The Mumsnet Society for Environment, Development and Apple Pie

[policywonk]

Thought I'd start a new thread to keep up the conversation about the issues that we were concentrating on at the G20 (maternal and newborn health and a low-carbon future, among other things).

Maybe we can get a bit of momentum going. The next big event will be the IMF/World Bank Spring Meetings at the end of April. This will be the first opportunity to assess how the IMF proposes to use the new money it's been given, and what sort of conditions will be attached to the money given or loaned to developing countries.

I'll kick things off with a link to Oxfam Man's excellent blog

ActionAid and Save the Children are reporting that the development budget is safe for the next two years (having dug into the details of today's budget) - not bad for a government in the middle of a recession. Hurray!

That's good news, pw!

Oxfam Man says that activist pressure helped the government to hold the line (here), so if you emailed or Tweeted or whatever, give yourself a small pat on the back.

Apparently Gordo intervened personally to make sure the aid budget wasn't cut. Say what you like about him - I think he's been an absolute idiot in some areas - but he does seem to have a genuine personal conviction when it comes to development aid.

Oooh, I've had an idea, right. Brace yourselves.

How about: we (as a group, as many MNers as would like to) try to forge a personal relationship with a woman's advocacy group in a developing country? There are loads of groups within poor countries campaigning for legal rights to abortion, female education, maternity services, against male violence and so on. How about we identify one of these and ally ourselves with them, offering practical advice and support as well as fund-raising if necessary? Who knows, they might be able to offer us some things in return - I'm not assuming it would be lady-bountiful-one-way-traffic.

I was reading the other day about this group, which is suiing the Malawian government for its failure to provide legal, safe abortion (the effects of botched abortions account for a significant amount of maternal mortality). I'm not saying we should pick this particular group, as it seems to be doing pretty well already - but it's an example of the kind of group that's out there.

You have left the Reds and joined the Whites??

Do you think it would be too personal?

(Happy Birthday to DS!)

It might work best as a relationship specifically between websites rather than (primarily)between rl groups. You would need to choose a group that has an active web presence of some sort, develop structural links between the websites so encourage discourse, shared campaigning, etc.

That's a good point. (Is that Lenin again or are we all adopting revolutionary nicknames today?)

That's a good point. (Is that Lenin again or are we all adopting revolutionary nicknames today?)

I just had a glance through the UN website to see if they had any list of external links to relevant women's movement websites in dev world. Didn't spot anyhting at first glance but I imagine that sort of info wd be readily available somewhere.

(Is Fred Worm btw. Yes we all went a bit revolutionary when Onebat bcm a lady-in-waiting.)

I don't understand. Would be as an ally scheme, as how some towns adopt the 'twinned with' or more of a sponsorship?

Either way, I need to do more

at Fred Worm. I was thinking I could ask around my NGO contacts (that's, er, two people) to see whether they could help us identify a group or shortlist of groups. But I do think the online presence point is a good idea.

ILove - I dunno, what do you think? I'm just kicking the idea around at the moment. I must say 'twinning' was the thought that popped into my head.

You do know you're going to have to shag the Tsarina and get killed in about four different ways, right?

What I woz thinking woz, there are so many people on here with specific skills (lawyers, techy sprites, journos, engineers, copy-editors ) that we could offer appropriate practical support (social capital) as well as the odd bit of fund-raising.

Is there any way without it being offensively trivialising to the much more serious issues faced by women in the dev world that we could find a campaign issue that has a dual relevance in a dev country and in the UK?

I mean some aspect of neonatal care that could be expressed in such a way as to wed the concerned of mothers here with mothers in a third world country so that each time the issue came up in a UK context it would also bring up the much more serious allied issue in the twinned third-world group. The web presence on MN could tie the UK and thirld-world concern so that each time we thought of our own issue not enough midwives or whatever -- it would come to be thought of by ourselves and by politicians as allied with the more serious dev country concern.

lolo at shagging the tsarinas.

You are having lots of good ideas today Fred. I usually have to let something marinate for about 48 hours before anything creative happens so I will have a think.

There is Jessica's Trust - the guy has an active presence on Twitter and seems to be up for working with people.

Apologies for fading in and out, I have a hard time keeping up (in general, I mean, not only in this specific instance).

Jessica's Trust twitter page