Welcome to the Atlas of Utopias - a unique collection of community-led transformations to ensure access to water, energy, food and housing. As we face climate breakdown, access to basic rights like water, food, energy and housing are becoming increasingly strained. Cities and collectives around the world are experimenting with new ways to practice democracy and secure access to basic rights. An initiative by Transformative Cities, the atlas features 33 stories of transformative change from 24 countries. About the Transformative Cities initiative: https://transformativecities.org/

AFT's Private Prisons and Investment Risks report reveals the direct and indirect investments public pension funds have in Core Civic and GEO Group, which reap billions each year by jailing minority populations and exploiting the school-to-prison pipeline.

At a conference about the UN's Sustainable Development Goals unions called for an end to the privatization of water services and green energy solutions. A report featuring the General Secretary of Public Services International, Rosa Pavanelli.

Public Service Association of NSW President Kylie McKelvie talks about why the privatization of disability services is “the cruelest cut of all.”

Don Marshall presents elements of his paper “Crisis Narratives, Debt and Development Adjustment: Contemplating Caribbean Small Island States Futures.” Don, Director of the Sir Arthur Lewis Institute of Social and Economic Studies at University of the West Indies: Cave Hill, questions the hegemony of mainstream economic indicators shepherded by the “neoliberal calculus of austerity adjustments.” He explores the effects on the Caribbean and its economic governance of international financial institutions and credit rating agencies, in the context of global financialization. Considering the implications for the dual Caribbean crises of debt and climate change, Don illustrates the need for meaningful policy space to enable governments to implement their agendas for equitable development.

On the sidelines of the 2018 ECOSOC FFD Forum, Eric LeCompte (Jubilee USA) and Rev. Osbert James (Jubilee Caribbean) discuss international developments on debt restructuring and call for a moratorium on debt to protect developing economies from natural disasters!

CSOs as equal partners in monitoring public finance started from 2016 with the aim to improve accountability and transparency of the public finance in targeted countries and strengthen Civil Society Organisations’ (CSOs) role and voice in monitoring the institutions’ performance in that area. Key project activities are research and monitoring, advocacy, capacity building and transfer of knowledge/practices and networking in the field of the 4 specific topics: • public debt, • public-private partnerships, • tax equity and • infrastructure projects. More about the project and our work can be found here: https://www.facebook.com/BalkanMonitoringPublicFinance/

We have been introducing and advancing a debt-swap initiative to address the debt overhang of the Caribbean countries, said Diane Quarless, Chief of the ECLAC Subregional Headquarters for the Caribbean, Port of Spain, at the Fifth meeting of the Caribbean Development Roundtable (CDR), held in Saint Lucia on 26 April 2018.

Environmental Rights Action/Friends of the Earth led protest actions on some major streets in continued campaigns to kick against plans by the Lagos State Government to privatize its water.

In this 7-minute video, Third World Network-Africa's Tetteh Hormeku-Ajei interviews Dr. Don D. Marshall, Director of the Sir Arthur Lewis Institute for Social and Economic Studies at University of the West Indies: Cave Hill. Don shares his views on heterodox and feminist approaches to questions of debt and development, in the context of normative frameworks set by credit rating agencies and the IMF and their regional implications in the Caribbean.

ERA says if the Governor of Lagos, Akinwunmi Ambode awards the contact to Veolia, Abengoa and Metito, to manage water in Lagos for the next twenty-five (25) years, then he will be endangering the very lives of his people.

Public service unions have won the battle to keep five New South Wales hospitals from being privatized thanks to the tireless efforts of the NSW Nurses and Midwives' Association, Australian Salaried Medical Officers' Federation of NSW, the Health Services Union NSW and local residents of Shellharbour, Maitland, Bowral, Wyong & Goulburn. The Power of the people kept NSW In A Healthy State!