Annual Report for 2024: Share the World’s Resources

Contents

• Objectives
• Overview of the year
• Campaigning, activism and events
• Research, writing and publications
• Plans and priorities for 2024

Objectives 

STWR is a civil society organisation calling for extensive reforms to the world economy to ensure a fairer sharing of wealth, power and resources within and between nations. The organisation advocates for an international program of emergency relief to prevent life-threatening deprivation and end poverty-related deaths as a foremost global priority.

The objects of the Company are:

• To advance education and information about how global economic sharing can address the crises of poverty and inequality, climate change and environmental degradation, and conflict over natural resources.
• To promote human rights (as set out in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and subsequent United Nations conventions and declarations), in particular where to do so contributes to the prevention and relief of poverty anywhere in the world.
• To campaign for governments to share the world’s wealth and natural resources equitably and sustainably, both within and between nations. 

Overview of the year

The crises of the world in 2023/24 underscored the critical relevance of STWR’s campaign for sharing global resources to end hunger, poverty and extreme economic inequalities. While the world’s wealthiest individuals more than doubled their fortunes since the pandemic, dangerous levels of acute hunger affected over a quarter of a billion people—the fifth year in a row that food insecurity has worsened. Hunger crises and imminent famines escalated alarmingly in 2023, with the number of people going hungry rising to twice that of the last global food crisis in 2008. Yet emergency appeals from the United Nations remained tragically underfunded as the humanitarian system endures the worst funding gap it has ever faced. 

One of the key objectives of STWR as a civil society organisation is to rally public outrage at this growing emergency of poverty amidst plenty. As highlighted in our blogs, website posts and social media platforms, there is nothing inevitable about children dying due to lack of food. There is sufficient public resources to provide all people with life’s essentials including universal healthcare, despite that half of humanity lacks basic coverage and financial protection is going backwards. In particular, we supported the various calls by citizens’ movements for redirecting military expenditures from G7 countries—now at a record high—to fund these urgent humanitarian and social priorities. 

Our campaign for implementing Article 25 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights remains at the centre of STWR’s outreach and educational activities. Even the world’s richest countries are experiencing sharp rises in levels of poverty, with more than one in five children living without access to social protection and basic services. We therefore continued to call on people of goodwill to unite behind a single, overarching demand for governments to implement Article 25 as an effective law. In the UK, we also participated in many events that related to the fundamental rights for adequate food, housing, healthcare and social security for all. This included our support of UK charities who called on the prime minister to ensure that those in greatest need are adequately provided for by social security, with everyone given a legal entitlement to the basics of life (see more below).

Another major campaigning issue for STWR is the worsening impacts of climate change and the prospect of irreversible damage to Earth’s life support system. State parties to the 2015 Paris climate agreement are still way off track to meet agreed goals for keeping global temperature rise this century below 2°C, let alone a target limit of 1.5°C. Contrary to pledges to cut fossil fuel production, government policies worldwide are doubling down on oil and gas with little effort to ‘phasedown’ unabated coal power or ramp up renewables. STWR persistently supported civil society efforts for a ‘just, orderly and equitable’ transition towards clean energy in both the Global North and South, which is vital as we gear up to COP29 where the issue of climate finance will take centre stage.

It remains clear that development and climate goals in lower income countries are impossible to meet in the face of record levels of sovereign debt and market pressures for austerity policies. As STWR reported throughout the year, a two-decade trend of steadily reducing inequalities between wealthy and poor nations is now in reverse. The majority of African countries still spend more repaying external debts than on healthcare or education. At the same time, wealthy countries are still diverting a substantial amount of overseas aid for domestic priorities instead of fulfilling their longstanding aid commitments to the world’s poorest countries. STWR has amplified the calls from activist movements for cancelling unpayable debts, massively upscaling funds for sustainable development, and ending fiscal austerity conditionalities imposed by international financial institutions. We also supported the advocacy efforts of global tax justice campaigners who this year celebrated the historic first steps towards an effective UN Framework Convention on International Tax Cooperation.

Campaigning, activism and events

STWR conducted regular talks and presentations in 2023/24 to introduce our campaign for Article 25 to a general audience. Our public talks via Zoom drew audiences from human rights organisations, church groups and NGOs, as well as other interested participants with no background in political issues. Many expressed an interest to help with our campaign and spread awareness to their communities. We also held a special event to celebrate Human Rights Day with the Centre of European Law and Internationalisation (CELI) and the University of Leicester Pro-Bono Society. A presentation to the School of Global Public Health, New York University, also resulted in a rich discussion, inspiring a diverse class of students to learn more and spread the message of our campaign to their peers. 

STWR had a strong presence at a number of political and activist events across the UK, taking part in event programmes and reaching new supporters via our stall. This included, among others, the Green Party Autumn conference in Brighton; the Scottish Greens spring conference held in Edinburgh; the ‘And Still We Rise’ festival of social justice movements in London; and a major conference on everyday human rights attended by the past and present UN Special Rapporteurs on extreme poverty and human rights. 

