IPB is calling for a dramatic reduction of military spending in favour of healthcare and meeting social needs!

The world’s oldest peace NGO, the Nobel Prize-winning IPB has called on G20 world leaders who are gathering via virtual means this coming week to send a message of peace and solidarity to the world as they address the global health emergency.

This is a time to open a new page in global relations to put geopolitical tensions to one side, to end proxy wars, for a ceasefire in those many conflicts around the world all of which stand to hamper a global solidarity effort.

We have to lift the shadow of war and military brinkmanship which has blighted global cooperation in recent years and work to ensure that a spirit of peace and solidarity prevails.

We are all paying a heavy price for failed leadership and misplaced market-driven practices that have weakened our means to address this emergency, which has hit the weakest hardest.

Healthcare Stress                        

We are now seeing the consequences of underinvesting in healthcare infrastructure, hospitals, and staff. All over the world, health systems are reaching the limits of their strength and heroic front-line staff are under massive pressure.

The coronavirus emergency shows what a weakened state our societies find themselves in to protect the people: a world driven by financialization, shareholder value and austerity have weakened our ability to defend the common good and placed human life in danger on a global scale.

Employees fearful of job and income loss are tempted to go to work sick. Older people are vulnerable and need help. The virus hits the weakest hardest.

We can already draw lessons for the future:

• Health is a human right for the young and old, for all people in all parts in the world.
• Healthcare and nursing care must never be slashed or subordinated in the pursuit of profit through privatization.
• The importance of decent work for all healthcare staff and continued investment in their education and training.

Time for a Global Social Contract

We support the efforts of the trade union movement globally, regionally and nationally, in their call for a new social contract. We support their call for economic measures and resources to protect jobs, incomes, public services, and the welfare of people.

This requires a commitment from the business community to keep people in work and the support they are promised to receive from their governments must be conditional on their adhering to the social contract for job security and incomes.

G20: Priority to Disarmament

The world spends 1.8 trillion dollars on military expenditure every year and is scheduled to spend 1 trillion dollars on new nuclear weapons in the next 20 years.

In addition, billions are spent on military research, money which would be better invested in health and human needs and research to help the fight against global climate change. Militarization is the wrong path for the world to take; it fuels tensions and raises the potential for war and conflict and aggravates already heightened nuclear tensions. World leaders must put disarmament and peace back in the center of policy making! Global leaders have to develop a new agenda for disarmament and that includes the banning of nuclear weapons. We call once again for governments to sign on to the TPNW.

Disarmament is one of the keys to the great transformation of our economies, to ensure that human beings and not profit are most valued; economies in which ecological challenges – above all the crisis of climate change – will be solved and global social justice will be pursued.

With disarmament the implementation of the SDGs, a global social contract, and a new global green peace deal, we can address the challenges of the coronavirus pandemic.

That is why we say that an initiative from the G20 to move away from a culture of militarization towards a culture of peace is both urgent and necessary.

Read the whole statement on our website or download it in English, Spanish, French, German, Swedish, or Finnish.

On March 23, 2020, António Guterres addressed the world with a powerful message of unity against a common enemy: COVID-19. Now more than ever before, world leaders are seeing the need to use limited resources to protect their people; not by funding the military and ongoing conflicts, but by investing in healthcare and the well-being of all citizens.

Those in conflict zones are especially suffering – refugees, health professionals, relief workers, women, children, and those with disabilities. We recognized this in our statement as well, in which we called for global solidarity in the face of the virus, a global cease fire, and a redirection of military funding to healthcare and social services.

The IPB stands with António Guterres, the UN, and those who are struggling to deal with the virus around the world, especially those in conflict zones. That is why it is more important than ever to declare a #GlobalCeaseFireNow!

We call on our members, allies, and all individuals around the world to join in this campaign. Declare peace, use the hashtag, write your governments, write an Op-Ed to your local newspaper. It is essential we fight for this ceasefire to protect those most in need of relief in these times of COVID-19.

All over the world, health systems are reaching the limits of their strength and heroic front-line staff are under massive pressure. The coronavirus emergency shows what a weakened state our societies find themselves in. Leading up-to this health crisis countries have been slashing funding of healthcare and social services in favour of military spending. Even now, NATO is encouraging its members to increase their military spending.

Join our petition so that we can send a clear message to global leaders that we will no longer accept militarization over healthcare! We call on world leaders to dramatically reduce military spending in favor of healthcare and all social and environmental needs, together with the International Peace Bureau, the world’s oldest peace organization and Nobel Prize winner.

GDAMS

Lack of preparedness for the COVID-19 epidemic reveals the potentially grave consequences of slashing social safety net spending while deluging the military-industrial complex with our tax dollars. Despite the obvious failure of the military to provide security in such a crisis (as it happens with other emergencies like climate change, terrorism or migration), Trump and the Pentagon are pressing yet another massive increase in military spending and NATO maintains its spending goals as well as its exorbitantly expensive and inopportune war games.

In view of the necessary measures for the containment of coronavirus there will be no public events during GDAMS. However we must still express our criticism and demand a cease-fire and a de-escalation of tensions across the globe, as we move the money from wars and preparations for wars to addressing our urgent human needs: health, climate, housing, education and more. That is why we're preparing a toolkit for online campaigning so our voices can be heard at a time of great need, when the necessity to change our spending priorities as a global society is more urgent than ever.

Online events

Due to the Conora virus situation, we will move our events online. You will have the chance to participate in our World Conference online and we will organize several webinars as part of the Global Days for Action on Military Spending 2020. For more information, please check the events on our websites www.ipb.org and www.demilitarize.org,