War on Want
Encyclopedia
War on Want is an anti-poverty charity
based in London
, England
. It seeks to highlight the needs of poverty
-stricken areas around the world and lobbies
governments and international agencies to tackle problems as well as raising public awareness of the concerns of developing nations while supporting organisations in developing countries. War on Want's slogan is "poverty is political" and its stated focus is on the root causes of poverty rather than its effects, and it places importance on enabling people in poverty to solve their own problems.
In its campaigning and programmes strands of work, War on Want focuses on
Organisations supported include ones that help child labourers in Guatemala
, olive farmers in the Palestinian territories
and factory workers in China
.
War on Want has released a series of 'alternative reports' highlighing issues such as Coca-Cola's
overseas activities allegedly causing poverty and environmental damage. They also recently released research on private military and security companies
in Iraq
and elsewhere being involved in human rights abuses, and a report highlighting how companies such as Tesco
, Primark
and Asda
sell goods made by sweatshop
labour in Bangladesh
. War on Want's campaigns on corporations call for the British government to regulate these industries as well as the businesses themselves to take responsibility for their actions.
At the 2006 and 2007 Q
Awards the magazine named War on Want its official charity.
to The Guardian
was read by the future Prime Minister
Harold Wilson
, who coined the name. Since then, the organisation has taken part in many campaigns and investigations, including in the 1970s helping to expose baby food
companies marketing powdered milk
infant formula
as a healthier option than breast milk
to mothers in the developing world - a dangerous and expensive option for these mothers who had no access to safe drinking water and sterilisation facilities.
In the 1980s, War on Want campaigned on the role of women in the developing world, and supported liberation movements in Eritrea
, South Africa
and Western Sahara
.
From 1983 to 1987, George Galloway
was General Secretary of War On Want. The Daily Mirror accused him of living luxuriously at the charity's expense. An independent auditor cleared him of misuse of funds, though he did repay £1,720 in contested expenses.
More than two years after Galloway stepped down as General Secretary to serve as a Labour MP, the British Government's Charity Commission
investigated War on Want, finding accounting irregularities including that the financial reports were "materially mis-stated" from 1985 to 1989, but little evidence that money was used for non-charitable purposes. Galloway had been general secretary for the first three of those years. The commission said responsibility lay largely with auditors and did not single out individuals for blame. War On Want was found to have been insolvent, and subsequently dismissed all its staff and went into administration. It was rescued and relaunched in 1991.
In the 1990s, it focused on issues that resulted from globalisation, including workers' rights and a call to set up a Tobin Tax
on currency speculation
. The charity set up the Tobin Tax Network (now a separate charity called Stamp Out Poverty) to develop the proposal and press for its introduction.
In 2006 War on Want launched a campaign for Palestinian human rights, including a report titled Profiting from the Occupation, which looked at European corporations who the charity claim are profiting from Israel's occupation of Palestinian territories. The campaign was praised by The Guardian
at the time, naming the charity "Campaign of the Week". In 2007 complaints that the charity was running politicised campaigns that defamed the state of Israel were investigated by the Charity Commission
. In 2007 MP Lee Scott
complained to the Commission about an online "guide for boycott, divestment and sanctions" against Israel; War on Want said it already had permission from the Commission to advocate boycotts and sanctions in order to address "the root causes of poverty and human rights abuses". In July 2009 the Commission concluded that no regulatory action was required, declaring itself satisfied that the charity's trustees understood the official guidance on campaigning by charities and that War on Want's campaigns on Palestine
were linked to its charitable objects, making them legitimate under charity law.
In 2011, War on Want marked its 60th anniversary with a repeat of the Yes campaign that first formed the charity, asking people to email the word Yes to show their support for withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan
. They delivered the petition to Foreign Secretary William Hague
.
in response to the ANC affiliated attacks on the Kennedy Road informal settlement and wrote a letter to the South African High Commissioner in London. The charity also spearheaded a campaign highlighting the forced displacement of poor South Africans in the lead-up to the 2010 World Cup.
Charitable organization
A charitable organization is a type of non-profit organization . It differs from other types of NPOs in that it centers on philanthropic goals A charitable organization is a type of non-profit organization (NPO). It differs from other types of NPOs in that it centers on philanthropic goals A...
based in London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
, England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
. It seeks to highlight the needs of poverty
Poverty
Poverty is the lack of a certain amount of material possessions or money. Absolute poverty or destitution is inability to afford basic human needs, which commonly includes clean and fresh water, nutrition, health care, education, clothing and shelter. About 1.7 billion people are estimated to live...
