Launch Of Bruce Duncan CSsR's Book - ENDING HUNGER How far can we go?

Co-inciding with the Make Poverty History campaign, was the recent launch of the latest in a series of booklets produced by the Australian Catholic Social Justice Council, ENDING POVERTY - How far can we go? The book's author, Bruce Duncan CSsR is a lecturer in social justice at Yarra Theological Union in Melbourne, a consultant with Catholic Social Services Victoria and a member of the Melbourne Catholic Commission for Justice, Developmentand Peace.

Copies of Bruce Duncan's book are available by contacting Australian Catholic Social Justice Council on (02) 9954 0056 or admin@acsjc.org.au or visit www.socilajustice.catholic.org.au

Keynote speeches delivered at the launch include his eminence Cardinal Edward Cassiday AC, Mr Simon McKeon Executive Director of Macquarie Bank, Melbourne and Mr Jack deGroot CEO Caritas Australia.

Transcripts of the speeches are reproduced below:

Cardinal Edward Cassidy AC


It would seem that the Statement Ending Hunger which we are launching today, as a contribution from the Australian Catholic Social Justice Council and Catholic Social Services Victoria, to one of the most pressing and urgent problems facing our world in this the twenty-first century, comes at a most opportune moment. Neither leaders of nations or those involved in seeking to make the world a better place for all its inhabitants remain unconcerned at the fact that more of our brothers and sisters in so many countries continue to die of hunger than from Aids or other causes.

Prime Minister Tony Blair will be urging the July 2005 G8 summit at Gleneagles to take seriously the question of debt relief and the exploitation of natural resources in African countries. Bob Geldorf is organising huge Concerts in several Western capitals to awaken public interest and concern in the millions of people who are dying in Africa and elsewhere from hunger.

The Statement Ending Hunger wishes to draw attention to the campaign by the United Nations Organization “to eradicate poverty and hunger by half in 2015”, and to suggest those questions that must be challenged if this goal is to be reached. In a document to be presented to the meeting in Scotland, Professor Jeffrey Sachs of Columbia University makes it clear that the practical solutions to this age-old problem of hunger and grinding poverty “exist. The political framework is established. And for the first time the cost is utterly affordable. All that is needed is action.” The Secretary-General of the UN has confirmed this statement: “The goals are not utopian. They are eminently achievable”.

If that is the case, and I sincerely believe from my own experience in Africa and Asia over a period of twenty-one years that it is, a joint effort will have to be made.

People in developing counties and their leaders, must do most of the work. But without the support and contribution of the developed countries little will be achieved. “The challenge is a profoundly moral one for the people of the western countries, who are asked to commit just a tiny fraction of their unprecedented economic prosperity to alleviate the acute suffering of hundreds of millions of people elsewhere in the world” (Ending Hunger, 2). Professor Klaus Schwarb, President of the World Economic Council, insists after years of research and study by the Council on ways to overcome hunger and eradicate poverty in the modern world, that these evils can only be eliminated by a great partnership of the private and public sectors, backed by private organizations, Churches and popular support among the peoples of the developed countries. No one of these can succeed alone.

Ending hunger and eradicating extreme poverty are not to be seen, as they frequently are, as simply a means to avoid war, terrorism and other social upheavals. The obligation arises from much deeper principles, for it is one that touches the very essence of humanity. There is an ethical or moral responsibility involved, and a solution will largely depend on how people and their Governments in developed countries consider their neighbours in developing and needy communities. Do we see the hungry and poverty-stricken African, for example, as just one of “the others” for whom we have no moral responsibility, or do we see that person rather as a “brother or sister” in need? For me this is at the heart of the problem. This latter understanding is at the centre of Catholic social doctrine, and was particularly well explained by the late Pope John Paul II.

You will find several quotations from that Pope in Ending Hunger. He called for a globalisation based on the principles of social justice and the preferential option for the poor, and singled out the problem of impossible international debts. His description of the global struggle against hunger and poverty as a ‘war of the powerful against the weak’ is unprecedented. (E.H.5)
This understanding of the neighbour as a brother or sister is not alien to our own Australian history and experience. This nation was built upon a deep sense of social justice and the need to help the ‘underdog’. The extraordinarily generous response of the Australian people to the tragic consequences of the 2004 Boxing Day tsunami is surely to be explained by such an understanding.

