Tourism Against Poverty
Please join ICTP and our campaign today

Geoffrey Lipman, president ICTP

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Dear Tourism Partners,

A few weeks ago I identified a micro reason for joining the Tourism against Poverty Campaign – the fact that a donation as small as 50p to British Airways Change for Good Campaign can stop 20 children in Africa from going blind for a year.

Now we are seeing the macro level campaign stepped up.

The European Union has initiated action to establish a so-called voluntary levy from airline passengers to provide funds for the war on poverty. This in response to a call from French President Jacques Chirac.

Looking to next month’s G8 in Scotland UK Prime Minister Blair will travel to Washington to seek support from President Bush for action to eliminate debt for the poorest countries, to make trade fairer and to increase aid. At the same time Chancellor Gordon Brown will step up the campaign with Finance Ministers starting with the EU and proceeding to incorporate the other world leaders from industrialized and emerging markets.

Brown says that the actions proposed would mean that the world’s poorest countries would eliminate 15 billion dollars worth debt servicing costs between now and 2015. He also says that related proposals for an International financing facility would save 5 million lives in the same time period.

The G8 is not the end of the road – it’s just another important stepping stone on the long road towards fairness and decency and the implementation of the millennium Development Goals by 2015.

ICTP believes that the world’s largest industry should strongly support these initiatives and step firmly down this road – not the least because tourism is the single most important sector for trade and export income for the world’s poorest countries. And because we create the kinds of local economic activity that can over time build sustainable self-reliant economic structures based on entrepreneurship, micro-enterprise and local community involvement.

Please join us at http://tourismpartners.org/join/ .

Geoffrey Lipman
President iCTP