-stricken areas around the world and lobbies
Lobbying
Lobbying is the act of attempting to influence decisions made by officials in the government, most often legislators or members of regulatory agencies. Lobbying is done by various people or groups, from private-sector individuals or corporations, fellow legislators or government officials, or...
governments and international agencies to tackle problems as well as raising public awareness of the concerns of developing nations while supporting organisations in developing countries. War on Want's slogan is "poverty is political" and its stated focus is on the root causes of poverty rather than its effects, and it places importance on enabling people in poverty to solve their own problems.
Current work
To achieve its goal of poverty eradication, War on Want works with grassroots partner organisations in the developing world, and campaigns in the UK to raise public awareness and change government policy.In its campaigning and programmes strands of work, War on Want focuses on
- corporate accountability
- private security companiesPrivate military companyA private military company or provides military and security services. These combatants are commonly known as mercenaries, though modern-day PMCs refer to their staff as security contractors, private military contractors or private security contractors, and refer to themselves as private military...
- the rights of Palestinians and putting a stop to the separation barrier
- the rights of the Saharawi in Western SaharaWestern SaharaWestern Sahara is a disputed territory in North Africa, bordered by Morocco to the north, Algeria to the northeast, Mauritania to the east and south, and the Atlantic Ocean to the west. Its surface area amounts to . It is one of the most sparsely populated territories in the world, mainly...
- informal economyInformal economyThe informal sector or informal economy as defined by governments, scholars, banks, etc. is the part of an economy that is not taxed, monitored by any form of government, or included in any gross national product , unlike the formal economy....
- sweatshopSweatshopSweatshop is a negatively connoted term for any working environment considered to be unacceptably difficult or dangerous. Sweatshop workers often work long hours for very low pay, regardless of laws mandating overtime pay or a minimum wage. Child labour laws may be violated. Sweatshops may have...
and plantation workers - trade justiceTrade justiceTrade justice is a campaign by non-governmental organisations lobbying for changes to the rules and practices of world trade so that poor people and the environment benefit...
- food justiceFood sovereignty"Food sovereignty" is a term coined by members of Via Campesina in 1996 to refer to a policy framework advocated by a number of farmers, peasants, pastoralists, fisherfolk, indigenous peoples, women, rural youth and environmental organizations, namely the claimed "right" of peoples to define their...
- halting the privatisation of vital resources in developing nations
Organisations supported include ones that help child labourers in Guatemala
Guatemala
Guatemala is a country in Central America bordered by Mexico to the north and west, the Pacific Ocean to the southwest, Belize to the northeast, the Caribbean to the east, and Honduras and El Salvador to the southeast...
, olive farmers in the Palestinian territories
Palestinian territories
The Palestinian territories comprise the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Since the Palestinian Declaration of Independence in 1988, the region is today recognized by three-quarters of the world's countries as the State of Palestine or simply Palestine, although this status is not recognized by the...
and factory workers in China
China
Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...
.
War on Want has released a series of 'alternative reports' highlighing issues such as Coca-Cola's
Coca-Cola
Coca-Cola is a carbonated soft drink sold in stores, restaurants, and vending machines in more than 200 countries. It is produced by The Coca-Cola Company of Atlanta, Georgia, and is often referred to simply as Coke...
overseas activities allegedly causing poverty and environmental damage. They also recently released research on private military and security companies
Private military company
A private military company or provides military and security services. These combatants are commonly known as mercenaries, though modern-day PMCs refer to their staff as security contractors, private military contractors or private security contractors, and refer to themselves as private military...
in Iraq
Iraq
Iraq ; officially the Republic of Iraq is a country in Western Asia spanning most of the northwestern end of the Zagros mountain range, the eastern part of the Syrian Desert and the northern part of the Arabian Desert....
and elsewhere being involved in human rights abuses, and a report highlighting how companies such as Tesco
Tesco
Tesco plc is a global grocery and general merchandise retailer headquartered in Cheshunt, United Kingdom. It is the third-largest retailer in the world measured by revenues and the second-largest measured by profits...
, Primark
Primark
Primark is a clothing retailer, operating over 223 stores in Ireland , the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Germany, Spain, Portugal and Belgium...
and Asda
Asda
Asda Stores Ltd is a British supermarket chain which retails food, clothing, general merchandise, toys and financial services. It also has a mobile telephone network, , Asda Mobile...
sell goods made by sweatshop
Sweatshop
Sweatshop is a negatively connoted term for any working environment considered to be unacceptably difficult or dangerous. Sweatshop workers often work long hours for very low pay, regardless of laws mandating overtime pay or a minimum wage. Child labour laws may be violated. Sweatshops may have...
labour in Bangladesh
Bangladesh
Bangladesh , officially the People's Republic of Bangladesh is a sovereign state located in South Asia. It is bordered by India on all sides except for a small border with Burma to the far southeast and by the Bay of Bengal to the south...
