wfn.org | UMNS# 04474-African U.N. official examines church's role in

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African U.N. official examines church's role in globalization 

Oct. 12, 2004	 News media contact:   Linda  Green * (615) 7425470* 
Nashville {04474}

NOTE: A related report, UMNS story #475, is available at http://umns.umc.org.

By Linda Green*

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (UMNS)-The church must take the lead in both promoting the
positive effects of globalization and responding to the negative ones, an
African U.N. official told United Methodist leaders.

Ibrahim A. Gambari, under-secretary-general and special adviser on Africa for
the United Nations, addressed globalization and the role of a global church
in remarks to the United Methodist Board of Higher Education and Ministry on
Oct. 9. A Nigerian, he played an important role in South Africa's transition
from apartheid to democracy and assisted in peacekeeping efforts in Burundi,
Rwanda, Angola and Mozambique. 

Global leadership was a focal point for the board's governing members at
their Oct. 7-10 meeting.

Gambari provided four causes of the rapid globalization of the world: the
hardwiring of the planet, which has decreased distances; international
financial transactions of $1.5 trillion that flow daily through the world's
electronic systems, making a new world economic system; the ushering in of a
free-market path to development since the end of the Cold War; and the rapid
movement of people, goods and services.

Globalization can lift countries out of poverty through faster economic
growth and enhancing well-being, he said. However, it also makes no
distinctions in its impact on countries and societies at different levels of
socioeconomic and technological development.

Globalization has had positive impacts on some developing nations, but "from
available evidence, the African continent, as a whole, has not fared well in
the globalizing world," he said. It is "the least industrialized continent in
the world."

Despite the marginalization of Africa, globalization is an unstoppable force,
which "needs to be channeled to serve the benefits of all or the majority of
peoples of the world," Gambari said.

"Africa is the richest continent in the world in terms of mineral and natural
resources, but its people are the poorest in the world," Gambari said.

Africa is marginalized by international trade and private capital outflow,
debt, slowing agricultural growth, commodity price decline and public
expenditure decline, he said.	

Africa wants to trade but the subsidies that rich countries are putting on
farm products are outrageous, he said. "There has to be fairer trade to allow
African products to come to the market of the developed countries in a free
and competitive manner.

"The challenge is not just on the part of Africans but also on their partners
in the work of trade and eternal debt policies," Gambari said.

"Globalization is a mixed blessing," he said. The "challenge is to make it
work for the benefit of all people."

The United Methodist Church as a global church must do more than take the
side of the poor and the weak in the globalization debate, he said. "The
church must remind everyone about the social and ethical dimensions of
globalization and recognize that the free market should not be elevated to
the level of religion."  

One should not worship the free market, he said. It is a tool for growth and
development and the promotion of people's welfare, he said. "The church must
be a friend of the poor and underprivileged within countries and between
countries."

The challenge facing the United Methodist Church and other entities is how to
harness the benefits of globalization while reducing its negative impacts, he
said.

"Does globalization undermine the vitality of the church to carry out its
mission in our new global future?" he asked.  "It is essential, in a world
changing as rapidly as ours, that we make sense of how needed adjustments
would affect both the context in which we live and operate our churches."

As religions encourage members to receive their sense of identity and
self-worth from higher spiritual sources, the marketplace encourages citizens
to derive their identity and self-worth from what they buy and consume, he
noted.

"The ultimate human goals can never be defined principally in economic
terms," Gambari said, "but in spiritual and relational terms as well. We need
globalization with a human face and the pursuit of free market economics with
compassion through sustained assistance to the less privileged within and
between countries."

*Green is a United Methodist News Service news writer based in Nashville,
Tenn.

News media contact: Linda Green, Nashville, Tenn., (615) 742-5470 or
newsdesk@umcom.org.

********************

United Methodist News Service
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