Yahoo Finance Global Citizen Live: Ed Sheeran, Stevie Wonder, Coldplay and others perform to fight poverty
On Saturday 25 September 2021, philanthropist Hugh Evans will try to mobilise the world.
Having started his fight against extreme poverty by mobilising his friends when he was growing up in Australia, he's now about to tackle poverty and COVID-19 with Global Citizen Live.
What is Global Citizen Live?
It's a 24-hour live concert featuring Stevie Wonder, Jennifer Lopez, Ed Sheeran, Coldplay, The Weekend, Andrea Bocelli, Duran Duran and dozens of other artists performing at locations across the globe.
The initiative is part of Global Citizen’s 2021 global campaign, a 'Recovery Plan for the World'. The Recovery Plan focuses on five key objectives: ending COVID-19 for all, ending the hunger crisis, resuming learning for all, protecting the planet, and advancing equity for all.
Where is the gig happening?
All over the place. From Lagos, Nigeria, and Seoul, South Korea, to the Champ de Mars in Paris, New York’s Central Park and beyond.
Is money raised through ticket sales?
Nope. It's all about mobilisation, so interested parties were encouraged to register on the Global Citizen website and support the NGO's action by signing petitions or sharing messages on social networks.
In Paris, for example, nearly 20,000 spectators are expected on the Champ-de-Mars. All tickets - which were free - have been distributed.
Unlike most star-studded concerts for charity, Global Citizen Live isn’t asking for cash from fans. It wants to display their voices — on social media, on petitions and in person — as evidence for world leaders and corporate honchos that people support action on these issues. Evans, Global Citizen’s CEO, says such an awareness campaign is needed now because COVID-19 has ended years of gains and pushed 150 million people around the world into extreme poverty.
Who is it going to help?
Evans says this concert has to be a moment of unity. He wants to see the world come together to address three major issues head-on.
"Firstly, with the global COVID-19 pandemic, secondly, with the fact that wildfires are raging all around the world as a result of climate change, and thirdly, with so many people out of work due to COVID-19, there are now 41 million people on the Horn of Africa who are facing the devastating effects of starvation."
So this is really collective action?
"This is not a celebration," Evans told the AP. "It’s really an opportunity to come together in solidarity, to call on world leaders to address these issues. Right now, the U.S. government hasn’t done enough on climate change funding. Also, no governments are stepping up enough to support the (United Nations) World Food Programme’s urgent effort to address the hunger crisis. That’s a $6 billion need right now. So we’re calling on businesses, we’re calling on governments, we’re calling on philanthropists to step up like never before."
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