1GOAL World Cup Blog: 20 June 2010 Christmas Carols with Slovenians

Best bit of the World Cup so far was being confronted by three smashed Slovenians last night who proceeded to sing “We Wish You a Merry Christmas” followed by “Ve Vill Break You”. Genius; the beautiful game in full bloom.

1GOAL Blog: Friday 18th June – The Summit is announced

At last, the invitations have gone out to over 25 Heads of State for the World Education Summit on 7th July in Rondebosch in Cape Town.  The Embassies should be receiving them today in Pretoria and hopefully at the G8 in Canada in the coming week more will emerge in terms of language and intent. It will be the first time that a sporting tournament will have a political summit placed at the heart of it.  Football, so often inhibited but its own commercial interests, is considering the difference it can make within the wider world.  The layers of agents, advisers, sponsors and that surround the players mean that the “giving back” is often managed and designed as a way of doing the minimum rather than setting out an ambitious programme of change.  It is starting to change.  Most players now have their “foundations”, some clubs – such as Barcelona – are donating 0.7% of their income and now FIFA is considering how it can go beyond the grassroot investment in football academies to something more grandiose. The Summit has been organised by Jacob Zuma, who himself had no formal schooling, and supported by FIFA President Sepp Blatter who first came to Africa in 1976 and is pushing for education to be the most permanent legacy of the World Cup.  At the beginning of the tournament he said “we are in working in tandem with major governments, many countries have made pledges running into billions of dollars to support programmes such as the ’1Goal: Education for All’ initiative.”  Many Heads of State came over to China for the Olympics, lets hope the pull of Africa brings a similar volume in the coming weeks…

1GOAL Blog: 12 June 2010 UK v North America

We have a few American’s in the 1goal team in South Africa.  They’re a talented bunch who know a lot about either computers, the internet and A list celebs but not a great deal about football.  The Sun front page today could have been taken from listening into the guys in the office who get confused between halves and quarters, keepers and tenders and nations and kingdoms. They have all bought tickets, shiney tops and flags for today and have been generally well behaved, if not a little high pitched.  This tournament could be a tipping point for the US; they have the best squad here in their history, a very accomodating press team (who’s mantra is “grow the game”) and are as I write drawing 1-1 with England and have just hit the post. World Cups need the USA in it  but for it would be better if they didn’t win today, got their heads around the game (it’s hardly cricket) but lets hope the press and support their backs and offensive line men.

1GOAL World Cup Blog: Traffic

Tuesday 8 June 2010

Not long to go now and the traffic is evidence of it.  Soccer City is tucked away on the corner of Soweto and  at 4pm the cars grind their way out of downtown to make it down there. We managed to beat this on our way out to see the dry runs for the concert at the smaller cousin, Orlando Stadium, just around the corner and ascertain how the element would fit in. We’re hoping that the films made by the guys Comic Relief and others will be streamed out to the broadcasters along with the Ambassadors supporting the campaign on the stage.  There are lots of different interests in this gig so a clean path through the middle is hard to plot but we are getting there. It was interesting to hear Graca Machel’s comments this evening about the legacy; football is a beautiful game but it needs to becomes more attractive in the social good that it delivers. There is no shortage of players entering into philanthropic benefaction: Mokoena, Silvestre and David James all have Foundations. It’s almost akin to their version of a £5 donation a month to Oxfam for these guys.  Let’s hope it stretches into other areas and the 1GOAL campaign does have a buzz around here; Beckenbauer agreed to support us today and President Blatter even came to borrow a pin badge off one of the guys today.  This week is our window before the games start and today the bus arrived. Albeit an hour late. K’naan helped to launch it with a group of school children, I was tied to the desk so missed but by all accounts it went well and featured in a fair few of the preview pieces today.  It will be different tomorrow as Shakira comes to Soweto.

