Inequality

The grassroots movement for economic localisation represents a positive and practical response to the challenges of food insecurity, climate change, peak oil and financial instability. Governments should support this alternative vision for sustainable, human-scale development, writes Anna White.

It may seem that the goal of universal primary health care - in which state capacities are strengthened to ensure the rapid expansion of free publicly-provided health services - is further away than ever before. But there are many signs that the ideal of 'health for all' is making a second resurgence, writes Adam Parsons.

After decades of failing to address the root causes of poverty and inequality, the aid industry is bigger than ever. Is it time for some serious soul-searching on the value of ‘development’? A review of Rasna Warah's 'Missionaries, Mercenaries and Misfits', by Anna White.

While the United Nations recently claimed victory for the Millennium Development Goal on slums, the global population of slum-dwellers continues to grow. It is time for governments and civil society to give the problem of urban poverty the attention it deserves.

While the healthcare debate rages in the US, a broader discussion has been renewed on the international stage that envisions the universal goal of "health for all". The time is ripe for a global civil society movement to turn this vision into an international priority.

As the world economy continues to deteriorate, the American public must influence a momentous turnaround in global priorities and light the way for other countries in how to live a simpler, more sustainable lifestyle, writes Mohammed Sofiane Mesbahi.

世界経済が悪化し続けるなか、アメリカの人々は世界の優先事項の重大な方向転換に影響を与え、よりシンプルで持続可能なライフスタイルへの道を他の国々のために照らす必要があるとモハメッド·ソフィアン·メスバヒは書いています。

The following talk was given at a seminar hosted by World Goodwill on the theme "Human Rights, Spiritual Responsibilities - A Crisis for Democracy?", held in London on the 1st November 2008.