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Called To Be a Public Church: 2008 ELCA Voting
and Civic Participation Guide
Issue Brief: Global Poverty and Hunger
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Created 11/07
ELCA Policy Base
From the messages of the Old Testament prophets to the ministry of
Jesus Christ, the Bible declares God's outrage at the plight of
those living in poverty and suffering from hunger. As a result of
God's expressed concern for the poor and oppressed, the Bible
presents a unique challenge to people of faith to respond to
economic disparities in our world so that all people experience the
fruits of the earth and live with dignity.
The ELCA social statement on economic life,
Sufficient, Sustainable Livelihood for All, commits us to
"scrutiny of how specific policies and practices affect people and
nations that are the poorest," and calls us to advocate for "changes
to make policies of economic growth, trade, and investment more
beneficial to those who are poor."
Additionally, the ELCA social statement
For Peace in
God's World affirms that "our nation has responsibility to
contribute a portion of its wealth to people in poorer nations
through effective economic assistance," and that the purpose of such
assistance "should be to reduce hunger and poverty in sustainable
and environmentally sound ways."
The statement also acknowledges that, "While the United States has
been generous in providing humanitarian aid, our nation dramatically
trails the rest of the industrialized world in providing development
assistance relative to our production of wealth."
Background
Today, extreme poverty traps more than one billion of God's children
in a vicious cycle of hunger and disease. One-fifth of the global
population goes to bed hungry each night, and 70 percent of those
living on less than one dollar per day are women and girls. Six
million people die each year from HIV and AIDS, tuberculosis and
malaria—all preventable and treatable illnesses.
In 2000, 189 countries expressed their commitment to ending
global poverty and fighting pandemic disease by signing the
Millennium Declaration. Based on the declaration, eight
inter-related targets toward the elimination of extreme poverty by
2015—the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs)—were established. The
goals aim to achieve the following by 2015:
- Reduce by half the proportion of people suffering from
hunger and living on less than $1 a day
- Achieve universal primary education
- Promote gender equality and empower women
- Reduce by two-thirds the mortality rate among children under
five
- Reduce by three-quarters the maternal mortality ratio
- Halt and begin to reverse the incidence of HIV and AIDS,
malaria and other diseases
- Ensure environmental sustainability
- Create a global partnership for development with targets on
aid, debt and trade
Developing countries are primarily responsible for achieving the
first seven MDGs. Industrialized countries are primarily responsible
for goal number eight – to create a global partnership with targets
for aid, debt and trade.
In 2003, ONE: The Campaign to Make Poverty History was
established as the U.S. expression of international anti-poverty
movements inspired by the Global Campaign Against Poverty (GCAP).
Today, ONE has more than 100 faith-based and humanitarian partners
and more than 2.5 million Americans that work together as ONE
through political advocacy to achieve:
- An additional ONE percent of the U.S. budget to address
deadly poverty
- Debt relief for the world's poorest countries to help them
meet the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs)
- Making the rules of international trade fair so all may
benefit from the global economy
The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) has partnered
with ONE and established the ONE Lutheran Campaign – the unique
effort of the ELCA to engage Lutherans in the ONE Campaign. For more
information on the ONE Lutheran Campaign, including information
about ONE Lutheran congregations, visit
www.elca.org/one.
In June 2007, the ONE Campaign launched ONE Vote '08, an
unprecedented, bipartisan campaign to make global health and extreme
poverty foreign policy priorities in the 2008 presidential election.
The ELCA supports the goals of ONE Vote '08, and questions related
to the Millennium Development Goals in this packet reflect a unified
platform that the ELCA shares with ONE Vote '08. For more background
on the ONE Vote '08 platform, see
www.onevote08.org.
Sample Questions to Ask Your Candidates
- While the United States gives the largest volume of official
development assistance when compared to every other country in
the world, its giving is second to last in terms of percentage
of gross national income. If elected, will you commit at least
an additional 1 percent—roughly an additional $29 billion in
2010 – of the U.S. budget for poverty-focused development
assistance?
- Debt cancellation for the world's poorest countries is
central to the fight against poverty and key to ensuring the
achievement of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Many
poor countries spend more each year to repay decades-old debt to
the world's wealthiest countries and international institutions
like the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF)
than they do on the fight against poverty, including stopping
the pandemic of HIV and AIDS, putting children in school and
ensuring access to clean water. If elected, will you commit to
expanding debt cancellation to all countries that need such
relief in order to meet the Millennium Development Goals?
- Fair trade is a long-term solution that will help people in
developing countries lift themselves out of poverty. Fair trade
ensures poor countries achieve economic sustainability and
self-sufficiency by allowing them to sell products more easily
in the global marketplace. If elected, what will you do to help
ensure that the poorest countries in the world have the
opportunity to benefit from the global economy? Specifically,
how would you address U.S. agriculture subsidies that depress
prices and distort global markets?
- HIV and AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis claim more than 6
million lives each year. The poorest of the poor, especially
those in Africa, suffer most from these preventable and
treatable global health pandemics. We have the medicine and
proven cost-effective strategies to address the pandemics.
However, the moral and political will to dedicate the funding
necessary to save lives are missing. If elected, will you
support providing one-third of the global financing required –
at least $9.4 billion in 2008 – to fight HIV and AIDS,
tuberculosis and malaria?
- More than 10 million children die every year in poor
countries from preventable and treatable causes, like diarrhea
and respiratory infections. More than 500,000 women die each
year during childbirth due to a lack of adequate health care
resources. If elected, will you support scaling up U.S. efforts
to address child and maternal health and family planning needs
in the poorest countries of the world by an additional $2.9
billion by 2012?
- Education is vital to sustainable development. Today, more
than
77 million primary school-aged children are not receiving the
education they need for their future. If elected, will you
commit to the U.S. fair-share contribution of $3.3 billion
annually to help achieve universal primary education by 2015?
- It is estimated that more than 1 billion people in the world
do not have access to clean water. Roughly one child dies every
15 seconds from sanitation-related diarrheal diseases. If
elected, would you commit to $1.3 billion per year to help
people throughout the world access clean water?
- More than 800 million people suffer from hunger in the world
today. The U.S. helps sustain millions of those suffering from
hunger by generously providing food aid, especially when
emergencies strike in other countries. If not delivered
properly, however, food aid can undermine local economies and
damage the potential for long-term sustainable development. If
elected, will you allow countries that receive food aid to
purchase food in local and regional markets when possible,
instead of shipping food aid from the U.S?
Sources
Roll Back Malaria Partnership. (2007.) Roll Back Malaria Partnership
Web site. [Online] Available:
http://www.rbm.who.int/
United Nations. (2007). Joint United Nations Programme on
HIV/AIDS Web site. [Online] Available:
http://www.unaids.org/en/
United Nations Millennium Project. (2007). Investing in
Development: A Practical Plan to achieve the
Millennium Development Goals. [Online] Available:
http://www.unmillenniumproject.org/reports/index.htm
World Bank. (2007). Global Monitoring Report 2007. [Online]
Available:
http://www.worldbank.org/gmr2007
World Health Organization. (2007). World Health Organization Web
site. [Online] Available: http://www.who.int/en/
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