NB: I've sent this message to some of you using a different email service last week, which proved unsatisfactory. Apologies if you're receiving this twice. 

Dear friends,

A few weeks ago you signed our petition calling for a “Global Peace Dividend". Our proposal is a simple one: countries should negotiate a coordinated reduction of their military spending, and use the massive savings to tackle climate change, pandemics, and extreme poverty. Over 50 Nobel laureates and 62,000 citizens like yourself have endorsed this plan to date.

My name is Matteo Smerlak, and I am the president of the association we created to work with organizations and governments around the world to catalyze this agreement. I thought I would share with you an update on our activities. (Keep in mind—at this stage, our small team only consists of volunteers working on our free time.)

EMERGENCY festival

Italian medical emergency association EMERGENCY kindly offered us to participate in their annual festival in Reggio Emilia, Italy. There is lots of talk about “effective altruism” these days. EMERGENCY is effectively altruistic: with an annual budget of ~€60m/yr, EMERGENCY has treated over 12 million people in 20 war-torn countries, including Afghanistan, where they still are. (If you're in the English-speaking world and would like to know more and/or support EMERGENCY, you should get in touch with David Llyod Webber.)

The festival itself was beautiful in every way. We were happy to contribute: our ambassador Malaika Vaz gave a powerful talk entitled “Why do we need peace?”, and I explained our initiative in a panel discussion on disarmament. Our supporters Omar-Dario Cardona (National University of Colombia), Natalie Bennett (UK House of Lords) and Silvia Zamboni (Legislative Assembly of Region Emilia Romagna) also shared their thoughts in panels, bring depth and expertise to the conversation.

Upcoming talks

I will pitch our initiative at a The First Dolomite Conference on the Global Governance of Climate Change on 20th - 22nd Oct 2022, in Trento, and also at AidEx on 16th - 17th Nov 2022, in Brussels. Politicians, academics and industry leaders will be there. Wish me luck convincing them!

War in Ukraine

There is a question I cannot avoid to bring up. When Carlo Rovelli and I launched the initiative in Dec 2021, Russia had not invaded Ukraine. Now, with war in Europe, a lot has changed. Is our proposal to reduce military budgets within the framework of an international agreement still relevant?

I think it is: growing military budgets throughout the western world (twice larger in 2020 than in 2000) have not prevented this war, and they will not prevent the next. It's not hard to see why: the more money we spend on new weapons, the more our adversaries will spend in return. We will say "we're only defending ourselves”, and they will say the same. Meanwhile, the planet will continue to burn.

Let's try something different.

Help us if you can

We're operating without funding, so:

• if you have access to philanthropy circles or foundations to change that, get in touch.
• if you can donate something to help us cover our costs, that will be much appreciated.

That's all for today! Feel free to reply to this message if you'd like to share any idea or feedback—your input is more than welcome.

All the best,
Matteo