The three pillars

The aforementioned objectives will be achieved through a long-term agenda based on three pillars:

• Rights: States must be democratic, protect people's rights and guarantee justice. In order for these essential elements to be guaranteed, it is important that the most vulnerable people have the opportunity to mobilise and give voice to their needs. ActionAid aims to support civil society groups and organisations in facing negative cultural and social norms and practices that foster discrimination and the violation of rights.

• Re-distribution: the earth's resources are enough to guarantee a dignified life for everyone, especially for people living in poverty and in a situation of social exclusion, but they must be re-distributed fairly. ActionAid operates to ensure that even the most vulnerable people, especially women, can increase their control over productive resources and ensure a fairer sharing of opportunities, as well as respect for workers' rights. All of the above, for example, by working in countries to strengthen regulations on economic activities and increase their attention towards a more equitable re-distribution of resources; putting pressure on the implementation of progressive tax systems and working on the pre-distribution of resources that precedes the taxation of income; making every effort so that women have the right to financial compensation for care work and a reduction of the weight on their shoulders and for the redistribution of financial resources in favour of public services available to the less well-off.

• Resilience: faced with an increase in conflicts and natural catastrophic events, people and communities need to increase their resilience to counter, react and decrease their vulnerability. This must take place both in urban contexts (where there are situations of rapid and often uncontrolled urbanisation) and in rural areas (where the impact of climate change is becoming increasingly significant); people must receive support to counter any emergency situations, for example by training those at the forefront in responding to them.

These pillars are closely linked and mutually supportive: rights cannot be upheld without the re-distribution of power and will continue to be threatened unless the resilience of communities and people is strengthened.