Archbishop says 'no time for alibis' on international development

The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, has warned politicians that now is “no time for alibis” on meeting the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

Speaking to BBC Radio 4's Today programme, the Archbishop also praised Prime Minister Gordon Brown for his role in promoting the MDGs, the set of eight goals aimed at reducing poverty across the world by 2015.

"This is no time to think of alibis for that because there is no economic problem that is just local in our world," he said.

"We have already seen growth rates slowing down in Africa. It is estimated that perhaps as many as over 50 million people could be in absolute poverty in the next few years."

The Archbishop said that solving the problems of poverty around the globe should be one of the top priorities at this week’s G20 meeting of world leaders. He said that failure to do so would only compound the mistakes of the past and lead to more injustice in the future.

He went on to criticise “virtual reality economic products”, which he claimed caused people to lose touch of the limits of the real world.

On the global economic crisis, Dr Williams said, "I'm certainly not saying this is just a wake-up call and we ought to be glad of the bracing message. People really are suffering and that's a major problem. But if we can at least take the opportunity of saying: how did we get here? Is this a sensible way to run an economy? Is this a sensible way to run a human race?

"We have not seen the signs of coming problems; we have thought that there are cost-free and risk-free kinds of investment; and we have wanted the kind of economy where we are so much in control that risk is minimised."