CAMBRIDGE WORLD DEVELOPMENT GROUP – MINUTES For 19 January 2005

Minutes of the meeting held at 19:45 on Wednesday 19 jan 2005 at Beth’s Cambridge. Thanks to Beth for her kind hospitality.

PRESENT: Beth Coulthard (Chair), Aidan Baker, Clare Baker,Frank Fisher, Rachel Norridge, Sheila Brookes, Sue Woodsford (Secretary)

APOLOGIES : Ray Galvin, Pat Salmanpour

1. MINUTES FROM MEETING OF 15 December 2004 approved as a correct record.

2. GRANT FOR Fair trade Guide SECURED

CWDM has secured a Sustainable City grant from Cambridge City Council for £1,500 to produce the Fair Trade Guide to Cambridge. Sue & Fabiola to proceed with plans.

3. LETTER TO GORDON BRWOWN

Agreed we write a letter to the Chancellor Gordon Brown congratulating him on his action to address poverty in Africa. The plans they propose for focusing on ways to improve lives on the African continent chimes well with WDM demands. Blair’s Commission for Africa reports in April so their recommendations could feed directly into the agendas for both the G8 in Scotland in July and the EU under UK Presidency later this year. Brown is touring Africa now to talk about poverty solutions with African leaders. Sue to devise a letter for others to improve on email, asking how we can help take these ideas further locally.

4. MULTI FIBRE AGREEMENT (MFA)

MFA imposed textile quotas to protect developed countries from cheap imports. Now these are to be removed, places like Sri Lanka and Bangladesh which have done OK under the MFA will lose out badly to China and India, bigger countries that grow their own cotton and produce cheaper textiles. Christian Aid & Labour behind the Label websites give more info.

5. CHRISTIAN AID WEEK

Frank’s idea to mark Christian Aid Week was greeted warmly. He is to get his Youth Group to build a water purification machine and get the women in Grantchester to carry buckets of water from the river to the machine to get it purified. CWDM offered to join in.

6. WDM SPEAKER IN CAMBRIDGE

WDM HQ have given us a slot on this year’s Speaker Tour which focuses on water privatisation under the title Dirty Aid Dirty Water. We shall be hosting either Rudolf Amenga-Etego or Shirley H Nibi, both of whom are active campaigners against water privatisation in their country Ghana. For venues we considered Emmanuel URC, the Michael House etc. but later favoured African Studies Centre. Details/publicity to follow.

7. TIMETABLE FOR 2005

January Make Poverty History campaign

February Launch of the Water Campaign with a speaker tour.

March Speaker here in Cambridge on the Dity Aid Dirty Water campaign 7.30pm on 21 March possibly atAthe African Studies Centre.

Annual Fairtrade Fortnight 1 – 14 March and World Water Day 22 March.

April Tony Blair’s Commission for Africa reports back. Global Week of Action 10 – 16 April – Trade Justice event of the year. Cambridge WDM has been successful in getting a grant to produce a Fairtrade Guide to Cambridge and hopes to launch it as our Big Event for this Global Action Week.

May General Election?

June WDM AGM

July UK Presidency of the G8 Summit at Gleneagles in Scotland – actions on Trade Justice as part of wider mobilisation on global poverty.

July 2004 to January 2005 UK holds Presidency of the European Union – more actions on Trade Justice

September WTO Ministerial in Hong Kong

October Black History Month

December UK hosts the EU Summit

8. NEXT MEETING will be at 7.45pm at Sue’s on 16 February 2005 at 7.45pm.

The meeting after that : 16 March at Pat’s 2005