Strategy Meeting on GCOMS 2018

Date/Time
Date(s) - Tuesday - Sep 12, 2017
11:00 am - 5:00 pm

Location
Pax Christi International

Categories No Categories

Dear colleagues, dear friends

The Global Campaign on Military Spending (GCOMS) is an international campaign founded in December 2014 and promoted by the International Peace Bureau. The main aim is to reduce the global military spending thanks to the cooperative works made by the organisations of civil society. Nowadays, more the 100 organizations from 35 different nations have joined the campaign.

The GCOMS is run by a steering group of activists from all over world, and is coordinated by the Center of Peace Studies J.M.Delàs in Barcelona as a decentralized office of IPB. A list of GCOMS activities in 2017 is available: http://demilitarize.org/gdams-2017/

Considering the most recent development in military spending as is the decision at the last NATO Summit in Brussels to push forward the 2% of each member states´ GDP or the decision to increase the US military budget for $ 54 Billion we would like to make the GCOMS activities in 2018 even bigger in quantity and quality.

For this reason, we would like to invite you to our Strategy Meeting on GCOMS activities in 2018 on September 12^th 2017 in Brussels. We will soon send the detailed program. The introduction speech is going to be held by Aude Fleurant (SIPRI).

The goal is to discuss recent developments in military spending on one hand, and on the other to figure out together what next steps we could and should take as a reaction to it.  This is a great opportunity to meet each other (again) in person and to unite in common activities.

Also, our aim is to not only raise awareness about military spending, but also encourage individuals and organisations to take actions against it. Let us make sure that our voices and arguments against military spending are heard.

Feel free to forward this invitation to all your colleagues and friends who are interested into this topic.

We are looking forward to meeting you and to all your brilliant ideas!

Kind Regards

Reiner Braun, IPB Co-President
Lisa Clark, IPB Co-President
Jordi Calvo, GCOMS Coordinator