Global Priorities: An International Inter-religious Campaign to Change Budget Priorities is working to combat poverty by mobilizing religious as well as secular communities to alter national and global budget priorities. It is vital to find effective ways to change direction. With global military expenditures exceeding $1 trillion, reducing such spending in poor countries as well as rich ones can and must be a central component of the battle to eradicate poverty.
At a time when weapons proliferation, the global struggle against terrorism, the crises engulfing Africa and the rapidly changing conditions in the Middle East dominate headlines and public debate, nations need a roadmap toward human security that reaches beyond military might.
The initial focus of the Campaign is child survival. The United Nations Human Development Report 2005 paints a stark picture of the lack of progress in meeting the Millennium Development Goals aimed at reducing extreme poverty by 2015, particularly with regard to children. Though it is a hopeful sign that allocation of resources to fight poverty is gaining prominence as an issue, the amounts needed to address unmet human needs far outstrip the resources made available by the world's great economic powers and most other nations. Quite simply, the response -- at the G-8 meeting in Gleneagles in July 2005 and at the World Summit in New York marking the 60th anniversary of the United Nations has not been equal to the challenge.
As the 2005 Human Development Report put it, child death trends are fast approaching a point that would merit declaration of an international health emergency, but most child deaths are avoidable. And child mortality is an area in which proper investments yield high returns. A recent study in the prestigious international medical journal Lancet calculates that for about $5.1 billion, the lives of 6 million children under 5 years of age could be rescued each year, if the money is spent on proven methods of disease prevention and treatment in the world's poorest countries. This would represent about one-half of one percent of world military spending. Or as Nicholas Kristof of the New York Times has written ?"annual world spending to fight AIDS amounts to three days of military expenditures." To put it another way, UNICEF's annual budget is spent on military purposes every 15 hours, even as one billion children live in almost unimaginable conditions of deprivation. UNICEF has estimated that 27 million children and 40 million pregnant women are not immunized each year, while 41 countries are protecting fewer children than over a decade ago.
Former Secretary of Health and Human Services in the Bush Administration Tommy Thompson stressed early in 2005 that money spent on the Comanche helicopter, cancelled after an expenditure of $8 billion, could have been used to build clinics in Afghanistan, Iraq and Africa. Lawrence Korb, Assistant Secretary of Defense in the Reagan Administration, has long highlighted the issue of unproductive military spending. Without diminishing America's ability to fight terrorists, Dr. Korb wrote recently, America can safely trim $60 billion (15 percent) from the 2006 Pentagon budget. The first place these savings should be applied to is meeting child survival needs and other aspects of the Millennium Development Goals. This applies to all nations, not only the United States; other nations can also reduce military spending. France, for example, plans to spend more than $10 billion on unnecessary submarine-launched nuclear missiles, which can be better used to meet human needs. Other nations, large and small, can make similar reductions in military expenditure.
Keeping the tragic imbalance between spending for military purposes vs. human needs in sharp focus, a concerted effort by the Global Priorities Campaign (GPC) will seek greater investment to address neglected and especially urgent child survival needs. The first two-year phase of the Campaign will aim for new public sector investments in children's health of at least $5 billion a year.
The Campaign will work to achieve its aims through international advocacy, starting with parliamentary resolutions and international action through wide contacts in many religious communities. The Global Priorities Campaign has already developed strong ties
in the Roman Catholic Church, including the network of Justice and Peace Commissions; with the World Council of Churches, The Lutheran World Federation, among United Methodists, Anglicans and other Protestant denominations on national and international levels, including groups such as Christian Aid (UK) and World Vision International; Jewish groups and individuals, and with Muslim networks in the Middle East, North Africa and Indonesia, notably the Institute for Islamic and Social Studies (Jogjakarta).
The underlying principle of this new effort is that human security can only be achieved through determined measures to eradicate poverty and to improve economic, social and cultural rights and conditions on a global level. Majority opinion ultimately can be swayed by articulation of values whose roots are deep in every oral and scriptural tradition of the world's great religious communities: concern for our children, our elders, our disabled, and all the vulnerable members of our societies. As momentum grows, the impact on the quality of life for children and others all over the world will more than justify the effort we are asking of ourselves and of you.
Join Global Priorities and let your voice be heard!
If you or your organization wish to have more information or get involved, please contact
Arnold Kohen
International Coordinator
Global Priorities Campaign
Address: P.O. Box 32307
Washington, DC 20007
USA
Phone: 301 585 3229
E-mail: globalpriorities@aol.com
Victor Scheffers
General Secretary, Catholic Commission for Justice and Peace, The Netherlands and
European Coordinator
Global Priorities Campaign
Address: Postbus 16334, 2500 bh
The Hague
The Netherlands
Phone: 31-70-3136803
E-mail: v.scheffers@justitiaetpax.nl
The development phase of the Global Priorities Campaign is funded by the Ford Foundation as well as religious and humanitarian organizations.
Copyright © 2006 Global Priorities
