GIVING evidence to the parliamentary International Development Committee in March, Sir Andrew Mitchell, international development secretary from 2010 to 2012, recalled a golden era through which Britain was “leading” the sector. Despite austerity, public support for international development had increased during this time. A commitment to spend 0.7 per cent of gross national income (GNI) on aid was enshrined in law.
It is an era that Nigel Harris, who became chief executive of Tearfund in 2015, recalls well. “We’d just come off the back of the Millennial Development Goals, we were the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) 2030, there was an enormous amount of pleasure about that,” he says. Fast forward ten years and, on account of leave his position at Tearfund, he describes a “particularly demanding” time for the sector. Wealthy governments are reducing their funding dramatically — right down to 0.3 per cent of GNI within the UK — and only 17 per cent of the SDGs are heading in the right direction.
Tearfund has not been immune from the sector’s challenges. Last yr, it confirmed that redundancies had formed a part of a “strategic restructure”, after a shortfall in unrestricted income (News, 28 June 2024). Yet, as Mr Harris leaves, he’s confident that the organisation is “in God’s hands. We have seen God provide over 57 years for this charity, in all types of amazing ways. We see extraordinary generosity form individuals who have walked with us for a few years.” The past yr has been “very encouraging” by way of unrestricted giving, he says.
His answer reflects an unashamed articulation of religion that characterises Tearfund — in contrast to other aid charities with Christian foundations which are now less overtly acknowledged. “God is asking all of us to play our part and convey an end to extreme poverty and injustice,” the web site homepage states.
“We like to consider ourselves not as a bunch of Christians who occur to be getting together to do development but actually that Jesus is at the center of all that we do and all that we’re as Tearfund,” Mr Harris says. “Above all, we’re so enthusiastic about supporting the Church, and seeing the Church really reply to what we see as its God-given call to bring excellent news to those in poverty.”
It is a solution that closely echoes the words of the Revd George Hoffman, who founded Tearfund. In 1975, he told the Church Times that the charity looked to follow the instance of Christ, “attempting to avoid the synthetic dichotomy between man’s spiritual need and his physical need”. A line on a poster from its founding yr, 1968, was: “You can’t eat prayer”.
Under Mr Hoffman’s leadership, Tearfund’s income grew from £2678 to almost £1 million in only seven years, reaching £15 million in 1989 and £82 million today. Almost £40 million comes from individuals. Christians and churches are “the engine that enables us to support communities world wide”, Mr Harris says. “My sense is that they feel called to offer due to their Christian faith . . . I see that motivation very strongly. . . Some of essentially the most sacrificial giving we see is from those that have ostensibly less.”
He is unembarrassed about becoming emotional when recalling the elderly widow who wrote to Tearfund enclosing the cash she had saved from her winter-fuel allowance, having worn extra layers to avoid putting the heating on. “When I refer to my regional teams and county teams I tell that story because that’s the usual for me,” he says. “How do I sit in front of that lady and tell her what we do with the cash?”
Almost 60 years from its founding, the main target at Tearfund is on transformation of communities through the local church. It goals to work with 250,000 by 2030. “They don’t go, they don’t arrive, they’re everlasting, they’re omnipresent, and the Church’s role in responding to crisis is something that we seeing as increasingly essential world wide where we work,” Mr Harris says.
He recalls a visit to Jos, in Nigeria, and learning how a young pastor, Isaac, had mobilised the congregation to determine a faculty and health clinic, increasing the church in the method from three to 170 people in seven years. It was, Mr Harris, recalls, a “revelatory moment: Why can’t this occur all over the place there may be church?” Another visit that is still with him was to Burundi, where he met Beatrice, a lady who had joined a savings group and eventually established a store in her rural, isolated village.
“This is a tricky season, we all know that,” he says. “There’s an enormous amount of need. We see every increasing amounts of conflict which concerns us greatly. We have the climate emergency and the mix of those two things is creating huge amounts of forced displacement, conflict for resources, and pain . . . But we see our wonderful Christian supporters across the UK respond very generously and I even have trust in that.”
