Quakers join call to G8 leaders
Religious groups calling on G8 to fulfil existing commitments to spend 0.7 per cent of national income on aid
Quakers in Britain have joined other religious groups from across the G8 countries in calling on heads of government to follow the UK in fulfilling existing commitments to spend 0.7 per cent of national income on aid.
More than seventy religious leaders, including Paul Parker, recording clerk for Quakers in Britain, point out in a letter that from Monday 5 April only one thousand days remain to achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) by the 2015 deadline.
With a focus on tax, trade and transparency, the religious leaders argue, the UK presidency of the G8 has the potential to advance the MDG agenda in ways that strike at the underlying causes of poverty.
They believe this can be achieved by ensuring that the wealth created by developing countries is not lost through unfair tax practices, a lack of transparency or a failure to secure the benefits of trade for developing countries.
‘Development is working. But challenges remain,’ the letter states. ‘The number of people living in extreme poverty has been halved ahead of time and 14,000 fewer children die each day than in 1990. Yet one in eight people still go to bed hungry every night and over two million die of malnutrition each year.’
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