Put People First: Jobs, Justice, Climate

Put People First

What was Put People First? 

Put People First was a civil society platform of more than 160 civil society organisations, built in response to the financial and economic crisis, calling for a democratised economy that delivers secure jobs and public services, an end to poverty and inequality and a green economy. On 28 March 2009, shortly before the London G20 summit, 35,000 people marched through London.

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Ahead of the April 2009 G20, platform members produced a statement that sets out 12 key policies for the G20 summit to address including compelling tax havens to abide by strict international rules, insisting on fundamental governance reform of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF), making all financial institutions, financial products and multinationals transparent and publicly accountable and ensure a massive investment in a green new deal to build a green economy based on decent work and fair pay.

What was the outcome of the G20?

Civil society organisations were in agreement that the G20 communiqué did not deliver the break from ‘business as usual' that the world needs. In particular the opportunity to signal the transition to a green economy was not seized, and concrete plans for increasing the accountability of the IMF were not forthcoming, despite a decision to increase its funding.

However other announcements clearly showed the impact of the campaign and were cautiously welcomed, including funds for poor countries, and increasing the transparency of tax havens. At the press conference, Gordon Brown proclaimed the Washington Consensus to be ‘dead'.

Further G20 meetings requested the IMF to investigate possibilities for a Financial Transactions Tax - one of the recommendations of the platform. In the UK election campaign following the campaign, all UK parties committed to legislating to keep the target of 0.7% of GNI for aid by 2013. 

What happened next?

With the approach of the Copenhagen climate talks and the UK General Election, the energy of Put People First members turned towards climate change campaigning. Many of the Put People First policy demands were integrated in to the 2010 UK civil society manifesto on international development "Vote Global" under the heading "Make the global economy work for the poor".  Put People First also continued analysing policy, organising conferences and holding smaller actions.

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