1Goal World Cup Diary: Sunday 6 June 2010

Sunday June 6 2010

What a day.  We were up at 7am on the road to Pretoria for the press conference with President Zuma and President Blatter at his guest house in Pretoria.  We’d had to go up there on the Saturday to collect the passes from the residence so  knew the drill but the only problem was that I’d forgotten the pass that I’d meant to pick up in advance yesterday.  Idiot. Thankfully the guards let me in through the lawns and 1950s white washed houses.  We’d been up all night considering what the news line of the presser would be; security & cost were the likely issues, we thought 1GOAL could get a mention but nothing more.  After the World Cup had arrived in, everyone sat for their arrival, we were then handed the speech out that was to be read out.  We’d been speaking to President Zuma’s team all week and were confident something would be in.  But on page 3 he didn’t only show his support for the campaign but also said it would be the “lasting legacy” from this World Cup and committed to a date of July 7^th. It couldn’t have gone any better, having waited for this certainty for months but President Blatter’s support for it  was something else, jabbing his finger in the air doing the 1goal sign and endorsing the comments that had come before.  Release went out welcoming it and briefed the 200 journalists in the room and hopefully there should be some good pick up, nice piece by VOA and a great guy from AP.    Months of hard work and much preparation had paid off, conversations on how people will get in the room will start tomorrow; quick predictor showed that the July 6^th Semi-final in Cape Town next to the venue could throw up an England v Brazil game.

1Goal World Cup Diary: Wednesday 2 June 2010

Wednesday 2 June 2010

The World Cup is just days from kicking off with some of the fittest and most talented sportsmen in the world now arriving into South Africa. We arrived blearily waiting at the wrong baggage carousel before re-routing to find to an airport packed with unfit sports journalists in big tracksuits waiting for their big bags to turn up. ITN and Tele 7 of Costa Rice winning the prize with Sky Sports looking like underfed undergraduates by comparison. Maybe Murdoch’s not paying them enough. It’s been a day of getting accreditation sorted, clarifying people’s jobs and also setting a course for the next six weeks and sorting out films for the ad campaign which are set for final clearance.  Some good progress with the march of thousands of people that the South African police wanted to cancel now allowed to go ahead with thousands people set to join and rumours that Mohammed Ali could be coming out. One of the guest house owners also knows Jomo Sono, Tony Baffoe was around the accreditation centre, George Weah has been in touch asking what more he can do and Chris Powell the 1GOAL Bus Driver seems to be coming together. A planning session for the coming days which look set to create a car crash of competing activities on June 10^th could well turn out to be the big spike we are looking for with A Listers from sports and screen set to get stuck in.  It’s only a week away for this to happen; security run throughs for Royalty await tomorrow.

Education: The World Cup Legacy – a test on twitter

This is a test of the power of twitter for distributing stories to some of the UKs most followed football / sports news writers – is it replacing inboxes for what they click on / read?   Be interesting to see if it works…

Sam

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Below is a story we are putting out for Friday, I am sticking it here as it’s not ready to go out on the 1GOAL site until the embargo breaks and am testing it with a narrow bunch of twitter sports journalists.  We are hoping to get some time with George Weah for media on Friday and will other World Cup stars available for interview next week. Newsline on this is that Cameron could well go out to the World Cup for the education summit slated to happen ahead of the World Cup and Blatter putting a lot of energy into ensuring that further funding for education comes through. Let me know if you need more via sam@join1goal.org.

Embargo: 00:01 Friday 21^st May 2010

1GOAL reveal 10 Point Plan for World Cup Education Legacy

FIFA-backed 1GOAL campaign warn of $70 bn cost & call for urgent action

Failure by world leaders to deliver on their promise of education for every child could cost developing countries up to $70 billion per year in lost economic growth, campaigners and leading names in football warned today.

1GOAL a coalition of charities backed by FIFA and over 150 of the biggest names in football including Michael Essien, Alessandro del Piero, Zinedine Zidane and Eusebio is calling on governments to adopt a ten-point action plan for countries to ensure all 72 million children can receive an education by 2015.

