Churches have role to play in solving global problems, says Warren

|PIC1|Pastor Rick Warren told former US President Bill Clinton's global summit on Friday not to overlook the contribution that millions of people of faith around the world play in tackling some of today's biggest challenges.

"If we take the people of faith off the agenda, we've ruled out most of the world because most of the world has some faith," Warren, author of The Purpose Driven Life and pastor of the southern Californian Saddleback Church, was quoted by the Associated Press as saying. "There's already an army ready to be mobilised, an army of compassion."

Warren gave the example of Rwanda, where hundreds of churches are filling in the gap in the overstretched healthcare system, which has just a few hospitals and clinics trying to meet the needs of hundreds of thousands of people.

"Somehow we have to figure out how to get business and government and churches to work together," he was quoted by AP as saying.

Warren addressed the summit as part of a panel that included Nobel Prize winners, Wangari Maathai, a Kenyan environmentalist and the first African woman to receive the Nobel Peace Prize, and Muhummad Yunus, a banker and economist from Bangladesh who came to prominence for his use of microcredit loans to the poor.

Grameen Bank founder Yunus said the focus had to shift from charity to the empowerment of people at the grassroots level.

"We have to get out of this mindset that the rich will do the business and the poor will have the charity," he said.

Maathai echoed his sentiments.

"It is very important that people do not rely on giving," she said. "We must empower these communities at the grassroot level to rise up and walk."

The three-day Clinton Global Initiative came to an end on Friday. Other speakers included Bono, Al Gore and former British Prime Minister Tony Blair.