GDAMS 2021 Report

This year’s Global Days of Action on Military Spending were still conditioned by the health emergency provoked by the COVID-19 pandemic. The year 2020 had changed the way we campaign to protest military expenditures and in 2021 we maintained many of these new tools. This year was still complicated for many activists around the globe, but in many countries we were able to once again organise protests and street actions in the way they used to be, so we therefore combined online and in person actions. During this second year of the pandemic, we deemed necessary to keep protesting current levels of military spending, which hasn’t decreased despite the hardships imposed on many by simultaneous health, economic, climate and social crises.
The emergency caused by the Covid-19 pandemic shows us the many inconsistencies of our system, and questions the current “defence” and security paradigms, and the increasing budget allocations. It’s now evident that ever growing military capacities can’t address the day-to-day problems of people, and that these require urgent attention and investment. This is why this year we have decided to use the motto:
“Defund the Military – Defend the People and the Planet!”This GDAMS we’ve listed over 150 actions carried out by organizations (partners and others) in at least 29 different countries of all 5 continents. Thousands of people engaged with the campaign and its members on social media all across the world and it was mentioned in dozens of media outlets. The GCOMS twitter account earned almost 120 thousand impressions over the GDAMS period.