The ODG’s 2023 annual report is now available. You can discover our activities and the challenges we have overcome during the year, consult our financial data, read our publications, find out about our communication reach and our carbon footprint…
In May 2023, the World Health Organization declared an end to the COVID-19 health crisis. We would have liked to breathe a sigh of relief after such a prolonged sense of emergency; however, in 2023 it would appear that many points of conflict have unfortunately intensified. The climate emergency has hit home in the form of a devastating drought, and we have seen an alarming rise in the prices of basic foods, energy and housing. As if this were not enough, we have been faced with a geopolitical context in which there has been a worrying increase in armed conflicts – and the consequent arms race – which reached its bloodiest height in October 2023, when the State of Israel, supported by the USA and the majority of European countries, intensified in Gaza the genocide against the Palestinian people.
As a consequence, securitist discourse has infiltrated various areas of European policy, such as in the scramble to guarantee access to critical raw materials for the green transition – now also critical for the arms industry – or the introduction of military spending as a European priority in reformed European fiscal rules
In spite of this, we have managed to roll out a whole series of critical analysis activities, creating spaces for reflection and mobilisation, as well carrying out a number of mutual support actions. After two years of impasse, we have reactivated important activities such as the ODG Seminar and the #DebatsODG. We have stood in solidarity with the Palestinian people and spoken out against the massacre they are suffering at the hands of the State of Israel.
We have worked together and in solidarity with the Chango, Likan Antai and Colla peoples of Chile, with the population of the province of Catamarca in Argentina fighting against “green” extractivism, with our comrades in Camp de Tarragona, Aragon, the Basque Country and Cantabria who are fighting for a fairer energy transition, and with the Colletivo di Fabbrica GKN in Florence who are pressing for socially and environmentally fair reindustrialisation.
We have put our heart and soul into spearheading transformative initiatives that aim for an ecofeminist transformation while taking collective rights and the well-being of the planet into account, including, among others, the Fòrum per la Transició Ecosocial: Futurs (Im)possibles.
Looking inward towards our organization, we have continued to apply our own ecofeminist transition, focusing on power relations, valuing care, and working to avoid work overburden. In addition, in 2023, we have completed a process designed to improve the governance of the ODG with our partners at HOBEST. The aim was to adapt our organization’s decision-making processes to a structure which includes a growing specialist team. The main challenge has been in improving operations without losing the essence of the ODG with respect to our horizontality, democracy, transparency and ecofeminist values.