Global Citizen Festival Calls for Women’s Equality

This post originally appeared on Women Deliver’s website here. Reposted with permission.

By Janna Oberdorf, Women Deliver

On Saturday, September 28th, more than 60,000 people will come together at a musical festival on the Great Lawn in Central Park, New York City, to focus on one goal – to eradicate extreme poverty by 2030. The Global Citizen Festival, which will feature musical performances by John Mayer, Alicia Keys, Kings of Leon, and Stevie Wonder, gives “Global Citizens” the opportunity to join a movement of people who together are creating a world without extreme poverty. By taking action on globalcitizen.org, citizens from around the world can earn points to enter a chance to win passes to the festival.

The focus of the Festival this year will not only be on global poverty, but on accelerating progress on the issues of health, education, women’s equality, and global partnerships. Coinciding with the UN General Assembly, the Festival serves as an important platform for citizens to come together and raise their voices for change in a moment when critical leaders are gathered together.

To show support for women’s empowerment around the world, we are calling on all advocates to sign the women’s equality petition, which asks the United Nations Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon, and his working group, to keep women and girls at the heart of the post-2015 development agenda. Global leaders who have shown commitment to these important issues will join the festival on stage including Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, the President of Liberia and the first female head of state in Africa; Bono; Ban Ki-moon, the United Nations Secretary-General; Her Royal Highness the Crown Princess Mary of Denmark; and Najib Razak, the Prime Minister of Malaysia.

“Ending extreme poverty is possible within our generation,” said Hugh Evans, CEO of the Global Poverty Project. “Achieving this goal would be the greatest human accomplishment in history. But without the commitment of everyday citizens calling on world leaders to accelerate the needed change, it may be an achievement we fail to realize.”

The Festival will also serve as a platform for the launch of a new campaign run by Global Citizen called, “Zero Poverty 2030.” The campaign aims to secure hundreds of thousands of signatures to present to world leaders in 2014, calling on governments to commit to provide full support toward ending extreme poverty #by2030. The Festival will also feature the “It Takes Two” campaign, a project run by the Global Poverty Project and Women Deliver to increase public support for contraception.

If you cannot attend the Global Citizen Festival, there are lots of ways to get involved:

SIGN the women’s equality petition to show your support for the health and wellbeing of girls and women.
SIGN the Zero Poverty 2030 petition to call for an end to extreme poverty by 2030.
WATCH the concert online – the Global Citizen Festival livestream will be re-airing for 72 hours after the Festival. Pre-register to watch it here: http://globalfestival.com
JOIN us in The Two Percent Industry Pledge calling on reproductive health companies to donate 2% of profits to family planning efforts. Over 1,000 people participated and ONE Condoms, Naked Condoms, L Condoms, DivaCup, The Female Health Company, and WomanCare Global have all signed on.
LEARN MORE about our It Takes Two pilot in Uganda and check out our projects for a mobile technology campaign and concert on Catapult.
CHECK OUT the winners of the condom design contest for World Contraception Day.