From World Banks to Beyoncé: Global Citizen is Ending Poverty by 2030
Hugh Evans (Image supplied by Global Citizen)
Words by: Daniel Simons
It’s not often that policy announcements are meet with stadium-like applause and screams of joy, but when the president of the World Bank, stepped onto a stage in front of the Eiffel Tower with the Prime Minister of Barbados and announced a new ‘climate disaster debt pause mechanism,’ 20,000 people erupted with a collective roar so loud it echoed through the Champ de Mars.
The announcement was sandwiched between speeches from heads of state, like Brazilian President Inacio Lula de Silva, appearances from A-list artists and celebrities like Cyril Dion (Tomorrow) and Michelle Yeah (Everything Everywhere All At Once), performances from musical mega stars, and clarion calls from some of the world’s leading frontline artists and activists.
Later in the evening, one of the most iconic musicians on the planet, Billie Eilish, took to the stage. After galvanising the crowd with renditions of ‘Your Power’ and ‘Everything I Wanted,’ the young superstar stood up in front of France’s icon of revolution and demanded a revolution of her own.
“I can’t even stress it enough,” she told the crowd, “We really need to change our entire system so that the people most impacted by the climate crisis get what they need to fight it. So please, join me in demanding action from global leaders. Not in the future, but right NOW!”
Image supplied by Global Citizen
The event was Global Citizen's 'Power Our Planet: Live in Paris'. Over a period of 4 hours, the 20,000-strong crowd, and millions of viewers watching the livestream, united around the dream of protecting the earth and defeating poverty.
With the World Bank’s policy announcement, The President of The Rockefeller Foundation pledging to spend over half a billion dollars on solar-grids and electric busses in Haiti and India and performances from H.E.R, John Batists, FINNEAS, and Lenny Kravitz, audiences around the world were gifted with a spark of irresistible hope for the future.
Global Citizen describes itself as the world’s largest movement of action takers and impact makers dedicated to ending extreme poverty by the year 2030. The organisation derives its name from the concept - a Global Citizen is someone who sees themselves first and foremost as a member of the human race, rather than a citizen of a tribe or nation state.
With headquarters in New York and offices in Berlin, Johannesburg, Lagos, London, Melbourne and Toronto, Global Citizen has created a platform that sits at the nexus of pop culture and policy, and unites people around the world who have a burning desire to pressure world leaders to create meaningful change.
Image supplied by Global Citizen
Global Citizen is helmed by its founder, Hugh Evans. The story of how the organisation came into existence has become legendary. These days Hugh might be rubbing shoulders with A-list celebrities, or tapping them on the back to stand up for worthy causes, but the initial inspiration for Hugh’s life mission came from someone so obscure it took Hugh 20 years to find him again.
In 1996, at the age of twelve, Hugh was already raising a significant amount of money for developing communities. Two years later, at the age of just 14, World Vision awarded him the chance to visit a slum in the Philippines, on the outskirts of Manilla. It was there that he met Sonny Boy, a new friend who would change his life forever. By day, Sonny, and children like him, would scour a two-million-tonne pile of garbage nicknamed ‘Smokey Mountain,' by night Hugh, Sonny Boy, and the other five members of Sonny's family, would all sleep on a slab of concrete that was half the size of Hugh’s bedroom back in Australia.
Over a series of sleepless nights, Hugh came to appreciate the injustice of what Warren Buffett calls ‘the ovarian lottery.’ Not comfortable with the idea that a person's place of birth could determine whether they slept on the floor surrounded by cockroach-infested piles of trash, or were able to jet off anywhere in the world, he decided to dedicate his life to eradicating global poverty.
It wasn’t until almost 20 years later - after someone recognised Sonny Boy in Hugh’s TED talk - that the pair were reunited. In celebration of the reunion, Global Citizen set up a long term program in Sonny Boy’s name to support education initiatives in his community.
Image supplied by Global Citizen.
After finishing high school in Kew, Hugh went on to obtain degrees in Law and Science from Monash University and an MPhil in International Relations from Cambridge. He was Australia’s first World Vision Youth Ambassador, co-founder of Australia’s largest youth anti-poverty charity, Oaktree, and has been named Young Victorian of the Year, Young Australian of The Year, one of Fast Company’s 100 Most Creative People, and GQ’s Man of The Year for Chivalry.
Hugh’s first foray into high-impact events began with the ‘Make Poverty History’ concert in 2006 which he founded with the help of Dan Adams, the now CEO of the innovative Australian startup, Amber Energy. The concert was held at the Sydney Opera House, headlined by U2 and Pearl Jam, and resulted in Kevin Rudd vowing to double Australia’s $6.2 billion foreign aid budget if elected.
Kevin Rudd was elected. He remained determined to keep his word, and for a moment things looked promising. Even when Kevin Rudd was ousted, Julia Gillard took over and remained committed to the extra aid spending. Unfortunately, when the government lost the next election the pledges evaporated. It was an awakening that caused Hugh and his team to reevaluate their theory of change. Rather than relying on single events, they’d turn their focus to creating an unstoppable global movement, one capable of being a driving force for change beyond the whims and cycles of politics.
