The Hindu : International : Religious leaders make joint anti-poverty appeal to Blair

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Wednesday, Jun 29, 2005

International

International

Religious leaders make joint anti-poverty appeal to Blair

Hasan Suroor

LONDON: In a gesture of solidarity with the world's poorest countries, Britain's prominent Christian, Muslim and Jewish religious leaders have issued a joint appeal urging Prime Minister Tony Blair to use his presidency of the Group of Eight industrialised nations (G8) to push through concrete anti-poverty measures.

The Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, the chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, and heads of Councils of Mosques and Imams and the Free Church have said that Britain must play its "fullest part'' in initiating action to "halve extreme poverty''.

"The U.K.'s chairing of the G8, along with its presidency of the E.U., 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," they said expressing concern over a world divided by poverty.

The appeal, aimed at putting moral pressure on the leaders of some of the world's richest countries who would be attending next month's G8 summit in Scotland, urged the international community to live up to its commitment to halve extreme poverty in the next decade.

"We must treat these as solid commitments and not as flags in the wind," the clerics said pointing out that the fact that some 30,000 people died avoidable deaths everyday was a grim reminder that not enough was being done to pursue these commitments.

They welcomed the move to cancel the debts of the poorest countries as a "step in the right direction'', but emphasised that more needed to be done to give the poorer countries a level playing field. This included fairer terms of international trade that would allow them access to global markets, they said.

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