TOGETHER WE CAN
END AUSTERITY
We, concerned people, civil society, activists and experts, are raising the alarm for the looming wave of austerity that is adding fuel to the fire of the Covid-19 pandemic, the climate emergency, growing inequality and debt burdens, conflict, and food insecurity.
We are calling on policy-makers to fulfill their promises to “build back better” and get on board with our bold, ambitious vision of a better future for people and the planet – it’s in our hands!
When we call to End Austerity, we call for better alternative ways to run our societies and economies at local, national, regional and global levels, that seek to put people at the centers and do not see maximizing profits for large corporations and wealth for millionaires and billionaires as an objective of economic policy. We seek alternatives that place solidarity, equality, human rights and care at the heart of the economic model.
Who We Are
We are women’s rights and peace organisations, environmental groups, economic justice communities, trade unions, human rights defenders, activists, researchers, humanitarian and health organisations – and ordinary people.
The organizations that initiated the End Austerity collective are ActionAid International, Arab Watch Coalition, Bretton Woods Project, Campaign of Campaigns, Center for Economic and Social Rights (CESR), Equidad, European Network on Debt and Development (Eurodad), Fight Inequality Alliance, Financial Transparency Coalition, Global Social Justice, Ibon International, Institute of Socioeconomic Studies (Inesc), the International Federation of Trade Unions (ITUC), Latin American Network for Economic and Social Justice (Latindadd), Oxfam International, Third World Network, and Wemos. Many more organizations and ordinary people have joined the campaign.
How we
work and
what we do
We work collaboratively with other national and international civil society networks and campaigns, experts and social movements
We seek to raise popular awareness of the ongoing global wave of austerity through national and international campaigns and to push national governments to prioritize public investments that are redistributive and promote climate, social and gender justice
We seek to build mutual support mechanisms among grassroots organizations and leverage the struggle of local communities that fight against austerity and to build more sustainable and just economic systems
We push international financial institutions to support governments in achieving these policy goals instead of undermining governments’ capacity to mobilize resources
We advocate for reforms of the existing international financial architecture that is exacerbating the debt crisis and facilitating illicit financial flows and international tax evasion and dodging
Our History
The Covid-19 pandemic
The Covid-19 pandemic led many developing countries to seek emergency loans from the International Monetary Fund (IMF). While IMF emergency financing is conditionality free, many of these loans recommended governments to start cutting spending (austerity) soon after the peak of the crisis was over, at a time where countries needed to ramp up public investments in health, education, social protection and other public investments to face the next crisis. Instead, what countries needed was to raise revenues through adopting progressive taxes such as wealth taxes and higher corporate taxes to allow for a just people’s recovery. In countries without IMF programmes, the Ministries of Finance – many of whom are advised by the IMF – started replicating the same austerity policies, despite their negative impacts on people.
Our origin
In October 2020, worried by this emerging trend, over 500 civil society organisations and academics wrote to the IMF and Ministries of Finance demanding to put a definitive end to the practice of promoting austerity around the world. The initiative built on years of mobilisation during which civil society organisations have produced evidence demonstrating the harmful impact of austerity and its persistent use across the world.
These efforts were galvanised into the creation of the End Austerity Campaign collective.
