The Global Campaign on Military Spending (GCOMS) is an international campaign founded in December 2014 and promoted by the International Peace Bureau. The aim of the campaign is to push governments to invest money in the sectors of health, education, employment and climate change rather than military.
The GCOMS incorporates the Global Days of Action on Military Spending (GDAMS), that started in 2011. GDAMS usually starts in mid-April, on the Tax Day in the U.S. (a traditional moment in the calendar for civil society to challenge the uses of U.S. public money), and includes the day in which the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) publishes the global annual military expenditure figures, together with an analysis of its trends. Having a period of several ‘Global Days’ offers GDAMS campaigners a more flexible scope to choose a suitable moment to organize events that fit local or national contexts.
“Massive military spending and new investments in modernizing nuclear weapons have left the world over-armed and peace under-funded”. The alternative, instead of increasing Milex, is reducing it while increasing the budget that can directly fund human needs. A cut of 6% on the total World Military Spending would generate 100 billion dollars per year, and this could address the needs of developing countries in terms of climate change adaptation and mitigation by 2020 (UN sustainable goal number 13). And a cut of 3.2% on World Military Spending would generate 54 billion dollars per year, enough to address the 3rd UN sustainable goal by achieving pre-primary, primary and lower-seconday universal education by 2030.
By redirecting military expenditure to real human needs, we would be able to really fund the needs of people: no poverty, zero hunger, a good health, quality education, gender quality, clear water and sanitation, affordable and clean energy for everybody, climate action, reduced inequality and many others. Needs that focus on people and on their rights.
We need to involve even more citizens and organisations in an open and robust debate on the counter-productive results of military expenditure. More than ever, we need new partners to make the Global Days of Action on Military Spending (GDAMS) a great success!
In 2017, Global Day/GDAMS was a whole fortnight, including from April 18th to 28th, 2017. Next year, in 2018, more than 110 GDAMS actions were performed between April 14th and May 3rd. In 2019, GDAMS will be from April 13th to May 9th, 2019.
The list of GDAMS 2018 Events and Actions is available here!
And the list of GDAMS 2017 Events and Actions is also available here
Have also a look to the information on past GDAMS events!
