Global Citizen Live was the 2021 instance of the

Global Citizen Festival The Global Citizen Festival is an annual music festival started in 2012 and organized by Global Poverty Project. It was founded by Ryan Gall and Hugh Evans. Gall said he was inspired by visiting Austin City Limits and seeing the branding on the ...

, so named because it was broadcast live internationally from cities across six continents around the world on 25 and 26 September 2021.

Background

Global Citizen has held an annual music festival since 2012, one of the organization's main events to raise awareness of

global poverty Poverty is the state of having few material possessions or little

income

and

climate change In common usage, climate change describes global warming—the ongoing increase in global average temperature—and its effects on Earth's climate system. Climate change in a broader sense also includes previous long-term changes to ...

; founded in 2008, it aims to end poverty by 2030. The live 2021 festival, held across six continents, was the largest, as part of Global Citizen's 2021 Recovery Plan for the World program. Added to the festival mission was an aim to help bring an end to the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identi ...

, with a focus on vaccine equity. It was timed to occur during the G20 summit and

UN general assembly The United Nations General Assembly (UNGA or GA; french: link=no, Assemblée générale, AG) is one of the six principal organs of the United Nations (UN), serving as the main deliberative, policymaking, and representative organ of the UN. Cur ...

meetings. Global Citizen had held "Vax Live: The Concert To Reunite The World" earlier in 2021.

Festival

Compared to Live Aid and one of the biggest international charity events ever, the festival featured live global performances from some of the world's top recording and classical artists across various cultures. More than 60 artists were scheduled to perform.

Simon Le Bon Simon John Charles Le Bon (born 27 October 1958) is a British singer. He is best known as the lead vocalist and lyricist of the new wave band Duran Duran and its offshoot Arcadia. Le Bon has received three Ivor Novello Awards from the British ...

, who performed with Duran Duran at both Live Aid and Global Citizen Live, said that the intention of Live Aid had "diminished in people's minds" and become forgotten. The band's bassist John Taylor said that Global Citizen Live was the closest thing to Live Aid in the age of streaming, and would not be possible without Live Aid and Band Aid creating the precedent. Global Citizen estimated that tens of thousands of people would attend the in-person events, and millions would watch the live broadcasts. Tickets were free, and awarded at random to people who shared Global Citizen campaigns through their app; attendees had to prove either a negative COVID-19 test or vaccination against it. The organization does not aim to raise money with the festival, but encourage people to take action - and pressure leaders to take action - on

global issues A global issue is a matter of public concern worldwide. This list of global issues presents problems or phenomena affecting people around the world, including but not limited to widespread social issues, economic issues, and environmental issues ...

. However, prior to the festival, Global Citizen reaches out to corporations, organizations and even nations for financial and material pledges towards reaching its aims, which are then announced between performances during the festival. The

Duke Duke is a male title either of a monarch ruling over a duchy, or of a member of royalty, or nobility. As rulers, dukes are ranked below emperors, kings, grand princes, grand dukes, and sovereign princes. As royalty or nobility, they are rank ...

and Duchess of Sussex made an appearance at the New York event, calling for global vaccine equity.

Performances

Several performances were pre-recorded. Some locations did not have live events open to the public, but were broadcast live. The live performances were held over the 24 hour period beginning at 1pm on September 25 in New York. ''Sources:''

Appearances

Politicians and leaders

* Ban Ki-moon *

Xavier Bettel Xavier Bettel (; born 3 March 1973) is a Luxembourger lawyer and politician serving as Prime Minister of Luxembourg since 2013. He was previously a member of the Chamber of Deputies (1999–2013) and Mayor of Luxembourg City (2011–2013). Be ...

Chris Coons Christopher Andrew Coons (born September 9, 1963) is an American lawyer and politician serving as the junior United States senator from Delaware since 2010. A member of the Democratic Party, Coons served as the county executive of New Castle C ...

* Bill de Blasio *

Mario Draghi Mario Draghi (; born 3 September 1947) is an Italian economist, academic, banker and civil servant who served as prime minister of Italy from February 2021 to October 2022. Prior to his appointment as prime minister, he served as President of ...

* Meryame Kitir *

David Malpass David Robert Malpass (born March 8, 1956) is an American economic analyst and former government official serving as President of the World Bank Group since 2019. Malpass previously served as Under Secretary of the Treasury for International Affa ...

Micheál Martin Micheál Martin (; born 1 August 1960) is an Irish Fianna Fáil politician who is serving as Tánaiste, Minister for Foreign Affairs and Minister for Defence since December 2022. He served as Taoiseach from 2020 to 2022 and has been Leader of ...

* Strive Masiyiwa *

Narendra Modi Narendra Damodardas Modi (; born 17 September 1950) is an Indian politician serving as the 14th and current Prime Minister of India since 2014. Modi was the Chief Minister of Gujarat from 2001 to 2014 and is the Member of Parliament fro ...