The need now, however, is to look at situations that are not the result of such natural disasters or tragic events, but the consequence of centuries of human exploitation of the powerful against the weak. As our Statement rightly claims:
The Asian Tsunami has taken about 300,000 lives, but a far more destructive tidal wave of hunger and inhuman poverty has been pounding many developing countries for decades. As many people die every week from poverty related causes as from the tsunami. (p. 4)

As the United Nations declared in the 1986 Declaration on the Right to Development, almost twenty years ago, the right to development is an inalienable right:
The right to development is an inalienable human right by virtue of which every human person and all peoples are entitled to participate in, contribute to, and enjoy economic, social, cultural and political development, in which all human rights and fundamental freedoms can be fully realized.

I believe it is important for us to insist on this fact. This is not a wild claim made by Father Bruce Duncan in Ending Hunger, but has strong support from serious authors, such as C. Ford Runge and others in Ending Hunger in our Lifetime: Food Security and Globalisation. They maintained that ending global hunger is possible in our lifetime. They quote a specialist of famines and Nobel Prize winner, Amartya Sen, and I would bring his words to your special attention:
The contemporary age is not short of terrible and nasty happenings, but the persistence of extensive hunger in a world of unprecedented prosperity is surely one of the worst. …What makes this widespread hunger even more of a tragedy is the way we have come to accept and tolerate it as part of the modern world, as if it is essentially unpreventable. (E. H. 11).

As Pope John Paul II has pointed out, the struggle against poverty must not be reduced simply to improving the conditions of life, but to removing people from this situation, creating sources of employment and adopting their cause as our own. (E.H.)

How are we to go about achieving this goal? The first of the eight Millennium Development Goals presented by the United Nations Organization to its members and people in general is “Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger by halving between 1990 and 2015 the proportion of people on income of less than $1 a day, and halving the proportion in hunger. Fifteen of these years have already passed, and just ten remain. How much has been achieved? When you are on a long journey or engaged in a difficult task, it is always good to look back from time to time and see just how much progress has already been made. Ending Hunger provides encouragement for the future efforts needed. It admits that the results of the past 30 years of development effort have been mixed, but states that “painting too dark a picture would not only be unjust, it might undermine the political will to learn from past mistakes and maintain the effort rapidly to eradicate hunger and the worst poverty”. It rightly claims that “though there have been setbacks, some astonishing results have been achieved, especially in South-Asia, South-East Asia, and parts of Latin America and the Middle East”:
- Improvements in health, especially through immunization, have eradicated smallpox, eliminated polio in 110 countries; child deaths from diarrhoea were reduced by half by the 1990s, and infant mortality brought down to below 120 per 1000 live births in all but 12 developing countries by 2000;
- hunger and malnutrition dropped 17% between 1980 and 2000, except for sub-Saharan Africa and the number of people with access to safe drinking water increased by 4.1 billion to 5 billion;
- In East Asia, the number of people living on less than $1 a day halved in the 1990s, and China has lifted 150 million people out of extreme poverty.
The overall result was that by 2000 the life expectancy increased to 60 years in 124 out of 173 countries.

There is no doubt, however, about the need for greater and more concentrated effort by the world community in the coming years. Despite progress elsewhere, by 2000 – after a decade for some of despair – people in 46 countries were poorer than in 1990. On present trends, sub-Saharan Africa will not reach its goals for poverty reduction until 2147, and for child mortality until 2165. More than 10 million children die from preventible diseases each year, 30,000 a day. Of the world’s 42 million people with HIV/AIDS, 39 million are in developing countries. One billion people still have no access to safe drinking water and 2,4 billion lack safe sanitation. Kofi Annan issued a dire warning to the UN General Assembly in August 2004 that the Millennium Goals were in peril because many of the richer countries had failed to contribute adequate funds.

Addressing the 61st session of the Commission on Human Rights in March this year, Archbishop Silvano Tomasi, the Vatican’s Permanent Observer to the UN in Geneva, stated that while much has been done in implementing the Declaration on the Right to Development, “a renewed mobilization of efforts is called for since the achievement of the Millennium Goals appears at this point a very elusive target for the least developed countries”.

While the Statement on Ending Hunger stresses in particular the first of the Millennium goals, all eight are closely connected and support one another. I am convinced that the second of these goals, to “achieve universal primary education for boys and girls” is an essential element in eliminating hunger and poverty. The person who we found most difficult to help change his social condition for the better in Bangladesh in the 1970s was the one who had no land and no skills. On the other hand, we saw how education changed the lives of families from just one generation to the next – and it all cost so little compared with education in this country. Education of both boys and girls has also proved by far the most effective way of countering population explosion in these already seriously over-populated countries and in promoting democracy.

