Archive - 2004

In this campaign, VOICE is fighting against the global corporatization of media and the concurrent process of capital and power accumulation. The healthy field of dozens of media companies from years ago has now dwindled to a handful of influential media giants interested only in business and profit. In working for the right to communication, VOICE is critically analyzing these issues and giving a voice in the media to those who have none.

VOICE is actively pushing for government approval of community radio legislation, which currently does not exist in Bangladesh. Community radio is radio for the people and by the people, allowing them to talk about the issues that matter to their community, and is especially important where no other forms of media are available. As a voting member of AMARC, we are also trying to represent these issues at the global community level.
VOICE is also involved in the fight for freedom of expression in the press, as well as the campaign on Communication Rights in the Information Society, helping to formulate just policies on communication rights. VOICE translated the Internet Rights Charter into Bengali, in view of popularizing these issues.

VOICE initiated their Food Sovereignty Campaign in 2002 with an aim to build critical awareness and strengthen social movements on the people’s sovereign right to seed and food. Due to the neo-liberal economic framework imposed by the World Bank, IMF, the WTO and other IFIs, the agriculture system in Bangladesh has been decimated by structural adjustment policies and a seed market diluted with outside exports. Chemical fertilizers and pesticides have caused environmental damage to local ecosystems and soil. There is a need to establish and uphold the people’s right to preserve their own seeds, and support the development and dissemination of ecologically-friendly agricultural production at the grassroots level.

VOICE is also supporting a broad-based solidarity campaign calling for an end to patents on organic life forms by multinational corporations, as well as a general ban on further development of ‘terminator’ seed technologies and the use of genetically-modified food in food aid.

VOICE has started a campaign against the privatization of essential services such as health, education and especially water. World Bank and IMF structural adjustment programmes have pressured the government into cutting spending in these sectors, to the detriment of people of Bangladesh, especially in the middle- and lower- income groups. We are advocating for increased and sustained spending in these sectors, especially if debt cancellation were to occur.

We are particularly interested in the fundamental right to water as a common resource and not as an economic good. The ADB is currently proposing to commercialize the water sector, and have even conducted studies claiming that the poor are ready to buy water. We are actively campaigning against this. Bangladesh, as a nation of rivers, should not have to pay for water.

See all the posts related to this campaign

VOICE’s campaign for aid effectiveness began in 2003 with the objective of helping to form a national economic policy independent of bilateral and multilateral imposition. As the campaign progressed it became clear that the conditions tied to the aid were major factors in affecting multilateral policy. Aid conditionality does not favour development or the priorities of the people; rather, it hinders the formation of independent policies through interference in the political, democratic, and socio-economic spheres.

VOICE is working actively to combat all forms of economic injustice, from the grassroots to the global policy level. Not just the poor, but many working citizens are subject to economic injustice through imposed economic sector reforms, privatization and wage discrimination.
We are trying to transform knowledge into practice through training dialogues with the different stakeholders in the country.
From underpaid agricultural labourers and garment workers to the privatization of banks and shutting down of jute mills, gross violations of economic justice are happening at every level in Bangladesh. National and international policies are framed in a way that does not reflect the aspirations or needs of both the rural and urban populace.
This campaign also covers issues of national economic governance as well as the global financial architecture. We are working to develop a macro-micro linkage between the community and the policy makers to support democratic participation in policy formation and responsible governance.