Corporate power is becoming involved in every area of life. Worldwide, institutions like the IMF and WTO are encouraging privatisation of everything from public transport to water supply. Here in the UK, private finance plays an ever larger role in public services like schools and hospitals.

But these policies don't work. The last few weeks of 2001 saw the collapse of giant US power corporation Enron, which had grown rich on privatisation, and turmoil in Argentina as IMF debt repayments brought the economy to its knees.

Worse, the growth of corporate power means poverty and death for millions. Pharmaceutical companies set prices that put their products beyond the reach of millions with diseases like HIV/AIDS. In some countries, debt repayments outstrip health spending.

Millions of people worldwide oppose the growing involvement of corporates in every part of life. Our resistance takes many forms. Our movement includes Christians campaigning for debt relief, environmentalists opposing GM food, trade unionists fighting privatisation in their workplaces and students demanding that education be free to all.

We have won victories. Since protesters stopped the WTO meeting in Seattle in December 1999 protests have prevented the privatisation of water in Bolivia. Pharmaceutical companies were forced to back down from attempts to raise prices for HIV drugs. Campaigning forced construction company Balfour Beatty to withdraw from the Ilisu Dam project.

Yet the US war of revenge against Afghanistan, and the threat of further war in the Middle East, shows how much more we need to campaign to win a world based on peace and justice. We will carry on working to bring together the diverse forces of our movement in 2002.

If you agree with what we stand for, please join us or make a donation.