Who are we? / Our story

Global Aktion is a solidarity movement with roots in the anti-Apartheid movement. The fight against Apartheid is over but there is still a lot of inequality in the region. That is why we work in solidarity with people-driven movements in the Global South and support their mobilization and fight for economic, democratic and social rights.

Our Vision

We envisage a World with social and economic justice for all, where everyone enjoys equal rights and freedoms.

Our Mission

Our mission is to continue our support of people’s movements in the Global South, and in solidarity and partnership with them contribute to a different and improved political climate, which enfranchises those presently excluded from the political decision-making processes.

Theory of Change

If people organise and mobilise themselves around their democratic and human rights, and
If they have access to necessary human capacity and economic resources and trust in their ability to affect change,
Then they can create a civil society that is critical and capable of demanding, monitoring and ensuring democratic control over the country’s resources
And hold their government accountable for the realisation of their basic political, social, and economic rights.

Our History

Global Aktion was founded in 1978 by a number of Danish political parties, trade unions and other organizations in order to unite the efforts against colonialism and suppression in Southern Africa. Following the liberation of Angola, Mozambique and Zimbabwe, our work increasingly broadened in focus to include the fight against apartheid in South Africa and Namibia. For many years, Global Aktion worked for an economic and cultural boycott of the white apartheid regime in South Alfrica.

The Danish Prime Minister and Global Aktion’s Morten Nielsen were the only two Danes to be invited to Nelson Mandela’s inauguration. Watch a film about Global Aktion’s role in ending apartheid here.

With the end of apartheid, we started supporting democratic and people-driven movements in the rest of Africa and have since applied a rights-based approach and work with social and economic rights.