The Micah Challenge, a global campaign to mobilize Christians in 100 countries to ask their governments to achieve the eight Millennium Development Goals and cut global poverty in half by 2015, was launched at the United Nations in New York City on October 15 by Archbishop Njongonkulu Ndungane of Cape Town, South Africa.
Ndungane, longtime advocate within Anglicanism for solutions to global poverty, described the Micah Challenge as a significant new movement through which global leaders could be challenged to play their part in "securing a more just and merciful world."
"How can we claim to follow Jesus if we are not prepared to work to achieve his gospel good news for the poor?" declared Ndungane, who once was a political prisoner along with Nelson Mandela on South Africa's Robben Island. Ndungane will also present the Fifth Annual Hobart Lecture on Wednesday, November 3 at the Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine in New York, as part of the "Season South Africa" exhibition celebrating the 10th anniversary of free elections in South Africa.
Describing poverty as "evil," he called the Millennium Development Goals the most "ambitious commitment the world has ever made to combating poverty."
"Christians can play a vital role in helping global leaders meet their commitments," said Ndungane. "When Christians work with one another, united across nationalities and races, across rich and poor, across men, women and children, we have an enormously powerful and influential voice. We must speak loud and clear."
The Micah Challenge is spearheaded by the World Evangelical Alliance, representing three million local churches in 111 countries and a network of 260 Christian relief and development agencies. National Micah Challenge campaigns are being formed in the UK, Peru, Australia, Bangladesh, Canada, India and Zambia, and Christians around the world are being asked to sign an on-line commitment and petition at: http://www.micahchallenge.org/.
"There is no doubt that the world can afford to do all that is necessary to meet the Millennium Development Goals," Ndungane stated. "But there is a large question mark against whether or not we have the will power ... Governments and businesses can say the words, but they need all the encouragement, all the pressure, that we can give, to deliver the goods."
He added: "They need to hear that their citizens truly want them to take the hard steps that are required, so we may live in a world where there is some for all, not all for some. For it is unacceptable that in a world of surplus, 800 million people go hungry every day."
Salil Shetty, campaign director of the Millennium Campaign at the United Nations, said the only way governments would achieve the halving of poverty by 2015 would be if "people held their feet to the fire," and that no one was better placed to do so than churches, which have the moral authority to make a significant difference.
Katherine Marshall, advisor to the President of the World Bank, told church leaders at the launch that without the kind of caring and passion typical of churches, the Millennium Development Goals would not be realized.
"Poverty in the world today is an outrage, not only because of the misery it causes but because we so clearly have the means to defeat it. We as the international community are deeply convinced that full involvement of the faith communities will be central to achieving the Millennium Development Goals."
"The Millennium Development Goals are in harmony with the Christian mandate to give justice to the weak and the orphan, maintain the rights of the destitute, rescue the weak and needy," concluded Stephen Bradbury, chair of Micah Network. "We in the Micah Challenge will be doing all we can to encourage the world's governments to deliver on their promises."
- To view a video of the Micah Challenge press conference at the United Nations go to:
www.un.org/webcast/PC2004.html
A transcript of the Archbishop's speech at the United Nations is available
For more information please contact Keith Ewing on +44 208 943 7779 (office) +44 7710 573749 (mobile) or Jill Howard +44 161 493 5031 (office); +44 7742 717761(mobile). Web info at: www.micahchallenge.org.