Evans, along with Simon Moss and Wei Soo, founded The Global Poverty Project in 2008, which was later rebranded as Global Citizen.
The first major Global Citizen concert took place in New York City’s Central Park in front of 60,000 people, but it almost didn’t happen. After months of planning and a launch date looming, Global Citizen found themselves in a chicken-and-egg scenario that left most of the team feeling caged. Little over a month before the event, their major sponsor had pulled out, leaving a $1.5 million dollar hole in their budget and making Central Park prohibitively expensive. Their headline act, the Foo Fighters, only wanted to play if the event was at Central Park. No money, no park. No park, no headliners. No headliners, no sponsors. The team wanted to pull the plug, but Hugh was tenacious. His build-the-plane-on-the-way-down, do-what-needs-to-be-done philosophies paid off and eventually a philanthropist named Sumner Redstone plugged the hole. The inaugural festival was held in 2012 and featured sets from the Foo Fighters, Neil Young, The Black Keys, K’Naan and John Legend and included appearances from Selena Gomez, Olivia Wilde and economist Jeffrey Sachs and speeches from activists, artists and world leaders.
Image supplied by Global Citizen
Global Citizen is no ordinary charity and their festivals are no ordinary events. Instead of making direct donations, the organisation focuses its energy on empowering citizens from around the world to catalyse large-scale systemic change. There are no tickets sold to their concerts. The only way into the arenas is through impact. For a chance to stand in front of Jay Z or Justin Trudeau, prospective audience members need to log into Global Citizen’s website or app and perform a series of actions under the banners of ‘Defend the Planet,’ ‘Demand Equity,’ or ‘Defeat Poverty.’
At any one time, the platform has roughly 50 actions that users can take. Every action is designed to move humanity forward on the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals. Actions include things like signing a petition to support farmers, indigenous peoples and youth calling for a food secure world, tweeting for President Macron to ‘fund the future,’ or sharing stories about pacific activists who are changing the world. Each action educates and empowers global citizens from around the world and if they complete enough actions, they go into a lottery to win a ticket to one of Global Citizen’s events.
Image supplied by Global Citizen
The gargantuan impact of Global Citizen comes from synergy. The bold vision and vital mission of the organisation gives celebrities the chance to use their power and influence for good. Celebrity power and spectacle brings more people into the movement. By being well-researched and targeted, the Global Citizen platform gives users a feeling of agency and empowers them to increase their efforts and actions and use their collective voices to hold political leaders' feet to the fire. The pledges and announcements made by political leaders are also tracked and measured, holding them accountable.
Global Citizen’s mega-concerts are also always scheduled to coincide with important political meetings, like gatherings of political leaders at the UN General Assembly or climate COP conferences, throwing a spotlight on the most important challenges and solutions at the most crucial times.
The impact of Global Citizen has been phenomenal. Since its conception, Global Citizens have taken over 30 million actions that have catalysed over $43.6 billion dollars of commitments. Global Citizen now gets between 20 million and 30 million people engaged every month.
When Covid-19 forced the whole world to grind to a halt, Global Citizen partnered with Lady Gaga and her mother to deliver the One World: Together at Home, which featured celebrities singing from their bedrooms and kitchens. Even though it only had 3 weeks prep time, the livestream ended up raising $129.7 million dollars for Covid-response charities.
In September 2020, Global Citizen live streamed a 10-hour concert that was held over five continents and featured Alicia Keys, Miley Cyrus, Usher, The Red Hot Chili Peppers and more.
Image supplied by Global Citizen
Over the past decade the Global Citizen anti-poverty pulpit has been graced by the most recognisable and influential humans on the planet. From Beyoncé to Bill Gates to British royalty - and even Barack Obama via video link. With Coldplay’s Chris Martin signing on to 15 years of curating festival line-ups, Global Citizen has seen performances by everyone from Taylor Swift to Metallica. But some of the most exciting things to happen on a Global Citizen stage have been the pledges and announcements from world leaders.
Australia’s former Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, used the platform to call for $3.1 billion to give 870 million children access to high-quality education. Over 263,000 citizens sent tweets, emails and messages and in February 2018 donors pledged over $2.3 billion. India’s Prime Minister Modi used the Global Citizen stage to announce his commitment to put a toilet in every household and every school across India, and TV comedian Stephen Colbert used the Global Citizen platform to launch a ‘twitter invasion of Norway’ that - thanks to 200,000 Global Citizen actions - led to their Prime Minister, Erna Solberg, committing to double Norway's Investment in girls’ education.
Image supplied by Global Citizen
In between producing world-changing events, Global Citizens also runs a Fellowship Program, hosts a Youth Artists and Emerging Creatives Collectives, and gives out Youth Leadership and Global Citizen Prizes. They also recently held a 2-day ‘NOW’ Summit, hosted by Hugh Jackman and Coldplay’s Chris Martin, which was aimed at educating and empowering global thought leaders to create change.
The most recent Global Citizen event, Move Afrika was headlined by Pulitzer Prize-winning rapper Kendric Lammer. The next event is scheduled to take place in Melbourne Australia in March.