The warning, part of 1GOAL’s ten-point action plan to deliver Education for All, comes as South Africa prepares to host a high level Education Summit during the World Cup Finals. It calls on leaders to a new contract between rich and poor countries where rich countries increase their spending on basic education and poor countries commit to spending 20% of their national budgets on education.

The UK, Norway, Netherlands, Ireland, New Zealand, Sweden all give more than 70% of their fair share of the $16 billion needed. However, US, Italy, Japan and Germany, despite being some of the world’s richest countries, have shown poor performance in paying their fair share towards basic education aid.

In the UK, 1GOAL is calling on the new Government to match the previous governments £1 billion commitment to spending on basic education and urges Prime Minister Cameron to attend the High Level Education Summit that is planned to take place during the World Cup.

African football legend and 1GOAL Ambassador George Weah, who missed out on education as a child and went back to school at the age of 38, said: “Young children are on the streets instead of in the classrooms. We are not giving them the opportunity to learn and they will struggle to get jobs when they grow up. Every government has the responsibility to education its children but some governments in Africa do not spend enough on schools.  Africa has to adapt if our future is to be better than our past. Everywhere in the world should have high standards of education, not just Europe and America. We have to make this a reality.”

The 1GOAL plan includes:

1)    Rich countries to deliver $16 billion in aid to basic education, and target it towards Africa and conflict-affected states

2)    Rich countries to ensure that aid can be spent on educational essentials like teachers, books and pencils for example in parts of Mozambique teacher shortages mean class sizes are over 150.

3)    Poor countries to make sure that school fees do not bar poor children from attendance.  In Africa, the cost of sending children to school costs nearly 25% of a family’s income.

4)    Ensuring students have access to school meals and uniforms. School feeding programmes have increased attendance dramatically in Burkina Faso and Bangladesh

Eight million people have already pledged their support to 1GOAL, while mobile phone companies around the world have come together to send 1 billion text messages asking their customers to back the campaign and call on politicians to do their bit to help every child get into school.

Report author and 1GOAL Policy Manager Lucia Fry said: “Politicians all over the world are talking about efficiencies and value for money, investing in education is the engine through which countries can be led out of poverty. Just $16bn dollars from rich countries could deliver $70bn per year in growth for developing countries. This World Cup has the opportunity to deliver something that will last for generations.”

No country has ever achieved continuous and rapid economic growth without first having at least 40% of adults able to read and write. Providing one year of schooling to all children in a country is estimated to have the same stabilising effect as an annual economic growth rate of 5%.

Former England Manager and BBC Commentator Graham Taylor said: “Football has a rich tradition of uniting people and reducing differences and this World Cup presents a unique opportunity where a sporting tournament will also provide a moment for Heads of State to deliver the much needed money to get every child into school. Education for all children around the world is something that goes beyond politics. We all look forward to this World Cup leaving a legacy that will last for generations.”

ENDS

For information and interviews please call: Sam Barratt, Media Director on + 44 7818 406050 or email sam@join1goal.org or call John Coventry, Media Manager on john@join1goal.org or on + 44 7816 165279.

More information about 1GOAL can be found at  www.join1goal.org and footage and stills of players backing the campaign can be found at https://1goal.medialightbox.com, contact the 1GOAL press office for a password to access the site.

Notes to editors:

1GOAL is an initiative to mobilise support to hold world leaders to these promises for 2015 and is run by the Global Campaign for Education and is part of a large global movement.  In 2000, world governments came together to create the UN Millennium Development Goals. Two of the eight goals involve ending poverty through providing education for all which ensured that all boys and girls complete primary schooling by 2015.  Since then many countries have abolished school fees and increased domestic spending, aid has increased by $2 billion and an extra 40 million children are now going to school. The $70bn estimate is based on a World Bank recent study, which established that every extra year of schooling can increase average annual GDP growth by 0.37%. Where the education is good quality, the improvement of cognitive skills increases the impact to 1%.

