Aiming to eradicate extreme poverty, Global Citizen has developed an app that combats poverty and promotes digital activism. The app offers educational resources, details about grassroots organizations and avenues for political action toward systemic change. It serves as a comprehensive guide on poverty and has attracted more than 500,000 downloads from social activists and changemakers globally.

Global Citizen’s Platform

Originally co-founded by Hugh Evans, Simon Moss and Wei Soo as the Global Poverty Project in 2008, the Global Citizen movement has grown from strength to strength and has become a world-leading humanitarian organization advocating for solidarity in the fight for poverty reduction.

Since its debut in 2012, the Global Citizen platform has gained fame for organizing the Global Citizen Festival, an annual music event that unites prominent artists and activists to pledge support and fundraise for initiatives aimed at alleviating global poverty.

Featuring headliners like the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Alicia Keys and Stevie Wonder, among others, the festival, in conjunction with various projects, partnerships and Global Citizen’s programs, has distributed $46.3 billion in funds to date,  which amounts to almost three times the $15.8 billion spent on Official Development Assistance (ODA) by the United Kingdom (U.K.) in 2022.

The App

With the continued success of the Global Citizen Festival, the newest addition to the Global Citizen platform is the app fighting poverty from the comfort of users’ pockets. Designed in collaboration with L+R, a global design and technology studio, the innovative app prompts users to take daily actionable steps to impact the fight for global poverty reduction.

With four primary categories encompassing actions, campaigns, content and goals & journeys, the app gives users autonomy to choose how to contribute to poverty reduction with activities ranging from re-tweeting important information to signing petitions and learning how to email MPs and government representatives.

Similar to several social media platforms including X (formerly Twitter) the Global Citizen app provides access to the latest poverty-related news but uniquely links trending and breaking stories to actionable tasks in support of poverty reduction.
For example, adjacent to an article about implementing human rights reforms in Saudi Arabia, the Global Citizen app will use a ‘take action now’ button and directly link to relevant petitions calling on governmental bodies to act and acknowledge the voices of global citizens demanding for equity and justice worldwide.

The app further hosts quizzes addressing a variety of poverty-related topics which test users on their knowledge in an informal and gratifying setting while incentivizing further learning. Additionally, the app boasts rewards according to the number of points collected through actions taken. Each completed action amounts to a certain number, which, when combined, can be used to enter a variety of competitions. Prizes range from one-year subscriptions to online classes, to concert tickets for a variety of artists and together, bring the fight to end extreme poverty to the forefront of daily life.

Global Citizen: Shaping the Future

The Global Citizen motto, “This is our world and the actions of one can have a profound impact on many” is the incentive needed for people to collectively recognize their voice as a vehicle for impactful and long-lasting change. Through voting, tweeting, emailing, signing and petitioning, the Global Citizen app has created the nexus of digital technology and activism, making the personal political.

Not only does this close the gap between two intersecting systems, the public and their governments, but it also raises awareness and educates about the power of harnessing digital technology in the fight against extreme poverty. By downloading the Global Citizen app and fighting poverty at the touch of a button, real, impactful, systemic change can take place. Demanding action from world leaders and those in positions of power is not only a basic human right but the future of activism in a digital age.

– Zoe Winterfeldt
Photo: Flickr