Today, governments around the world are implementing programs of austerity that are reversing the social protections that people have fought for over many generations. By dramatically cutting public spending on social welfare and essential services, austerity measures are undermining human rights and threatening to unravel the basic fabric of society and community. But is there really no alternative to these unjust economic policies, as we are being led to believe?

I have just returned from COP18 in Doha, Qatar, and yet another UN climate conference. A total of over 17, 000 people descended on the small Gulf state last week: representatives from nearly 200 countries, an army of bureaucrats, members of the business community, academics, and civil society.

Theoretically, the aims of the UN Conferences of Parties or COP are: to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions, limit the global temperature rise to below 2ºC, and avert catastrophic climate change.

Civil society groups representing 40 countries will meet with World Bank president Jim Yong Kim at the World Bank annual meetings today asking that he support developing countries to achieve universal health coverage.

They will present Kim with an open letter, signed by 110 organizations from every region of the world, including the Ghana Universal Healthcare Campaign, World Vision, and Oxfam asking him to ensure the World Bank assists all people, especially the poorest and most vulnerable, to access health services.