The Beginning: Week 2 of 1GOAL

The World Cup is now 86 days away and I am looking at the list of things to get done and it is truly frightening. Yet I don’t think I would swap it for anything else. The aspiration of the campaign is to get 72 million people to sign up and support the campaign, deliver a Heads of State summit in South Africa where $12 bn in new aid is pledged for education and 30 global media partnerships are rolled out, each demanding unique content. There is also a concert with Shakira and Alicia Keys to support as well not to mention a whole load of footballers. I am just on the way back from South Africa where I’ve spent 72 hours which has included spending the day with the actress Jessica Alba, met six editors of the national and international media and discussed the education summit with the South African government. It is getting there. The ambition is big. My job description is to outdo the breadth, depth and impact of the Make Poverty History campaign in 2005. As I took off flying over Johannesburg you could see the lightning coming down over the Gauteng industrial landscape. I am stopping to take this in and think for the first time. I left Oxfam ten days ago having been Head of Media for the past ten years. That was a good job. You didn’t have to explain who you were, what you were trying to do or where you came from. I also had twenty people in the team in different parts of the world doing stuff. In this role I am on my own with no PA and not one member of staff, stripped bear with a huge amount to get through, at every level…

Leaving Oxfam…

After 10 long years, I have left Oxfam. It’s been an incredible job rich with memories but it’s now time to move on. In this decade I have done everything from doorstepping African gun-runners, tiptoed through munitions factories in Afghanistan and panned with diamond miners in Sierra Leone. I think it’s probably one of the best media roles there is with huge diversity of subject, brilliant people to work with and great access to the media. On top of this, the hit that the media team can deliver can be deeper than any other organisation and the collaboration with advocacy, campaigns and now digital really punches into change.  PR Week probably overcooked it in this article but it’s not far from the truth. It really got into my identity, I was permanently on standby for bangs and whizzes in far off places, reading the paper and irritated whenever I saw things that we could / should have been in.  Everyday was a news day.  I bored people with it and stopped talking about it unless asked. There have been some bloody good Heads of Media at Oxfam and I hope that if in no small way I made a difference, raised a bit more money, built a few schools in Rwanda, stoked up some political trouble on a few issues (Tanzania air traffic control, Vulture funds and Starbucks and Ethiopia) as well as helped a few people think about their careers. I’ll also miss working with some brilliant journalists and creatives; Alex Renton, Ros Wynne Jones, Anthony Lilley, all the IDEO guys, Charlie Beckett, Harriet Sherwood, Peter Horrocks, David Shukman, Dave Wooding, Jason McCue  and even Rob Crilly.  There is a B side to this A side but that’s probably not right to discuss somewhere like here. Needless to say Oxfam is an important voice and organisation in the world and needs to retain its zest and passion. There will always be a large part of me that thinks and approaches issues in certain ways but now its time for something new. 1Goal and the World Cup, 68 days to go.

Robin Hood Tax: Making Sense of the Mess

Good to see that the Robin Hood Tax campaign has finally launched, excellent piece by Bill Nighy to get it going.  This has been in baking in the over for the past six months, it’s a shame we missed the pre-Davos window to get the idea in circulation there.  It’s an idea older than me but Oxfam started thinking about putting some significant energy into this last summer. In July Alan Beattie at the FT and I were chatting about other things, he said he gave it a 1 in 10 chance of coming through, too impractical. Larry Elliott was more optimistic and said 25% of a reality, though it had to have the US.  The dividend from just 0.05% tax on financial transactions is enormous. It could raise $100 bn; it could easily get all children into school (just a snip at $16bn a year) or help poor countries mitigate account climate change ($50 bn plus). Even better, it will cost the taxpayer nothing. There is now an impressive and very can-do coalition around this in the UK, Europe and the US and some 300 economists are about to come out in favour of it and more political announcements are expected in the coming days.  The odds could be slimming on this becoming a reality. The next four months will be critical when the IMF report on whether it is viable or not, on the eve of the launch some 60 organisations representing over 10 million members are getting involved in it, it could well happen…

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