday about our long-standing partnership with Rotary and work to end polio together.
It was an honor to be invited to speak at Rotary 23 and pay tribute to my mentor, David Goldstone, a Rotarian from Perth, and to also talk about the work being done to build resilience in Pacific countries like Kiribati. Rotarians are a stellar example of follow through and set a powerful example for governments to emulate.
Sky News Australia and Breaking Politics Podcast
I was pleased to be back on Sky News Australia this week (watch here) to talk about Global Citizen’s Power Our Planet campaign and the opportunity for the Australian Government to play a leadership role in helping countries quicken their transition to clean energy, and be able to withstand disasters. President Macron’s forthcoming financing summit represents a great platform for Australia to lean in!
Secondly, while at Australia’s Parliament House this week, I had the opportunity to give an interview to the Breaking Politics podcast — I talked about climate finance, shared Global Citizen’s vision for a just clean energy transition, and challenged Australia to pay its fair share. I’m featured 13:20 - 28:15 - check it out here.
Also, check out this Twitter thread which includes highlights from my trip, including meetings with Michael McCormack, Australian Shadow International Development & Pacific Minister and Australia's Minister for International Development and the Pacific, Pat Conroy.
It’s Time for Australia to Rejoin IFAD, and This Open Letter Tells Us Why
By rejoining IFAD, Australia can maximize the impact of its agricultural development assistance and contribute to the global effort to achieve food security and poverty reduction in the developing world. This week, I had the pleasure of handing over this letter of support to Australia political leaders Michael McCormack, MP and Minister Pat Conroy. We are proud to have this campaign amplify key voices across the Asia Pacific region, calling for a renewed commitment to multilateralism by Australian leadership and increasing resources for rural development and transformation. You can read more on Global Citizen’s twitter thread.
Join the Power our Planet Roundtable on June 6th
As part of our Power Our Planet campaign we’re discussing how companies and their leadership can help the private sector stand up to climate change as it never has before. Please join us on Tuesday, June 6, at 10 am ET / 4 pm CET for a private virtual roundtable, presented by Global Citizen and Cisco for an action driven conversation about the Power Our Planet Private Sector Call to Action.
Leaders joining this impactful discussion include Hugh Evans, Co-Founder and CEO of Global Citizen; Bill Nye, Global Citizen Ambassador; Fran Katsoudas, EVP and Chief People, Policy & Purpose Officer of Cisco; Alok Sharma, COP26 President and Member of UK Parliament; Sherif Ayoub, Senior Director, SEforALL Lead on African Carbon Market Initiative and moderator Carolyn Hyde, Anchor at Bloomberg Television. Please RSVP as soon as possible by emailing Annabel.Hogg@globalcitizen.org.
Creating Wellbeing for Workers through The Corporate Care Network
JUST Capital and Global Citizen launched The Corporate Care Network at Global Citizen NOW to encourage the private sector to demonstrate their leadership on care by prioritizing care, reinforcing the case for care, and making care visible. On May 31st we hosted a private sector roundtable to discuss ways business leaders can take action to advance racial and gender equity in their workplaces and ensure that their policies attract talent, increase retention rates, and improve employee performance. Speakers included Tolu Lawrence, Managing Director and Head of Corporate Impact at JUST Capital; Maureen Howard, Vice President Global Equality and Inclusion at Procter & Gamble; Reshma Saujani, CEO, Moms First; Aaron Holtz, Director Gender Equality and Inclusion at Global Citizen; and Leyla Sharafi, Senior Gender Adviser at UNFPA. Learn more about The Corporate Care Network.
Global Citizen at the World Health Assembly
Every year in Geneva, the world comes together to take stock of all global efforts on health, under the coordinating role of WHO, which this year celebrates its 75th anniversary, and which Global Citizen attended in person.
We need a stronger and better financed health architecture with WHO at its core. As our Power Our Planet campaign stresses, better pandemic response and improving health/climate linkages are essential to defeat poverty! In particular, GC used this occasion to reiterate our support calls from Dr Tedros to governments: 1) Progress on health SDGs and the triple billion targets — 1 billion more people each with better health, UHC, and protection from health emergencies. 2) Engage in pandemic preparedness/response. 3) Increase funding to WHO.
Ahead of this session, WHO declared an end to COVID-19 as a public health emergency of international concern and as all of you know, with the help of global citizens and all our partners, we campaigned for world leaders to share funding, doses and knowledge with low and middle income countries towards vaccine equity. During this session and as covered in this Twitter thread, GC paid attention particularly to any developments linked directly to our campaign objectives, specifically on immunization and defeating polio, as well as other issues of interest such as the process towards a pandemic treaty and a much needed update to the International Health Regulations, which should be ready by May 2024.
A Conversation with our GCPrize and CISCO Youth Leadership winners
As many of you know, the Global Citizen Prize Gala took place on April 27 in New York City, celebrating five fierce activists from Afghanistan, Kenya, Rwanda, the United States and Zimbabwe. This was just the kick-off of a whole year of collaboration between each of them and Global Citizen to uplift their voices and boost our common calls to action. As part of this collaboration, this week GC held a very cool and open discussion with them as part of our civic space Twitter Conversations, which you can listen to here! Have a listen and share so that more people can get to know, be inspired and see how they can support the causes defended by these amazing activists!
African Voices in Defense of Civic Space
Freedom of expression can take different shapes and its links to activism and promoting change is just undeniable. This week and as part of our civic space work in bringing out-of-the-box thinking activists to our audiences, we are introducing you to the great work by Apochi Nelson Owoicho from Nigeria, who is teaching kids how to use a camera as tool of self expression while sowing the seeds of the next generation of journalists, as well as the story of South Africa’s “creativist” (creative + activist, get it?), Onalerona Seane who as a man fighting against Gender Based Violence is opening alternative civic spaces with poetry.
Global Citizen is Hiring
Are you or someone you know passionate about our mission, and want to join what will most certainly be another impactful year of action? If so, come work with GC! GC is hiring for a Government Relations and Advocacy Manager (Germany).
If this sounds like you, please throw your name in the hat! Or if you know someone who might be a good fit, do share across your networks.
My Weekend Reading List
That’s all for this week! Hope to see some of you in Paris this month, and watch the space for more exciting updates!
As always, if you’re enjoying the weekly newsletter format, and want even more, you can subscribe to my Substack here where I publish reviews, lists and articles on a regular basis.
All best,
Mick