'Make Poverty History'

This collection includes: minutes, agenda and other circulated documents; correspondence and petitions; reports and surveys; periodical and other publications; video and sound recordings; press coverage files.

Make Poverty History (MPH) was a cross-organisational campaign run by a wide coalition of charities, trade unions and campaigning groups, with the aim of changing the policies of the G8 governments (Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia, UK and USA) on international debt, aid and trade - in particular by cancelling the debts of the poorest countries and delivering more and better aid.

The campaign was publicly announced on 14 September 2004 and officially ran during 2005, a year when the United Kingdom hosted a summit of G8 leaders and held the presidency of the European Union. The year was also the 20th anniversary of Live Aid and celebrities, including the musicians Bob Geldof and Bono, were prominent in coverage of the campaign (Geldof receiving the 2005 Nobel Man of Peace award for his work on MPH).

Key dates included:

1 January 2005: Formal launch of the campaign, in part through a special episode of the TV programme 'The Vicar of Dibley'.

13 January 2005: March of 600 female clergy to Downing Street, headed by Dawn French.

3 February: Nelson Mandela speaks to over 22,000 people in Trafalgar Square.

10 February: 'Send My Friend to School' campaign, aimed at schoolchildren, launched.

8 March: Majority of UK Members of Parliament sign an Early Day Motion in support of MPH.

11 March: Publication of report of the Commission for Africa.

31 March: MPH 'Click' advert is the first to be shown simultaneously on all UK commercial television stations.

10 April: Start of Global Week of Action on Trade. Events included a march by more than 25,000 people to Whitehall on 15 April.

24 April: World Poverty Day.

16 May: World Debt Day.

16 June: 'The World is Watching' event organised by the Stop Aids coalition in Trafalgar Square.

1 July: White Band Day 1 and date that the UK assumed the presidency of the European Union.

2 July: Live 8 concerts and MPH rally in Edinburgh.

6-8 July: G8 leaders meet at Gleneagles.

September: White Band Day 2; United Nations world summit.

2 November: Largest ever mass lobby of UK parliament by over 8,000 campaigners.

10 December: White Band Day 3 (three days before start of World Trade Organisation meeting).

This collection is available to researchers by appointment at the Modern Records Centre, University of Warwick. See https://www2.warwick.ac.uk/services/library/mrc/using/

Link to full catalogue: https://mrc-catalogue.warwick.ac.uk/records/MPH

The website of Make Poverty History was archived for preservation by the British Library on 30 May 2006, and is included in the UK Web Archive at http://www.webarchive.org.uk/wayback/archive/20060530120000/http://www.makepovertyhistory.org/index.html