Catch Them If You Can: transfers from poor to rich is the rule, not the exception

How does the international financial system systematically disadvantage the poor of the world to the advantage of the rich?

How this is routinely done ‘legally’ and ‘officially’?

…We invite you to catch them, if you can….

 

The Catch Them If You Can project explores the idea of ‘radical inequality’ in the context of finance for (under)development, highlighting a shared global order of institutions and mechanisms that are shaped by the better-off and imposed on the worse-off.

The project will illustrate the impact of this reality on human development and on the social investments ‘foregone’ as a result.

**Note: updates on the project are available at the Catch Them If You Can online hub**

As a hands-on project, it has five key objectives:

  1. Explore issues related to global inequality, finance and unsustainable development (and those responsible for perpetuating them!)
  2. Contribute to expanding the public conversation on the increasingly important role and impact of financial structures and mechanisms in perpetuating poverty and inequality
  3. Build a network of individuals, groups and partners from teaching, learning, communications, business and economics (among others) to be increasingly skilled and experienced on this topic and active on engaging in a public education around it
  4. Deliberate, discuss and explore these issues in Ireland and overseas, particularly developing countries
  5. Design and co-produce a series of creative responses to these realities (participative design thinking, advocacy, taking on marketing and ‘spin’. YES!)

Who can get involved? Business teachers, traders and workers, teachers, bank and financial sector workers, communications and marketing professionals, students, educators, anyone who has worked overseas, activists, and more….

Register your interest to join the project, beginning in June. Email tony@8020.ie

Time frame: this initiative is taking place from May 2019 – July 2020.

Workshops will:

  • Cover a range of issues and topic areas
  • Be interactive, challenging and enjoyable
  • Use participative methodologies and ideas to understand, deliberate and co-create responses to the scale of radical inequality
  • Review roles of the actors and organisations that benefit the most from this inequality
  • Build an advocacy approach arising of and led by the ideas and demands of participants

Topics covered will include:

  • Radical inequality – and the actors that benefit from it
  • Global Financial institutions (and how they work)
  • Political economy
  • Global finance standards and institutions
  • Collaborative practice: building partnerships

CPD requirements: CPD participation certificates are available. (The course has been created to purposefully address CPD requirements as outlined by the Teaching Council of Ireland (Cosán, The National Framework Teachers’ Learning. 80:20 was involved in developing a joint submission with the IDEA Formal Education Working Group during the consultation on An Cosán in 2015).

Our inspiration…

This project is inspired by and comes directly out of a popular education research project we produced ten years ago (and have wanted to update ever since) called 5:50:500 or How We Reward the Rich at The Expense of The Poor…And Where We Fit In, an idea all about give and take (…mostly take!).

It is also inspired by the ongoing realities of how these realities have not dated….the magnitude of global inequalities is even more stark now than it was in 2010.

Join us in changing the equation – today.


About the Citizens for Financial Justice initiative

80:20 Educating and Acting for a Better World is part of the EU-wide initiative Citizens for Financial Justice.

Citizens for Financial Justice is a diverse group of European partners – from local grassroots groups to large international organisations – with a shared vision of informing and connecting citizens to act together to make the global finance system work better for everybody.

We are funded by the European Union and aim to support the implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by mobilising EU citizens to support effective financing for development (FfD).

Our funding

Citizens for Financial Justice is part funded by the European Union’s DEAR programme (Development Education and Awareness Raising).

 

 

The Catch Them If You Can project is produced with the financial support of the European Union and Irish Aid. It is the sole responsibility of 80:20 Educating and Acting for a Better World and does not necessarily reflect the views of the European Union.

  • featured photo: shiny by Laurence Edmondson (via Flickr CC-BY-ND)