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We’re only a few months away from the start of the World Cup festivities. For a period of four weeks, starting mid-June, the eyes of the world will be focused on 12 Brazilian football stadiums in which it will be decided which country may call itself World Champion Football for the coming four years. However, for a large number of people, there is little to celebrate. During the preparations for the big event people are evicted from their land and expelled from their homes to make way for stadiums, hotels and infrastructure. These people will have to a way to try to build up a new life somewhere else, without being adequately compensated for their losses.

Together with environmental justice groups from the Global South, Both ENDS works towards a sustainable, fair and inclusive world. Both ENDS gathers and shares information about policy and investments that have a direct impact on people and their livelihood, we engage in joint advocacy, we stimulate the dialogue between stakeholders and we promote and support sustainable local alternatives.

This week we heard the sad news from Flint, Michigan, that Sandra Smithey has passed away. Sandra was for many years our pillar of support at the CS Mott Foundation. The foundation has supported the work of Both ENDS and of partners like Casa Fund and the NGO Forum on the ADB for more than 20 years, both financially and with its wide-ranging knowledge. One of Sandra’s ambitions was to make international money flows, such as development funding via the World Bank but also, for example, export credit insurance, fairer and more sustainable.

This week the brand new South-African website ‘EMG’s Untold Stories’ was launched. On the website, author Leonie Joubert gives a voice to different people who work to improve their environment, together with the South African organization ‘Environmental Monitoring Group’ (EMG). Each of the four stories collected by Joubert focuses on a different aspect of the work EMG does to ensure that South African natural resources are managed in a sustainable and equitable way. The online book has been published as part of the Both ENDS’s project ‘An Untold Story’, which gives human rights and environmental organisations from four different corners of the world a chance to tell their story about the impact the global economy has on their local environment. 

Both ENDS Partners EMG, South Africa, Keystone, India and Amichoco from Colombia are all three nominated for the prestigious World Challenge of the BBC.

The world is turned upside down in this pandemic. Ordinary life is disrupted on our end. Many people suffer from the ‘polder lockdown’, although fortunately we have enough resilience and safety nets to meet our most urgent needs. Unfortunately, outside the Netherlands this all too often lacking. Especially in countries where public health structures are weak and where people are in a total lockdown. Because local communities that are shackled today may be hungry tomorrow. And aid and money does not naturally flow to the most vulnerable citizens there. So extra financial support is urgent.

Both ENDS has a new 5-year strategy. It is set up along three strategic pathways that together lay the foundation for our vision to become reality: 1) An empowered and influential civil society; 2) Systemic change in public institutions that prioritizes people and planet; and 3) Transformative practices are the norm.