BISHOPS within the House of Lords urged the Government to commit itself to long-term overseas-development work — and reiterated calls, made throughout the latter years of the previous government, for the international-aid budget to be restored in step with previous commitments.
In a debate on the UN Sustainable Development Goals last week, the Bishop of Leicester, the Rt Revd Martyn Snow, said that “with religious differences front and centre” in conflicts within the Middle East and elsewhere, “it could seem at first glance that religion is an obstacle to achieving” the goals.
He urged the Government to support the efforts of non secular groups that sought reconciliation, and referred to, for instance, the South Sudan Council of Churches. That organisation, he said, hasd “played a vital role in peacebuilding efforts for the reason that outbreak of civil war, serving as a mediator, brokering ceasefires and peace agreements, and providing humanitarian aid”.
Interfaith networks were particularly vital in areas affected by sectarian violence, corresponding to parts of the previous Yugoslavia, he said.
He queried the previous Government’s assertion that the overseas-aid budget could be returned to 0.7 per cent of gross national income only “when fiscal circumstances allow”. The point of its being pegged to the country’s economy was that “we spend more when our economy is doing higher and fewer when it’s under greater strain.”
Later that afternoon, the Bishop of Sheffield, Dr Pete Wilcox, also called for the help budget to be restored as soon as possible. He was speaking within the context of a debate to mark the fortieth anniversary of the Ethiopian famine, although many contributions focused on the present crisis in that country.
Christian Aid now estimated that 21 million people in Ethiopia were in need of immediate humanitarian assistance, Dr Wilcox said.
Reflecting on the Live Aid fund-raising concert of 1984, Dr Wilcox suggested that, on reflection, the efforts seemed “naïve”. They had, he said, treated the famine “as simply a natural disaster” as a substitute of taking into consideration the “human aspects that contributed to it, including each the worldwide climate emergency — or global warming, as we were just starting to call it then — and the more local political and military practices”.
In the sunshine of current humanitarian needs in Ethiopia, preventative measures were vital, he said, with a deal with reducing the damage from droughts and floods.
Dr Wilcox urged the Government to be certain that the help budget was spent overseas. Earlier within the yr, under the previous government, it emerged that multiple quarter of the help budget was being spent domestically, on accommodating asylum-seekers (News, 19 April).
He also called on the Government to make East Africa the main focus of climate-related finance initiatives, and to prioritise areas of the best humanitarian need within the execution of its manifesto promise to tackle unsustainable sovereign debt.