. War on Want's campaigns on corporations call for the British government to regulate these industries as well as the businesses themselves to take responsibility for their actions.
At the 2006 and 2007 Q
Q (magazine)
Q is a popular music magazine published monthly in the United Kingdom.Founders Mark Ellen and David Hepworth were dismayed by the music press of the time, which they felt was ignoring a generation of older music buyers who were buying CDs — then still a new technology...
Awards the magazine named War on Want its official charity.
History
The organisation was formed in 1951 after a letter from Victor GollanczVictor Gollancz
Sir Victor Gollancz was a British publisher, socialist, and humanitarian.-Early life:Born in Maida Vale, London, he was the son of a wholesale jeweller and nephew of Rabbi Professor Sir Hermann Gollancz and Professor Sir Israel Gollancz; after being educated at St Paul's School, London and taking...
to The Guardian
The Guardian
The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
was read by the future Prime Minister
Prime Minister of the United Kingdom
The Prime Minister of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is the Head of Her Majesty's Government in the United Kingdom. The Prime Minister and Cabinet are collectively accountable for their policies and actions to the Sovereign, to Parliament, to their political party and...
Harold Wilson
Harold Wilson
James Harold Wilson, Baron Wilson of Rievaulx, KG, OBE, FRS, FSS, PC was a British Labour Member of Parliament, Leader of the Labour Party. He was twice Prime Minister of the United Kingdom during the 1960s and 1970s, winning four general elections, including a minority government after the...
, who coined the name. Since then, the organisation has taken part in many campaigns and investigations, including in the 1970s helping to expose baby food
Baby food
Baby food is any food, other than breastmilk or infant formula, that is made specifically for infants, roughly between the ages of four to six months to 2 years. The food comes in multiple varieties and tastes, can be produced by many manufacturers, or may be table food that the rest of the family...
companies marketing powdered milk
Powdered milk
Powdered milk is a manufactured dairy product made by evaporating milk to dryness. One purpose of drying milk is to preserve it; milk powder has a far longer shelf life than liquid milk and does not need to be refrigerated, due to its low moisture content. Another purpose is to reduce its bulk for...
infant formula
Infant formula
Infant formula is a manufactured food designed and marketed for feeding to babies and infants under 12 months of age, usually prepared for bottle-feeding or cup-feeding from powder or liquid . The U.S...
as a healthier option than breast milk
Breast milk
Breast milk, more specifically human milk, is the milk produced by the breasts of a human female for her infant offspring...
to mothers in the developing world - a dangerous and expensive option for these mothers who had no access to safe drinking water and sterilisation facilities.
In the 1980s, War on Want campaigned on the role of women in the developing world, and supported liberation movements in Eritrea
Eritrea
Eritrea , officially the State of Eritrea, is a country in the Horn of Africa. Eritrea derives it's name from the Greek word Erethria, meaning 'red land'. The capital is Asmara. It is bordered by Sudan in the west, Ethiopia in the south, and Djibouti in the southeast...
, South Africa
South Africa
The Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...
and Western Sahara
Western Sahara
Western Sahara is a disputed territory in North Africa, bordered by Morocco to the north, Algeria to the northeast, Mauritania to the east and south, and the Atlantic Ocean to the west. Its surface area amounts to . It is one of the most sparsely populated territories in the world, mainly...
.
From 1983 to 1987, George Galloway
George Galloway
George Galloway is a British politician, author, journalist and broadcaster who was a Member of Parliament from 1987 to 2010. He was formerly an MP for the Labour Party, first for Glasgow Hillhead and later for Glasgow Kelvin, before his expulsion from the party in October 2003, the same year...
was General Secretary of War On Want. The Daily Mirror accused him of living luxuriously at the charity's expense. An independent auditor cleared him of misuse of funds, though he did repay £1,720 in contested expenses.
More than two years after Galloway stepped down as General Secretary to serve as a Labour MP, the British Government's Charity Commission
Charity Commission
The Charity Commission for England and Wales is the non-ministerial government department that regulates registered charities in England and Wales....
investigated War on Want, finding accounting irregularities including that the financial reports were "materially mis-stated" from 1985 to 1989, but little evidence that money was used for non-charitable purposes. Galloway had been general secretary for the first three of those years. The commission said responsibility lay largely with auditors and did not single out individuals for blame. War On Want was found to have been insolvent, and subsequently dismissed all its staff and went into administration. It was rescued and relaunched in 1991.
