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Experts say humanity has the means to end worldwide poverty in this lifetime.
A new study guide released last week by the National Council of Churches USA (NCC), Eradicating Poverty: A Christian Study Guide on the Millennium Development Goals, tackles these and other issues.
The Millennium Development Goals are a set of eight goals agreed on by world leaders in 2000to end extreme poverty, hunger and disease by 2015. The study guide examines one or more of the Millennium Development Goals in church or other settings.
The goal is not a fantasy, says Jeffrey Sachs director of the Millennium Project – a UN-commissioned advisory body that proposes solutions to meeting the goals by 2015.
"Ours is the first generation in the history of the world with the ability to eradicate extreme poverty,” he states. “We have the means, the resources and the know-how. All we lack is the will."
The idea for the study guide grew out of a meeting hosted by the NCC, whose governing board has endorsed the U.N. Millennium Development goals. The study guide was made possible in part by a grant from Chang K. Park, a Christian layman from New York.
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The study guide reminds Americans that millions of poor women experience pregnancy and childbirth without medical support, and 500,000 women die in childbirth each year. Eleven million children under the age of 5 died from the lack of medical care – and that 43 developing countries account for 90 percent of the world's deaths of children under 5. By the end of 2004, 39.4 million people were living with HIV (the highest number ever). In sub-Saharan Africa, nearly two-thirds of the population has HIV.
The authors of the guide hope that these statistics will prompt action from the greater Church. They believe that the time is ripe for a major movement to implement the U.N. goals and end global poverty.
"Christians were at the forefront of several major movements for social change," writes Lallie B. Lloyd, an editor of the guide. "From the establishment of the earliest orphanages, hospitals and public schools, to the abolition of slavery and forced child labor ... Christians have heard the cry of the suffering and said, 'Enough, it's time to stop.'"
According to Lloyd, the study guide aims to motivate congregations to make the goals a reality.
"Since the Millennium Development Goals were announced in 2000, a global movement has emerged," the editor writes. “Around the world, and across the United States, Christians are joining other people of faith ... in a unified effort to eradicate extreme poverty."
