Stamp Out Poverty Campaign : Update - June 2008

Breaking news! – UN chief speaks out in favour of key Stamp Out Poverty proposal

The UN Secretary General, Ban Ki-moon has recently made the unprecedented step of going on record to support the Currency Transaction Development Levy.

“..there is renewed international interest in a possible currency-transaction “development levy” of 0.005 per cent, a minuscule tax that is not expected to materially affect market operations while having the potential to generate billions of dollars that can be allocated for development. Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) member countries are already raising substantial amounts of revenue on various types of financial transactions taxes with no apparent negative impact on financial markets. The international financial system already has clearing and settlement mechanisms that can manage the collection of this levy at low cost for any one country unilaterally.“

As well, the Secretary-General has just appointed former French foreign minister, Philippe Douste-Blazy, to the newly created position of Special Representative for Innovative Finance. In his maiden speech in his new role, Mr Douste-Blazy stated for the first time in a UN plenary session that “we must have taxes on currency transactions”.

This high level endorsement marks an unprecedented step forward for the campaign. The Stamp Out Poverty team are looking to build on this success as we edge closer to the UN Millennium Development Goals conference in September. The campaign is now in its strongest position since it was founded as more high level UN meetings discuss the idea of introducing the currency levy. But the UK government could do so much more to support the proposal and this is where you can help. Please Take Action by asking your MP to put pressure on the government now!

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Change at the Stamp Out Poverty Office

Stamp Out Poverty would like to say a massive thank you to Claudia Waller, who after two years of hard work has moved on to pastures new. At the same time we would like to extend a warm welcome to Richard Wyatt who joined the team this month as our new Network and Communications Officer.