wfn.org | WCC - "Staying engaged - for justice"

["Sheila Mesa" <smm@wcc-coe.org>]

World Council of Churches
Update, Up-02-01
For Immediate Use
28 January 2002

Staying engaged - for justice

Ecumenical team readies for the International Conference on
Financing for Development

cf.  WCC Press Feature, Feat-01-18, of 24 October 2001

"Justice demands the transformation of global economic
governance and the international financial system so that their
institutions are accountable to and serve all people, not simply
the wealthy and powerful." 

This message was at the heart of a paper entitled "Staying
engaged - for justice" presented at the fourth and final meeting
of the Preparatory Committee (Prepcom) for the International
Conference on Financing for Development  (ICFD). The paper,
expressing its commitment to justice, was presented by an
ecumenical team participating in the 14-25 January Prepcom. The
ICFD is to be held at Monterrey, Mexico, from 18-22 March this
year. 

In its paper, the ecumenical team demanded that the conference
produce international commitments to fair trade, debt
cancellation for poor countries and democratization of the system
led by the International Monetary Fund, World Bank and World
Trade Organization.  

The team sees all these issues as interrelated and important for
a "people-centred approach"; some team members, however,
concentrated on only one issue - such as trade or debt or system
reform - during the Prepcom.  

Frustrated but determined

Government representatives had not concluded their work at the
scheduled end of the two-week Prepcom at United Nations (UN)
headquarters in New York. But observing the governmental process
left team members "frustrated and pessimistic, though still
determined to continue reminding governments that justice is the
heart of the matter".  

The ecumenical team, coordinated by the World Council of
Churches (WCC), was composed of some 30 people from a variety of
churches and countries, as well as of two people representing
other religions: Demba Moussa Dembele, a Muslim from Senegal, and
Hiroko Sugimoto, a Japanese woman working in New York with the
International Shinto Foundation.  

Fidon R. Mwombeki, a Lutheran minister who is general secretary
of his church's diocese in Northwestern Tanzania, said he had
focused particularly on trade issues and had become "very
frustrated". His view was that Northern governments were "trying
very hard to derail the movement for justice".  

Lioba Diez, a member of the Evangelical Church in Germany who
works with Kairos-Europe, said that dealing with world poverty
requires a "redistribution of wealth" and "a change in the
underlying economic structure". Seeing "no big steps forward" in
the Monterrey document, "The international economic system works
in a very unjust way, and these systemic questions are not
addressed," she concluded.  

Several team members identified the United States as leading the
wealthier countries' effort to block the kind of actions needed
to deal with world poverty. During the Prepcom, the US opposed
mention of the goal of getting the industrialized countries to
give 0.7 per cent of their gross domestic product for
developmental assistance, and argued that the obstacles to
development are primarily within the countries of the
underdeveloped world, team members 
reported.  

David Pfrimmer, a Lutheran minister representing the Canadian
Council of Churches, said a "captivity to Washington policy" had
brought a "whittling away of anything that is creative" and
"diminishing expectations". But he, like others, said that the
team - the largest among the NGO groups at the Prepcom - needs to
"hang in there" and show its "staying power" as an encouragement
to others working on the same issues.  

Bernardino Mandlate, a Methodist bishop from Mozambique, agreed
that the Monterrey document was being "watered down", but that
the ecumenical team has to remain involved and continue
"suggesting alternatives".  

Most ecumenical team members at the Prepcom will attend the
Monterrey conference. Although they expect few specific
accomplishments, they hope that the conference will provide
opportunities for an NGO forum, media contacts and governmental
lobbying that will help keep people aware of issues.  

_____________________________

The WCC was mandated by its 1998 assembly in Zimbabwe to take up
the challenge of globalization as a central part of the
ecumenical agenda. Since then, the WCC has been working to
promote better understanding of the impact of economic
globalization and to provide an ecumenical platform to respond to
its consequences. It is also preparing for two upcoming global
events: a UN Financing for Development (FFD) Summit in March 2002
in Mexico, and a September 2002 World Summit on Sustainable
Development (WSSD) in Johannesburg.  

The text of "Staying engaged - for justice" can be found on the
WCC website at:
http://www.wcc-coe.org/wcc/jpc/icfd.html 

For further information, please contact Karin Achtelstetter,
Media Relations Officer           Tel:  (+41.22) 791.61.53  
	Mobile:  (+41) 79.284.52.12

**********
The World Council of Churches (WCC) is a fellowship of churches,
now 342, in more than 100 countries in all continents from
virtually all Christian traditions. The Roman Catholic Church is
not a member church but works cooperatively with the WCC. The
highest governing body is the assembly, which meets approximately
every seven years. The WCC was formally inaugurated in 1948 in
Amsterdam, The Netherlands. Its staff is headed by general
secretary Konrad Raiser from the Evangelical Church in Germany.

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