Surely these figures and comments are enough – although more will be found in Ending Hunger. - to justify the present appeal by the Australian Catholic Social Justice Council for Australia to take a closer look at what it is doing to play a significant role in bringing the Millennium Goals to a fruitful conclusion. The figures presented in the Statement show that the Australian aid contribution remains surprisingly modest. There seems to have been a tendency on the part of our Governments to consider aid as primarily a deterrent to terrorism and lawlessness, especially in the Pacific area. The Australian Government response to the tsunami disaster was, however, most generous and certainly worthy of praise and national support. The Commonwealth Budget for 2004-2005 increased the Official Development Assistance (ODA) by A$ 239 million to A$1.894 billion – a healthy sum, but still according to Ending Hunger only 0.25% of the Gross National Income. The UN target for aid by developed countries such as Australia is 0.7% of the GNI, a figure that has been reached by Norway (0.9%) and the Netherlands (0.7%).

There would appear to be a great need for a campaign to make Australians more aware of the problem and of our duty to respond more adequately. I have so often told my friends abroad that Australia is a truly blessed country, with enormous resources, natural beauty and a sound economy. It is a great place to live and has enjoyed 13 continuous years of economic expansion. I would like to see our Government in the first place follow up the generous tsunami assistance with a greater national contribution to other areas of development, especially Africa.

The Government will of course need the support of the Australian people. For this it should work together with the media in informing the people of this country of the situation so well explained in Ending Hunger. What is needed for the Millennium goals to be realised is “an international sense of social justice”, and the media have a vital role to play in creating such a consciousness.

But we must not leave it all to the Government. Earlier I spoke of the need for a great partnership of the public and private sector. This is much more developed, I believe, in European countries, where the public and private sectors are engaged in joint projects, some of which encourage private industry to invest and undertake development projects in developing countries, having Government guarantees to fall back on in case of serious unforseen problems that may have to be faced. Not all projects have to be at first on a large scale. Perhaps one example may encourage others in this country to think about their own possible contribution.

One man, the Bangladeshi professor Muhammad Yunus has become internationally admired for the Grameen Cooperative Bank that he established in Bangladesh in 1976 as an experimental project to combat rural poverty by providing credit to the poorest of the poor. In 1983 the bank was able to provide small, collateral-free credit loans to poor people for income-generating activities. By August last year it had disbursed $ 4.6 billions in loans to 3.8 million borrowers, 96% of whom are women, with a repayment rate of 99%. He found that some of the poorest have hidden talents and skills and gave them an opportunity to use those talents to change their lives and those of their families. The bank has since gone to other countries, such as the Philippines, and the success stories are truly remarkable and encouraging.

If the will is there, I am sure that our private and public sectors, supported by well-informed and generous Australian organizations and people, could find ways to work together for the communities most in need and make their world – and it is also our world – a better place in which to live.

In launching the Statement Ending Hunger, it is my hope that it may contribute to the UN campaign and, in the words of a fellow Cardinal from Latin America “make poverty history”.



SIMON MCKEON
Executive Director of Macquarie Bank, Melbourne


LADIES & GENTLEMEN, I AM DELIGHTED AND HONOURED TO BE INVITED TO RESPOND TO CARDINAL CASSIDY AND COMPLEMENT WHAT HE HAS SAID.

AT THE OUTSET, I NEED TO DECLARE TO ALL OF YOU THAT MY WIFE AND I HAVE 4 TEENAGE BOYS. AS YOU WILL APPRECIATE, WE HAVE LOTS OF TESTOSTERONE IN OUR HOUSEHOLD, OUR DISCUSSIONS ARE LIVELY AND THE EXCHANGES ARE OFTEN COLOURFUL.

NEVERTHELESS, AS A PARENT, I AM PRIVILEGED TO HAVE A DIRECT INSIGHT INTO THE LANGUAGE OF GENERATION Y. AND I WOULD LIKE TO SHARE WITH YOU A GROUP OF WORDS THAT ARE USED, IN A DEROGATORY WAY, TO DESCRIBE OTHERS.

FOR EXAMPLE, THERE ARE “TRY HARDS”. THESE ARE PEOPLE WHO, AS THE NAME SUGGESTS, APPLY THEMSELVES DILIGENTLY. THEY SIT AT THE FRONT OF CLASSROOMS, LISTEN TO TEACHERS AND ALWAYS SUBMIT HOMEWORK ON TIME.

