Statement: Reclaim our future. Oppose the corporate “development” agenda

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the Statement: Reclaim our future. Oppose the
Corporate Development Agenda

In September of this year, Heads of
States and Governments will gather at the United Nations (UN) headquarters in
New York City to agree on a new set of “Sustainable Development Goals” (SDGs)
and a “global plan of action for people, planet and prosperity”. The
latest draft of this declaration which promises to “transform our world” by
2030 and ensure that “no one will be left behind” in the process has just been
released today.

However, many of these same
governments, particularly the more powerful ones among them, are also currently
negotiating new “free trade” deals that will have far-reaching implications for
peoples in both the global North and South and for the future of the world
economy and the planet. Indeed, the top negotiators from 12 countries representing
over 60% of the global economy are currently meeting in Hawaii, US desperately
trying to conclude by the end of this week the transpacific partnership
agreement (TPP), the largest “trade” agreement since the establishment of the
WTO in 1994.

These agreements as they are
currently framed and when adopted side-by-side, will not usher a new dawn for
humanity. Instead they are likely to further concentrate power and wealth
in the hands of the 1% on the one hand, and deepen the dispossession, exploitation
and oppression of peoples and environmental plunder on the other.

We need to let these governments know
that we will not accept a “development” agenda that will serve as a vehicle for
strengthening corporate power, re-legitimize the global capitalist growth model
and perpetuate neoliberal globalization.

Please send organizational
endorsements to the attached statement, with country, to April at 
secretariat@peoplesgoals.orgby Friday, August 7th.

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