On the Role of American Religious
Communities in Achieving the Millennium Development Goals: A Consultation
Dear Colleague,
I am writing on behalf of the
Consultation on Interfaith Education, to invite you to participate in a
special consultation in June in New York City which will bring together
twenty-five American religious leaders to focus on the Millennium Development
Goals campaign. We will explore how America’s religious communities might work
together to facilitate their achievement. Participants will also include
officials from the United Nations and representatives from the NGO community.
We are holding the consultation at the Church Center at the United Nations on
June 8, 2005.
The Millennium Development Goals,
adopted in September 2000, express the unanimous commitment of the member
states of the United Nations to cut global poverty in half by 2015. More
specifically, the nations of the world pledged themselves to achieve eight
goals that include eradicating extreme poverty and hunger; achieving universal
access to primary education and reducing child mortality; promoting gender
equality, improving maternal health and empowering women; combating HIV/AIDS;
and ensuring environmental sustainability. While the first seven goals concern
the improvement of conditions in the developing world, the eighth pledges the
governments of the most developed countries – including the United States and
the members of the European Union -- to dedicate (by 2015) the equivalent of
zero point seven percent of their annual GDP to development assistance, and to
create an open trading system without the protective tariffs and agricultural
subsidies that effectively bar imports from the poorest countries and consign
these countries to continued poverty and under-development.
Next September the world’s
political leaders will gather together at the United Nations for a special
session of the General Assembly to consider -- at “Millennium Plus Five”
--whether we are on track to meet the goals by 2015. It is already clear that,
at the current rate of progress, the goals will not be met, unless the richest
countries summon the political will to allocate the financial resources and to
support the trade-friendly policies that achieving the goals requires. While
many rich nations are clearly struggling to meet their commitments, the United
States still lags behind almost all the others – currently allocating 1/5 of
the 0.7% of annual GDP which it has pledged to provide by 2015.
In convening this consultation in
the face of seemingly long odds, we are inspired by the ongoing effort of the
world community to relieve the suffering of the Tsunami victims, and by the
exemplary leadership of the United States and other advanced countries in this
endeavor. This powerful example suggests that, though the hour is late, it is
still within our collective power to achieve the Millennium Goals by 2015 if we
work together to focus the world’s collective attention and moral imagination
upon the plight of so many millions that makes the achievement of the Millennium
Goals imperative.
Sensing that the achievement of
these goals is profoundly congruent with the principle of human solidarity and
the highest ideals that are espoused by most of our religious traditions, we are
inviting you and other religious leaders to join with us for this important
consultation because, as religious leaders, we are well positioned to use our
agenda-setting power to turn the nation’s collective attention to these
important issues and to ensure that the ensuing national conversation possesses
the appropriate moral urgency.
Because becoming better informed
about the goals is essential if we are to provide moral leadership, our main
focus at the consultation will be to learn more about the goals themselves and
their feasibility. We will also attend to the religious significance of the
individual goals, and to the religious significance of the broader principles of
global solidarity and global equity that underlie the campaign as a whole,
paying close attention to how these goals and principles appear when considered
in the light of our various religious traditions.
Finally, we will consider the path
from where we are today to where we want to be in 2015, and the question of what
we, as religious leaders, might do to mobilize our own religious communities,
and the wider public, on behalf of U.S. leadership in the great international
endeavor to achieve the Millennium Development Goals by 2015.
Next September the world’s political
leaders will gather to consider what remains to be done if the Millennium
Development Goals are to be met. By convening in New York in June, you can help
to ensure that, come September, America will be poised to take the lead in
making sure that the goals are achieved and that the promise of the present hour
is not lost.
I hope you are interested in
participating in this important meeting. If you are unable to attend, we would
be most appreciative if you could recommend someone else from your organization.
| 
On
the web @ www.globalinterfaithed.org
