Sixty years of campaigning to end poverty - in pictures

The catalyst for the founding of War on Want was a letter written by British publisher Victor Gollancz to the Guardian in response to the war in Korea. He proposed: “... a great international fund should be established, as an urgent matter of life and death, for improving the conditions of those fellow human beings who… are starving destitute and in despair" Photograph: Jane Bown/Observer

The Guardian archive shows the paper's long tradition of reporting on calls for overseas assistance: the China famine relief appeal, 22 February 1889; Christian refugees in Greece, 24 October 1923; Russian famine, 1 February 1922. Nobel peace prize winner and former polar explorer Fridtjof Nansen led many pre-war appeals
Photograph: Guardian

The original pamphlet: War on Want: plan for world development, 9 June 1952 Photograph: War On Want

1964: War on Want's founder, Harold Wilson, is now the prime minister. He establishes Britain’s first Ministry of Overseas Development, a precursor to Department for International Development Photograph: War On Want

1971: War on Want backs the independence of Bangladesh (formerly East Pakistan). Its office in London is broken into and the burglars leave a note criticising the organisation’s support for the liberation movement. Here people queue in mud and rain for vaccines following a cholera outbreak among displaced people Photograph: Norman Potter/Rex Features

1974: The baby killer cover. War on Want publishes an exposé of baby milk companies that leads to a longstanding boycott of Nestlé products and to the adoption of the WHO international code of marketing for breast milk substitutes Photograph: War On Want

1985: War on Want launches its Nicaragua Must Survive campaign to counter US aggression against the country's Sandinista government; George Galloway, one of War on Want's more controversial leaders, leads the campaign Photograph: War On Want

1987: War on Want launches Profits out of poverty campaign – an early action against developing nations' debt. Rochina, one of Rio de Janeiro's largest slums in Brazil Photograph: Stephanie Maze/NG/Getty Images

1998: At the Glastonbury festival, War on Want calls for a Tobin Tax, a tax on foreign currency transactions. It is now known as the Robin Hood Tax campaign
Photograph: War On Want

2002: War on Want runs its campaign against “sweatships”, about the exploitation of workers on cruise liners. Workers aboard a cruise liner looking from a service porthole
Photograph: Chris Hondros/Getty Images

2004: The Canadian author and activist Naomi Klein speaks in support of War on Want’s campaign against the occupation of Iraq Photograph: War on Want

2005: War on Want campaigns for the UK government to rethink its policy that aid can only be given if public services are privatised. In Dhaka, Bangladesh, a boy drinks water from a state-owned supply. The organisation claimed victory in this campaign Photograph: Rafiqur Rahman/Reuters

2005: War on Want takes part in the Make Poverty History campaign Photograph: John D Mchugh/AFP/Getty Images

2006: Roger Waters, co-founder of the group Pink Floyd, travels to the West Bank with War on Want and sprays graffiti on Israel's "separation barrier" surrounding Bethlehem, the day before his concert near Tel Aviv on 21 June. He wrote "tear down the wall" and "we don’t need no thought control" during his protest Photograph: Magnus Johansson/AFP

2006: War on Want campaigners, dressed as England's Three Lions, protesting against FIFA's sponsorship deal with Coca-Cola during the UK leg of the World Cup Tour in London, in March. The organisation was critical of the company's actions around the world
Photograph: War On Want

2009: War on Want's partner Zaytoun, a collective of Palestinian olive growers and olive oil makers, becomes the first olive oil to be awarded the Fairtrade mark. Harvesting olives at the women-only Seer Cooperative for Olive Oil Production in Qalqilya, in the West Bank. The oil is marketed by the Palestinian exporting companies Anabtawi and Areef and is also made available to the UK market via Zaytoun Photograph: David Levene/Guardian

2010: War on Want partner trade union, the National Garment Workers’ Federation, wins major rise in the minimum wage for more than 3 million Bangladeshi garment workers – the first wage increase in four years. Bangladeshi women attend a rally organised by the federation to mark May Day or International Workers' Day in Dhaka. May Day commemorates the fight for the eight-hour day that happened in Haymarket Square in Chicago in 1886 Photograph: Munir Uz Zaman/AFP

2011: War on Want and the Public and Commercial Services Union (the British trade union for civil servants) general secretary, Mark Serwotka, present a "jammy dodger" (a brand of biscuits) to the UK chancellor, George Osborne - his award for being the "top tax dodger" Photograph: War on Want