APPENDIX 8
Memorandum submitted by the Board for
Social Responsibility, The Church of England Archbishops' Council
For many years the Church of England has been
concerned at the persistence of extreme global poverty. The Board
for Social Responsibility therefore welcomes the White Paper's
focus on poverty reduction, but is concerned that the gap between
rich and poor is growing rather than shrinking. According to the
World Bank's Development Report 2000-01, the average income in
the richest 20 countries is 37 times the average in the poorest
20-a gap that has doubled in the past 40 years. While the Board
supports the Government's efforts to reduce poverty by half by
2015, it is aware that this target could be reached without necessarily
seeing a reduction of the numbers living in poverty in sub-Saharan
Africa.
The Board has not yet had an opportunity to
consider key policy commitments contained within the White Paper
in detail, and is therefore not in a position to make a more substantial
response to your inquiry. However, you may like to know that the
Board has commissioned a collection of essays entitled, Development
Matters: Christian Perspectives on Globalisation, which has
been designed to be read alongside the White Paper offering comments
from a Christian perspective on many of the issues raised in it.
It is intended that Development Matters: Christian Perspectives
on Globalisation will form the basis for a major debate at
the General Synod when it meets in July this year.
Although I can not predict the outcome of this
debate it is likely that many speakers will endorse the point
made by the Bishop of Guildford in a debate in the House of Lords
last month. I quote:
"The moral duty that we hold for the poorest
must be met by a concerted reform of the imbalance of trade and
opportunity in our world. I hope that the Government will not
yield to the notion that the liberalisation of trade is a substitute
for giving the poorest communities opportunities to produce their
own food and to be protected from the imbalances of present trading
relationships. Free trade cannot be allowed to mean the unfettered
right of the strongest to dictate the terms of economic relationships
between rich and poor. Trade can be truly free only if it is conducted
between partners among whom power and opportunity is shared. The
jury is out on whether the present structures of globalisation
and the liberalisation of trade will deliver for the poorest of
our world. But we look forward to working with the Government
in the pursuance of those objectives". (Hansard, 12
December 2000, column 247)
Charles Reed, Board for Social Responsibility
The Church of England Archbishops' Council
January 2001
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