In the 1990s, it focused on issues that resulted from globalisation, including workers' rights and a call to set up a Tobin Tax
Tobin tax
A Tobin tax, suggested by Nobel Laureate economist James Tobin, was originally defined as a tax on all spot conversions of one currency into another...
on currency speculation
Speculation
In finance, speculation is a financial action that does not promise safety of the initial investment along with the return on the principal sum...
. The charity set up the Tobin Tax Network (now a separate charity called Stamp Out Poverty) to develop the proposal and press for its introduction.
In 2006 War on Want launched a campaign for Palestinian human rights, including a report titled Profiting from the Occupation, which looked at European corporations who the charity claim are profiting from Israel's occupation of Palestinian territories. The campaign was praised by The Guardian
The Guardian
The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
at the time, naming the charity "Campaign of the Week". In 2007 complaints that the charity was running politicised campaigns that defamed the state of Israel were investigated by the Charity Commission
Charity Commission
The Charity Commission for England and Wales is the non-ministerial government department that regulates registered charities in England and Wales....
. In 2007 MP Lee Scott
Lee Scott (UK politician)
Lee Scott is a British politician. He is the Conservative Member of Parliament for Ilford North, and an officer of the Conservative Friends of Israel group.-Early life:Scott was born in the East End of London to a British Jewish family,...
complained to the Commission about an online "guide for boycott, divestment and sanctions" against Israel; War on Want said it already had permission from the Commission to advocate boycotts and sanctions in order to address "the root causes of poverty and human rights abuses". In July 2009 the Commission concluded that no regulatory action was required, declaring itself satisfied that the charity's trustees understood the official guidance on campaigning by charities and that War on Want's campaigns on Palestine
Palestine
Palestine is a conventional name, among others, used to describe the geographic region between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River, and various adjoining lands....
were linked to its charitable objects, making them legitimate under charity law.
In 2011, War on Want marked its 60th anniversary with a repeat of the Yes campaign that first formed the charity, asking people to email the word Yes to show their support for withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan
Afghanistan
Afghanistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, is a landlocked country located in the centre of Asia, forming South Asia, Central Asia and the Middle East. With a population of about 29 million, it has an area of , making it the 42nd most populous and 41st largest nation in the world...
. They delivered the petition to Foreign Secretary William Hague
William Hague
William Jefferson Hague is the British Foreign Secretary and First Secretary of State. He served as Leader of the Conservative Party from June 1997 to September 2001...
.
Finances
Expenditure in 2007/2008 was £2 million, of which £1.1 million went towards international programmes, £500,000 for campaigning and development education, £320,000 towards fundraising, and £59,000 for management and administration.Solidarity
War on Want has issued numerous statements of solidarity with organisations and movement all over the world. In October 2009, War on Want issued a statement of solidarity with Abahlali baseMjondoloAbahlali baseMjondolo
Abahlali baseMjondolo , also known as AbM or the red shirts is a shack-dwellers' movement in South Africa which is well known for its campaigning for public housing. The movement grew out of a road blockade organized from the Kennedy Road shack settlement in the city of Durban in early 2005 and now...
in response to the ANC affiliated attacks on the Kennedy Road informal settlement and wrote a letter to the South African High Commissioner in London. The charity also spearheaded a campaign highlighting the forced displacement of poor South Africans in the lead-up to the 2010 World Cup.
See also
- The Make Poverty HistoryMake Poverty HistoryMake Poverty History is the name of a campaign that exists in a number of countries, including Australia, Canada, Denmark , Finland, New Zealand, Nigeria, Norway, Romania, the United Arab Emirates, Great Britain and Ireland...
coalition, of which War on Want is a member/ - Nestlé boycottNestlé boycottThe Nestlé boycott is a boycott launched on July 7, 1977, in the United States against the Swiss-based Nestlé corporation. It spread quickly throughout the United States, and expanded into Europe in the early 1980s. In Canada, the controversy lasted from 1978 to 1984...
- Harold John TimperleyHarold John TimperleyHarold John Timperley was an Australian journalist, known for his reporting from China in the 1930s, and the book What War Means based on it....
(secretary and treasurer in the 1950s) - SolidarSolidarSOLIDAR is a European network of NGOs working to advance social justice in Europe and worldwide. SOLIDAR voices the concerns of its member organisations to the EU and international institutions across the policy sectors social affairs, international cooperation and lifelong learning.With 52 member...
, a European network of development and social welfare organisations that War on Want is affiliated to.
External links
- War on Want main website
- Profiting from the Occupation report, which earned War on Want The GuardianThe GuardianThe Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
's Campaign of the Week.