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Beyonce leads S.Africa anti-poverty festival for Mandela
NEW YORK, July 9, 2018 (BSS/AFP) – Beyonce and Jay-Z will lead an A-list
lineup to mark 100 years since Nelson Mandela’s birth in a Johannesburg
festival by the Global Citizen movement to eradicate poverty.
The December 2 event, which will be internationally broadcast, will
celebrate the late anti-apartheid icon and draw a number of leaders in an
attempt to throw a spotlight on fledging efforts to eradicate the world’s
worst poverty, Global Citizen announced Monday.
Beyonce and her husband Jay-Z will headline the music at the FNB Stadium
alongside several other stars: Coldplay frontman Chris Martin, English
singer-songwriter Ed Sheeran, Pearl Jam singer Eddie Vedder, hit pop producer
Pharrell Williams and R&B chart-topper Usher.
The festival will also feature some of the continent’s most popular
musicians including South African hip-hop producer Cassper Nyovest and
Nigerian artists Wizkid, D’banj and Femi Kuti, who is the son of Afrobeat
legend Fela Kuti.
Global Citizen said it hoped that the run-up to the festival would raise
commitments of $1 billion to help the world’s poorest, with half of the
amount aimed at women and girls.
Global Citizen has held festivals since 2012 in New York’s Central Park on
the sidelines of the annual UN General Assembly to rally support, especially
among young people, in the fight against poverty. The group has since
branched out overseas with seminars and music in India, Germany and
elsewhere.
Hugh Evans, the founder and CEO of the movement, said he expected the
Johannesburg festival to be the biggest Global Citizen festival ever in terms
of reach, symbolism and lineup.
“On every way that we measure outcomes — the number of citizens engaged,
the number of policy outcomes that are achieved, the number of lives that are
affected as a result of those policy outcomes — we believe it has the
potential to be the most significant campaign we’ve ever been part of,” Evans
told AFP.
Unlike traditional benefit concerts, Global Citizen distributes tickets
for free to supporters who pledge to take actions such as writing their
governments to support international development assistance.
For the Johannesburg edition, Global Citizen will also hand out tickets to
people who are taking direct action for good including community health
workers who conduct HIV tests or who instruct mothers on child nutrition as
well as teachers and South Africans who recycle plastics. – Mandela as
inspiration –
Evans said that Mandela offered a model for the Global Citizen movement
through his magnanimous efforts at racial reconciliation and democracy as
well as through his focus on tackling poverty and global health.
Beyonce previously performed in South Africa in 2003 at a concert hosted
by Mandela to raise awareness on HIV and AIDS. Two years later Mandela
delivered a landmark speech in London’s Trafalgar Square urging concerted
efforts to “make poverty history.”
But Evans said that the world was falling behind on the UN Sustainable
Development Goals which include ending hunger and ensuring educational
opportunities to all children, regardless of gender, by 2030.
While Britain, Germany and Nordic countries are meeting the UN-backed goal
of devoting 0.7 percent of gross domestic product to international aid, other
major countries are lagging behind.
In the United States, President Donald Trump has called for slashing
foreign assistance by one-third, although Congress has largely resisted his
“America First” push on aid.
“The truth is the world is not on track to achieve the Sustainable
Development Goals unless there is greater political will,” Evans said.
Global Citizen said that South African President Cyril Ramaphosa as well
as the leaders of Norway and Ghana plan to attend the December 2 festival in
honor of Mandela, who was born on July 18, 1918.
BSS/AFP/FI/ 1442 hrs