On Saturday, South Africa’s finance minister, Tito Mboweni, will attend the G20 finance meeting hosted by Saudi Arabia to discuss how he and the 19 other ministers from this group of countries will spend public money to recover from the global pandemic.
The thing is, we already know how he should spend our money — on a just recovery.
350Africa.org’s new report, launched today, shows that a just recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic is an opportunity to restructure South Africa’s economy to be more sustainable and resilient and to prioritise the needs of ordinary people.
Read and share the report now.
This moment is about what the future holds for us and our communities beyond COVID-19 – and we need our leaders to see that.
As we envision our future, art plays a vital role in reshaping our conceptions of what is possible. That’s why we’re part of the Climate Justice Coalition’s Just Recovery art challenge, to imagine what recovery from COVID-19 could and should look like. We know that the most powerful voices are those that are about our personal stories.
Here’s how to get involved:
- Think about what a green, just recovery from the pandemic and the economic crisis means to you personally.
- Submit one piece of art that speaks to the theme of a Just Recovery for South Africa: maybe it envisions reclaiming and rebuilding public services to tackle poverty and inequality; or a future that brings together environmental, social, gender, and racial justice. Or maybe it’s both of those and more. What would a more just future hold if the world leaders listened?
You can submit your entry on this website. The competition is open for the next month, and after that, voting will be open to the public, for everyone to decide on the winners.
Leaders like Mboweni are talking about recovery spending with public money — our money; and our futures, our work, and our lives hang in the balance. We can’t leave it to a small elite group to gamble away, cutting funding to our public services while worsening racism and inequality with bailouts that damage our planet.
It’s time to raise our voices and demand they invest in a just recovery – so we can unleash a wave of people power strong enough to challenge the big banks and corporations that typically have the ear of government ministers.
If you’d like to hear more about what a just recovery means for South Africa, join our webinar next week Friday (24 July) to hear from the authors of our new report and the team running the art challenge, who will talk about the ways we can all get involved in building a better future. Sign up here.