The last two decades have been the most successful in history in the fight against poverty: the share of people living in extreme poverty has been cut in half worldwide, from 43% in 1990 to under 20% today. However, more than one billion people still live in extreme poverty.
Despite being the fastest growing large economy in the world, one in every five Indians lives in extreme poverty today. Multilateral agencies as well as governments are playing an active role in understanding problems relating to poverty but these challenges are pervasive and weeding them out will require much more than what is being done today.
Studies suggest that no amount of individual philanthropy, public investment or aid in isolation can eliminate poverty on the planet.
Here’s where Global Citizen India comes in. It acts as a convening platform to bring together different stakeholders in society and align their efforts in response to the millions of young voices asking for change. Global Citizen India is a movement brought to India by Global Citizen, a social action platform, in tandem with The Global Education and Leadership Foundation (tGELF), an organisation focused on cultivating ethical, altruistic leadership to improve the state of the planet through collective action. Its aim is to catalyse India’s 15-year journey towards achieving the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, and to bring about the end of extreme poverty in India and around the world.
How does it do this? By as early as next year there will be 350 million smartphones in circulation and 375 million internet users - of which 120 million are college-age students. This movement is one of the masses – and India is uniquely positioned to use the collaborative strength of its 800 million young people to push for a more equitable tomorrow through a free-to-use tool that will soon be at most people’s fingertips. Global Citizen India leverages the power of social media as a transparent platform to gather a mass of individual voices for change into one collective energy. In 2016, Global Citizen India will focus its call on three key issues: water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH), gender equality and quality education.
Since the launch of the Global Citizen India initiative, more than 1.8 million actions have been taken by more than 500,000 Indian youth who have come together to a collective act that moves the needle on the critical issues of water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH), quality education and gender equality – three of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals set in place by the UN.
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Why does it focus on these three issues? We live in an unequal world and in India the social issues we face are amplified by a growing population. Global Citizen India considers these three issues as turnkey in the fight to end extreme poverty. Improved sanitation is of key urgency; clean water to drink, proper toilet facilities for rural and urban dwellers, access to sanitary menstrual hygiene products and the right education about these issues have scalable effects that can impact individual and collective health as well as education and literacy rates for girls.
Similarly education is the key to transform lives – whether focusing on that of the girl child, rural or underprivileged children, or building quality learning techniques that instill values in the next generation of workers and leaders.
And both these issues have knock-on effects for gender equality. With equal access to education and sanitation, girls and women can be empowered with education on a par with boys and men, and eventually contribute to the national economy as active members of the workforce.
So why is the Festival necessary? The Festival is a platform to raise the youth voice to be heard by India’s leaders. It is the first initiative of Global Citizen India and it will see influencers from the worlds of music, sport, art and culture as well as and leading figures from government and corporates coming together to commit their support to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals of Clean Water and Sanitation, Quality Education and Gender Equality.
Attendees can expect a celebration of change-makers from across rural and urban India, including performances by leading artists, inspirational speeches, short films and most importantly commitments from government, business leaders and civil society in support of India’s leadership role in achieving the Sustainable Development Goals.
Who’s going to be there? The Festival will be headlined by world renowned artists Coldplay, Jay Z, Demi Lovato, Aamir Khan, Arjun Kapoor, A. R.Rahman, Arijit Singh ,Amitabh Bachchan, Ayushmann Khurrana, Dia Mirza, Farhan Akhtar, Freida Pinto, Kareena Kapoor Khan, Katrina Kaif, Malaika Arora Khan, Monali Thakur, Parineeti Chopra, Ranveer Singh, Sachin Tendulkar, Sakshi Malik, Shah Rukh Khan, Shankar Ehsaan Loy, Shraddha Kapoor, Sonakshi Sinha, Vidya Balan, Vijender Singh and Vivek Oberoi.
Aamir Khan is a proud Global Citizen and is “pleased to see an initiative like Global Citizen coming to India”. He’s endorsed the Global Citizen India platform as something that will “bring people together to support the UN Global Goals to eradicate poverty, not only in India but around the world.” Aamir has already lent his voice to the movement as a proponent of the message that young people are the start of change – something Global Citizen has coined as #ShuruaatHoonMain.
And why are all these influencers, government officials and corporate leaders lending their support? Bhavya Bishnoi of Global Citizen India says that Global Citizen India is gathering momentum as it is a movement that India hasn’t seen before – it “raises the youth voice on the biggest issues that face India and the world today.” Its USP is its convening nature; “Global Citizen India brings together youth with leaders from across private industry, government, and non-governmental, community and religious organisations to amplify their voice and hold these leaders accountable to their commitments on water and sanitation, education and gender equality”. At the Festival it’s expected that all these stakeholders take to the stage not just to show their support, but also to make commitments in monetary value and resources. Says Bishnoi: “The Festival is just the start of this journey - we look forward to continuing our work with more commitments both at the Festival on 19 November and beyond, where we will hold our leaders to account to make sure that this change happens.”
The Global Citizen India Festival is being organized on 19th November 2016 at the MMRDA grounds, Bandra-Kurla Complex in Mumbai.