Global Exchange

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Global Exchange is an advocacy group and non-governmental organization, based in San Francisco, California, United States. It was founded in 1988, and funds itself through memberships. Its stated aim is to promote human rights and social, economic, and environmental justice around the world. It has worked to increase public awareness of what it feels are the root causes of injustice, while also building international partnerships. It attempts to address a wide range of issues ranging from worker abuse by US companies to the US war in Iraq. It also maintains that the World Trade Organization (WTO) undercuts consumer and environmental protections.

Global Exchange also gives reality tours to various countries of the world with the stated aim of educating the visitor with the realities of living in different cultures. Reality Tour locations include or have included Afghanistan, Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Cambodia, China, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Ecuador, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, India, Iran, Ireland, Jamaica, Jordan and Syria, Kenya, Mexico, Nicaragua, Palestine/Israel, South Africa, Syria & Lebanon, Tanzania, Thailand, US, Venezuela and Vietnam (Viet Nam).

Global Exchange was founded by activists Kevin Danaher, Medea Benjamin, and Kirsten Irgens-Moller.

Global Exchange has emerged as one of the pre-eminent NGOs against corporate globalization. They have worked closely with many groups around the world in order to promote "fair trade" goods to the public, such as shade-grown coffee from the Chiapas region of Mexico, grown by members of the Zapatista movement EZLN. GX was also forefront of the Seattle WTO protests, and in the interest of solidarity, brought members of the EZLN to the protest.

Global Exchange works in close alliance with an increasingly well-coordinated movement of NGOs (non-governmental organizations). Along with Rainforest Action Network and The Ruckus Society, Global Exchange played a central role in organizing the mass actions at the WTO (World Trade Organization) summit in Seattle in 1999. As a member of the Our World is Not for Sale Network and the Citizens Trade Campaign, Global Exchange opposes all free trade agreements including NAFTA, CAFTA, FTAA, and most economic privatizations.

Politically, Global Exchange has long campaigned in favor of freedom to travel to Cuba and an end to the Cuban Embargo, and has also advocated for global regionalism as an alternative to corporate globalization and embodied in the Bolivarian Revolution of Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez and Bolivian President Evo Morales. In regards to the Israel & Palestine conflict, it supports the implementation of human rights and international law on both sides. While it deems any violence towards civilians as tragic, it views the continued Israeli Occupation as the root of the conflict and driving force behind the cycle of violence. It opposes the United States presence in Iraq and any sanctions and military action against Iran - advocating for dialogue rather than further demonization.

In the United States, Global Exchange advocates the public financing of elections, adoption of proportional representation and instant runoff voting, free access to commercial media, the elimination of the Electoral College, and the re-enfranchisement of ex-felons.

Recently, Global Exchange has made possible the Green Festivals in San Francisco and Washington D.C., which bring together fair trade merchants, with environmentally responsible and otherwise progressive companies to showcase their goods and services to consumers. Chicago will host its first Green Festival in 2007.

The Global Exchange Store encourages the principles of socially and economically responsible business by selling products according to Fair Trade Criteria in an online store and stores in San Francisco and Berkeley in California, and Portland, Oregon.

Global Exchange is a coalition partner of Energy Action a coalition of more than 30 organizations from across the US and Canada, founded and led by youth to help support and strengthen the student and youth clean energy movement in North America.

Global Exchange in partnership with Rainforest Action Network and The Ruckus Society runs the Freedom from Oil Campaign advocating a reduction of America’s oil consumption, claiming this will help to reduce oil related conflicts and to stop global climate change. The campaign aims to convince the auto industry to dramatically improve fuel efficiency and to eliminate vehicle greenhouse gas emissions by 2020.

As part of their campaign to reduce oil consumption, on November 29, 2006, two protesters from Global Exchange at the Greater Los Angeles Auto Show walked onto a press stage where General Motors CEO Rick Wagoner was speaking and tried to get him to sign a pledge making GM the most fuel-efficient car company by 2010. Wagoner refused to sign, saying that he promised just that in his keynote speech. [1]