"End Austerity Now!" is the opening session of the End Austerity Activism Festival, a 3-day virtual event event bringing together activists and organisations from all around the world and taking place from Wednesday 28th of September to Friday 30th of September 2022.

85% of the world’s population is expected to be under some sort of austerity measures in 2023, according to analysis of IMF projections. But austerity cuts are not inevitable and alternatives exist. In this event, some of the world’s leading experts will provide short, powerful and inspiring statements on why we need to end austerity now.

This event will also include the presentation of three major reports by the Financial Transparency Coalition, Global Social Justice, Initiative for Policy Dialogue, and Oxfam, with new figures on the extent of the wave of austerity spreading across the world and how Covid-19 recovery funds in the global south have largely gone mostly to big corporations instead of social protection and small companies.

Finally, a Q&A session will provide attendees the chance to ask questions to the panel.

Confirmed speakers:

• Sharan Burrow, Secretary General of the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) (Australia)
• Jayati Ghosh, Professor of Economics at the University of Massachusetts Amherst (India)
• Cephas Lumina, former UN Independent Expert on the effects of foreign debt on human rights (Zambia)
• Roberto Bissio, Coordinator of Social Watch and Third World Network (Uruguay)
• Alexander Kentikelenis, Associate Professor of Sociology at Bocconi University, (Greece)
• J.P. Bohoslavsky, former UN Independent Expert on the effects of foreign debt on human rights (Argentina)
• Matthew Cummins, Social Policy Regional Adviser, UNICEF Africa (US)
• Isabel Ortiz, former Director at the United Nations ‘ ILO and UNICEF, currently Director Global Social Justice, Initiative for Policy Dialogue (Spain)
• Matti Kohonen, director, Financial Transparency Coalition
• Grazielle Custódio David, Economic Justice and Equity Regional Coordinator, Oxfam
  
  

Check the full programme of the festival