Yet again Save the Children Fund on the wrong side of an issue

As many of us know Save the Children Fund were less than positive about the move from an MDG agenda to a Sustainable Development Goal agenda. 

Now they find themselves on the wrong side of another issue Tony Blair. Last week they gave an award for his humanitarian work -The Global Legacy Award at the Save the Children Illumination Gala 2014. 

I did chair a meeting with Tony Blair just after he was elected Prime Minister in 1997. I was positively surprised by him and very impressed by his knowledge of many issues. Though  it has to be said not very good on gender when the Executive Director of WEDO Susan Davis asked him about the different opportunities for his daughter and son he did not think there were any. So in 1997 we had high hopes after 17 years of conservative rule of a progressive Labour Administration. The sad thing is it wasnt as progressive as we hoped though it did some great things - it also took away the financial controls that would have protected the UK economy much more from the financial crisis. 

The mistakes of Iraq are too great for someone to be rehabilitated. So many people died and continue to die because of either lies, nativity or arrogance by our politicians at the front of that was Tony Blair.

He has since leaving office worked for a number of governments that are repressive and for a number of companies that go against the environmental agenda his government followed.

There are good things he has done with trying to bring peace in Palestine and his Africa Governance work and i hope he continues to do good work.

There is an online petition that shows the concern of people with Save the Children Funds decision to give Tony Blair this Award it has over 107,000 signatures calling for:

"Save the Children', please revoke the award given to Tony Blair in supposed recognition of his vanguard leadership on the world’s international development stage.
As an international children's charity the choice of Tony Blair is not only controversial to say the least, as many see him as the cause of the deaths of countless children in the Middle East with damning allegations relating to his role as Middle East envoy and businesses dealings with autocratic rulers and others in the region.

I was very pleased to see the response of nearly 200 Save the Children staff to the announcement of the award should say it all and should be commended and tell management they have made a huge mistake:

“We consider this award inappropriate and a betrayal to Save the Children’s founding principles and values. Management staff in the region were not communicated with nor consulted about the award and were caught by surprise with this decision.”

The management of Save the Children Fund should apologies to the people in that region in particular who have had to and continue to deal with the consequences of the Tony Blair government's policies on Iraqi. 

If you are giving this Christmas I hope its to UNICEF, Oxfam, Cafod, Greenpeace or Friends of the Earth.