For a second year in a row, the Global Poverty Project is mounting a benefit concert in Central Park, on Sept. 28, to urge world leaders at the United Nations to do more to raise the living standards among the world’s poor. This time the show will feature Alicia Keys, Kings of Leon, John Mayer and Stevie Wonder.
Like last year’s event, the Global Citizen Festival concert will be held on the Great Lawn as leaders gather in New York for the United Nations General Assembly Meeting. “We must push our leaders to step up and commit to action,†said Hugh Evans, the founder and chief executive of the charity. He added: “This is not just a concert. We are building a movement.â€
Among other goals, organizers hope to use the concert to generate pressure on industrialized nations to devote a tenth of their foreign aid budgets to education and to lend more support to programs that empower women and girls in the third world. They also want to lobby U.N. health officials to deploy thousands of new health workers across Sub-Saharan Africa and to make basic vaccines available to more children in under-developed countries. As part of its health-care agenda, organizers plan to push the Broadband Commission for Digital Development, a U.N.-sponsored group of leaders in the telecommunication industry, to provide community health workers in Africa with free cell phones and data lines.
Over the last year, Mr. Evans has assembled a powerful circle of allies in the music industry, among them some of the biggest talent agents, concert promoters, band managers, artists and festival organizers in the business.
In May, that group succeeded in persuading more than 70 major pop stars, among them Jay-Z, Beyoncé, Bruce Springsteen and Bruno Mars, to donate two tickets from each of their concerts for a year to be used as prizes for people who volunteer to get involved in the charity’s efforts.
The group of industry insiders, which includes figures like the agent Marsha Vlasic and the Live Nation executive Mark Campana, has again persuaded four A-list artists to give free performances this year at Global Citizen Festival. Last year’s bill was dominated by rock acts â€" the Black Keys, Foo Fighters and Neil Young & Crazy Horse. This year’s lineup leans more toward R&B with Ms. Keys and Mr. Wonder on the bill.
About 54,000 free tickets will be distributed to the public through a lottery on the Global Citizen Web site. To qualify for the lottery, people must register and earn points by taking various actions: signing petitions, donating to aid groups, writing letters to elected leaders or volunteering their time. Users must accumulate 10 points for a chance at a ticket, compared to the 3 points required last year.
“We are setting the threshold of engagement slightly higher,†Mr. Evans said. “Our hope and our desire is that citizens will get deeply involved with our major policy issues.â€
The concert itself will not raise much money, but is intended by its supporters as a consciousness-raising and lobbying tool; it is underwritten by the several nonprofits and philanthropic funds, among them the Cotton On Foundation, the Sumner M. Redstone Foundation and the Pratt Foundation. Organizers are also receiving support from Hewlett-Packard, FedEx, Coca-Cola, Clear Channel Entertainment and others. About 6,000 V.I.P. tickets will be sold through Ticketmaster to cover some of the production costs.