We lent our support to numerous other events that aligned with our cause of implementing Article 25 and sharing the world’s resources. Key international events included: the global ‘Social Security for all’ campaign coordinated by the Global Coalition for Social Protection Floors; the Mass Poor People’s Assembly and Moral March on Washington DC; and the End Austerity Campaign for People and Planet held during the annual meetings of the World Bank and IMF in October 2023. In the UK, we supported the Right to Food Week 2023, joining those MPs and activists who are fighting for this basic right to be enshrined into law. We also supported many climate justice mobilisations ahead of the UN COP28 negotiations, such as the ‘Now We Rise’ protests that gathered to pressure our political leaders to provide urgent finance and reparations for countries in the Global South. 

We successfully raised almost £11,000 through our local campaigning initiatives, which funded a bus advertising campaign in London. Three buses displaying full-scale adverts by STWR ran on a number of routes throughout north and central London in May/June 2024, carrying a message to provoke the public imagination about raising our voice for economic sharing to end hunger and poverty. Ongoing fundraising efforts are geared to a more frequent and sustained publicity campaign that will allow us to find new and innovative ways to bring Article 25 into the consciousness of ordinary people. 

Research, writing and publications

A revised and updated reprint of our book ‘The Sharing Economy: Inaugurating an Age of the Heart’ was published in 2023 after our first print run with Troubadour books sold out due to high demand. Other books in our series of ‘studies on the principle of sharing’ were also renewed with Troubadour to ensure their availability for bookstores and the public worldwide. STWR co-workers continually work to promote the books at our events and through grassroots advertising, such as by distributing colourful postcards featuring aphoristic quotes by the author. 

Our forthcoming book on world governance was delayed for publication due to further expansions of its content. This is final draft stage, and once published we will develop a marketing campaign to promote the book, including hosting a launch event. This new publication will be a platform for STWR to discuss the more spiritual aspects of sharing the world’s resources, potentially attracting a new, broader global audience. We are also producing another important book on mass public demonstrations from the perspective of the Ageless Wisdom teachings, which has already been prepared to a large extent and is due to be drafted in the autumn. 

Further translations of STWR’s articles and books were also published during 2023/24, including a Slovenian translation of ‘Towards a Universal Basic Income for all Humanity’. Our Japanese mirror website (sharing.org/ja) was frequently updated to include all STWR’s main publications and regular guest content, which has significantly increased our number of website visitors in Japan. 

Plans and priorities for 2024

STWR members have formulated the following core goals and objectives for our work in the coming year. We aim to:  

• Update the educational resources on STWR’s website to explicate our simple and transformative vision—for a historic mass movement for Article 25 beyond borders, as set out in many of STWR’s books and publications. The potential of our campaign is enormous and will depend on the hard work of co-workers to significantly raise our profile and promote the cause for economic sharing. We seek to inspire ordinary people the world over to unite behind a single, peaceful and lawful demand for governments to guarantee Article 25 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights for every individual and family. Our niche as an organisation is to campaign for an international emergency programme in line with the Brandt Commission recommendations, updated to reflect the 21st century realities of climate change and a worsening ecological crisis. 
• Use our website and social media channels to raise greater public awareness of the worsening global hunger emergency which remains underreported in the mainstream media. The number of acutely food insecure people has doubled in just two years, and is set to increase further as a result of climate change, escalating conflicts and the largest global food crisis in modern history.  
• Attend all the major gatherings and events that relate to our campaign for Article 25, mainly in the UK but also in Western Europe and occasionally the United States when possible. We can host stalls, give talks and presentations, and network with other professionals in the field to raise more awareness about STWR’s work and our campaign. 
• Expand our volunteer network of campaigners across the UK and in other countries worldwide, especially the United States. Volunteers can host their own presentations about the Article 25 campaign, fundraise and engage in myriad grassroots activities. 
• Seek funding from the public and any grant-making bodies to help advertise and promote our campaign. 
• Progress our fundraisers for billboard advertising to promote the Article 25 campaign on buses, trains or other mediums across the UK and potentially overseas. 
• Complete a website refresh in 2024/25 as our existing website platform becomes out-of-date. This will be an opportunity to reorganise and update our content to better reflect our campaign focus and priorities. 
• Update the statistics from our report ‘Financing the global sharing economy’ that outlines 10 key policies to fund the humanitarian emergency of life-threatening poverty and climate-related disasters. 
• Publish and promote our new book on world governance which blends both political and spiritual themes. This publication will be closely followed by another important book that gives greater insight into the spiritual significance of peaceful mass protests for Article 25. In spring 2025, we will also publish a compilation of uplifting quotes from STWR’s founder, Mohammed Sofiane Mesbahi, that seeks to inspire people to engage with our campaign. 
• Continue to promote our past publications under the theme ‘Studies on the principle of sharing’, in particular our flagship campaigning book ‘Heralding Article 25: A people’s strategy for world transformation’.

Supporting STWR’s ongoing research and advocacy work



Our work would not be possible without your support. STWR is funded entirely through private donations from individuals, and we do not receive any funding from governments or other institutions. Nor are we affiliated with any political party or corporate enterprise. Since we are not a registered charity and all of our funding is provided on an unrestricted basis, we remain free to take an explicitly political position on the global issues we address, and we are able to channel our limited income directly towards our research and advocacy. As is currently the case for many progressive organisations, our small team of staff and volunteers are facing mounting budgetary pressures. Your donations can help us to maintain our website and continue researching, writing and communicating our work while generating support within the global justice movement for the principle of sharing as a solution to global crises. Please consider making a donation by following this link: sharing.org/donate