* Nancy Pelosi *

Andrej Plenković Andrej Plenković ( ; born 8 April 1970) is a Croatian politician who has been serving as the prime minister of Croatia since 19 October 2016. He was previously one of eleven Croatian members of the European Parliament, serving from Croatia's ...

Pedro Sánchez Pedro Sánchez Pérez-Castejón (; born 29 February 1972) is a Spanish politician who has been Prime Minister of Spain since June 2018. He has also been Secretary-General of the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE) since June 2017, having pr ...

Chuck Schumer Charles Ellis Schumer ( ; born November 23, 1950) is an American politician serving as Senate Majority Leader since January 20, 2021. A member of the Democratic Party, Schumer is in his fourth Senate term, having held his seat since 1999, an ...

Erna Solberg Erna Solberg (; born 24 February 1961) is a Norwegian politician and the current Leader of the Opposition. She served as the 35th prime minister of Norway from 2013 to 2021, and has been Leader of the Conservative Party since May 2004. Solberg w ...

* Aaditya Thackeray *

Ursula von der Leyen Ursula Gertrud von der Leyen (; Albrecht, born 8 October 1958) is a German politician who has been serving as the president of the European Commission since 2019. She served in the German federal government between 2005 and 2019, holding suc ...

Conservationists

Jane Goodall Dame Jane Morris Goodall (; born Valerie Jane Morris-Goodall on 3 April 1934), formerly Baroness Jane van Lawick-Goodall, is an English primatologist and anthropologist. Seen as the world's foremost expert on chimpanzees, Goodall is best kn ...

* Monja Cohen *

Sadhguru Sadhguru (born Jagadish Vasudev, 3 September 1957) is the founder and head of the Isha Foundation, based in Coimbatore, India. The foundation, established in 1992, operates an ashram and yoga centre that carries out educational and spiritua ...

Entertainers

* Amitabh Bachchan

Broadcast

The festival was broadcast around the world and was available to livestream on various platforms. * Nine Network in Australia * VRT in Belgium *

Multishow Multishow is an entertainment channel owned by Canais Globo, Grupo Globo's cable television, cable and satellite television channel operator. It was launched in 1991, as one of the company's first four channels (with Rede Telecine, Telecine, Top ...

and Bis in Brazil *

Caracol Televisión Caracol Televisión (known as Caracol and previously as Canal Caracol) is a Colombian free-to-air television network owned by Caracol Medios, a unit of Grupo Valorem. It is one of the leading private TV networks in Colombia, alongside Canal RCN ...

in Colombia * TF1 and TMC in France and Monaco * Zee TV in India *

NET Net or net may refer to: Mathematics and physics * Net (mathematics), a filter-like topological generalization of a sequence * Net, a linear system of divisors of dimension 2 * Net (polyhedron), an arrangement of polygons that can be folded up ...

in Indonesia *

Sky Uno Sky Uno ( en, Sky One) is an Italian entertainment television channel, based on the defunct reality television channel '' SKY Vivo'', both owned and broadcast by Sky Italia. It broadcasts the Italian version of the shows ''The X Factor'', ''Got ...

and TV8 in Italy *

TV Azteca TV Azteca, S.A.B. de C.V. is a Mexican multimedia conglomerate owned by Grupo Salinas. It is the second-largest mass media company in Mexico after Televisa. It primarily competes with Televisa as well as some local operators. It owns two nationa ...

in Mexico *

SABC The South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) is the public broadcaster in South Africa, and provides 19 radio stations ( AM/ FM) as well as six television broadcasts to the general public. It is one of the largest of South Africa's stat ...

in South Africa *

RTVE Play RTVE Play (often stylized as rtve play) is the over-the-top media service provided by the Spanish public broadcaster RTVE. It was launched in Spain on 22 June 2021, replacing the old catalogue 'RTVE a la carta', created in turn in 2008. History ...

in Spain *

BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...

...

in the United Kingdom *

ABC ABC are the first three letters of the Latin script known as the alphabet. ABC or abc may also refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Broadcasting * American Broadcasting Company, a commercial U.S. TV broadcaster ** Disney–ABC Television ...

(live) and FX in the United States The television broadcast in the United Kingdom was stopped for a period to show '' Strictly Come Dancing'', but all performances were available via the BBC iPlayer. Broadcasting live to the same feed from six continents and the

International Space Station The International Space Station (ISS) is the largest modular space station currently in low Earth orbit. It is a multinational collaborative project involving five participating space agencies: NASA (United States), Roscosmos (Russia), JAXA ( ...

posed a technical challenge described as "once in a generation".

Notes

References

{{reflist 2021 concerts 2021 television specials Music television specials Cultural responses to the COVID-19 pandemic Television shows about the COVID-19 pandemic Benefit concerts COVID-19 pandemic benefit concerts Music festivals in New York City Music festivals in Germany September 2021 events