Religious Leaders Call upon G8 Summit to Halve Poverty

In a letter addressed to Tony Blair on Tuesday, Britain’s religious leaders from across the spectrum have added to the voices urging leaders of the world’s eight most powerful nations to make a real difference to the world’s poorest countries at the forthcoming G8 summit.

Speaking unanimously for the first time since their joint public statement against the Iraq War in March 2003, the religious leaders have urged the eight to take concrete steps towards meeting the internationally agreed Millenium Development Goals to halve extreme poverty and cut infant mortality rates by two thirds by 2015.

The letter is signed by the Archbishops of Canterbury and Westminster, the Chief Rabbi, the Council of Mosques and Imams Chair and the head of the Free Churches.

Speaking to the BBC, Archbishop of Canterbury Dr. Rowan Williams commented, "It is up to all of us, governments and people, to keep the pressure up and make sure that this is not just a one-off event.

"I think, in a sense, we need to be more angry about the situation than we are."

This letter from the UK’s senior religious figures will be welcomed by Prime Minister Tony Blair, chair of the summit, who has already put increased assistance for Africa’s poorest nations at the top of his agenda for the summit on June 6 in Gleneagles, Scotland.

With US President George Bush’s continued reluctance to increase assistance to Africa and to cancel debt, American Christians are also seizing the opportunity to impress their desires for an end to world poverty on Tony Blair.

Jim Wallis, a leading radical Christian activist, and Mennonite academic Ron Sider are among 15 senior religious figures from America who are due to meet today and tomorrow with the Archbishop of Canterbury and the British Chancellor Gordon Brown. He is planning to join the Make Poverty History rally being held in Edinburgh during the G8 summit.

The letter urges particularly for the UK to make the most of its position as world leader:
"The UK's chairing of the G8, along with its presidency of the EU, require and challenge Britain to play the fullest part now in seeking to change the structures and practices that result in suffering and privation.

"We hope and pray that the opportunity will be grasped with urgency.

"The security and well-being of all the nations depends on the security and well-being of each nation. A world divided by poverty cannot be healed without justice."

The letter also spelled out its hopes for a greater and fuller commitment to the ending of world poverty:
"(It) means cancelling the debt of the poorest nations, and we welcome the recent steps in that direction that have been agreed by the world's wealthiest nations."

"But it also means changing the terms of international trade to allow developing countries to make the most of their trading potential; it means using our own wealth and prosperity to the benefit of all; it means promoting good governance for every citizen; it means not impoverishing and depleting the planet God has entrusted to our stewardship."

The religious leaders also added, "We must treat these as solid commitments and not as flags in the wind", a reminder to the world’s leaders that words alone are not enough.