WE, THE UNDERSIGNED, DECLARE THAT:
- We are committed to the implementation of additional sources of finance, specifically duties or levies, to generate reliable income streams for the provision of long term sustainable development; and to combat, where linked, causes of poverty such as economic and environmental harm to developing countries.
- In the light of the Millennium Development Goals – the historic accord in the year 2000 by all UN countries to halve world poverty by 2015 – there is an international agreement to improve the human condition worldwide through the provision of basic amenities such as clean water and essential healthcare and education.
- Current avenues of development assistance - traditional overseas aid, debt relief and improved terms of trade - are neither providing an urgent enough response to stop preventable disease and death, nor generating the necessary funds to pay for the Millennium Development Goals and bring sufficient numbers of people out of poverty.
- The first ‘development tax’, agreed in 2006, in the form of the Air Ticket Levy - whose funds provide treatment for HIV/AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis – sets an important precedent for further progress in this field.
- We urge decision-makers, in the UK and internationally, to take all steps necessary for an early introduction of new and additional financing initiatives, such as a stamp duty on sterling currency transactions, with proceeds ring-fenced for sustainable international development objectives.
- We further urge decision-makers to ensure that such proceeds do not replace either existing international aid disbursements, agreed commitments to increase international aid or provision to cancel the debts of developing countries.
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