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What is ODG?
The Observatorio de la Deuda en la Globalización (Debt observatory in Globalisation), ODG, is a coordinated network of people and teams who work on activist research. This research is focused on problems of North-South relations, and on the creation of debts between communities. By debt we refer both to the financial debt (external debt) the most impoverished countries have with the richest countries, as well as to the other “external debts”, those that the North have with the South, such as ecological debt, historical debt or social debt. Our research is also focused on the actors that play an important role in the present globalisation process: the governments (especially the Spanish government), the multilateral institutions, the transnational companies and the civil society.
Who are we and who do we work for?
The ODG is a project born from the initiative of the Citizen Network for the Abolition of External Debt, who, in March 2000, organised a Social Consultation about the abolition of External Debt with more than 1 million people participating. The origin of the ODG is therefore in the network that needs to have accurate, rigorous, critical and immediate information, in order to support their training, information sharing and advocacy processes.Although since 2004 the ODG has an independent status as a recognised NGO, from its beginnings it has been supported and welcomed by the UNESCO Chair on Sustainability at the Technical University of Catalonia (UPC). We address most of our work to people in the social movements, NGOs and those people with a critical perspective of reality, with interest in subjects such as external debt and North – South relations, and people who require new research and tools of social control, in order to improve their daily work and to have more rigorous, complete and coherent discussions.