THEN THERE ARE “RANDOMS”. THESE ARE ORDINARY INDIVIDUALS WHO JUST HAPPEN TO BE IN A PARTICULAR PLACE AT A PARTICULAR TIME MINDING THEIR OWN BUSINESS. A DISTINGUISHING FEATURE IS THAT THEY ARE NOT DIRECTLY KNOWN TO THE PERSON WHO HAS NOMINATED THEM AS A RANDOM.

AND FINALLY, THERE ARE THOSE WHO ARE “TIGHT”. THEY ARE SELFISH, INWARD LOOKING, UN-COOPERATIVE. AS PARENTS, WE ARE OFTEN DESCRIBED AS TIGHT WHEN DECLINING A REQUEST.

EVEN MY CHILDREN ACKNOWLEDGE THAT IT IS APPROPRIATE, FROM TIME TO TIME, TO BE A TRY HARD. SOME THINGS ARE WORTH STRIVING FOR. SIMILARLY, IT IS FINE TO BE A RANDOM, A PERSON WITHOUT A LABEL, SUCH AS WHEN YOU HAPPEN TO SECRETLY BARRACK FOR ESSENDON AND FIND YOURSELF ON A TRAIN CRAMMED FULL OF COLLINGWOOD SUPPORTERS ANGRY AFTER YET ANOTHER DEFEAT.

BUT ON NO ACCOUNT, IN MY EXPERIENCE, WOULD ANYONE WANT TO BE KNOWN AS “TIGHT”.

BUT THAT IS HOW SO MUCH OF THE TWO THIRDS WORLD SEES THE WEST TODAY. WE ARE INWARD LOOKING, UN-COOPERATIVE, UNCARING – WE ARE TIGHT.

BUT THERE IS HOPE - THESE ARE EXCITING TIMES. WE HAVE:-

- LAST SATURDAY’S ANNOUNCEMENT OF MASSIVE DEBT FORGIVENESS TO THE POOREST NATIONS
- THE FORTHCOMING G8 SUMMIT, WHERE MORE ANNOUNCEMENTS ARE ANTICIPATED
- THE LIVE 8 CONCERTS ON JULY 2ND
- THE DAVOS AGENDA EARLIER THIS YEAR WHICH GAVE PROMINENCE TO THE PLIGHT OF THE TWO THIRDS WORLD
- 2005 AS THE UNITED NATIONS INTERNATIONAL YEAR OF MICROCREDIT, WHICH IS SUCH AN EFFECTIVE TOOL
- AND, OF COURSE, THE MASSIVE RESPONSE TO THE TSUNAMI SEVERAL MONTHS AGO.

NOW NOT ENOUGH PROGRESS IS BEING MADE QUICKLY ENOUGH, BUT THE GOOD NEWS IS THAT SLOWLY AND SURELY WE IN THE WEST ARE BECOMING BETTER EDUCATED AND MORE AWARE OF THE ISSUE. AND WIDESPREAD AWARENESS IS, I BELIEVE, AN ABSOLUTE PRECONDITION BEFORE ANYTHING TRULY SIGNIFICANT CAN BE ACHIEVED IN ERADICATING EXTREME POVERTY.

AND JUST AS SLAVERY CAME TO NO LONGER BE TOLERATED AFTER A LIFETIME OF CAMPAIGNING BY WILLIAM WILBERFORCE, I BELIEVE THAT WE ARE ON A PATH TO NO LONGER TOLERATING THE SLAVERY OF TODAY WHICH IS AN IMPOVERISHED THIRD WORLD. BUT WE ARE NOT THERE YET, IT IS STILL TOO EASY TO TURN A BLIND EYE. AND THAT IS PRECISELY WHAT WILBERFORCE SOUGHT TO CORRECT. IF I MAY QUOTE FROM MARJIE BLOY’S “AGE OF PEEL”:-

“THE CAMPAIGN TO ABOLISH SLAVERY CONTINUED IN BRITAIN. WILBERFORCE AND HIS CO-WORKERS HELD MEETINGS ALL OVER THE COUNTRY TO TRY TO PERSUADE PEOPLE THAT ABOLITION SHOULD BE SUPPORTED. THEY DISCOVERED THAT MANY PEOPLE WERE UNAWARE OF THE HORRORS OF SLAVERY AND THAT OTHERS WERE NOT INTERESTED IN SOMETHING WHICH HAPPENED THOUSANDS OF MILES AWAY.”

HOW TRUE THIS REMAINS TODAY.

AND THIS IS WHY I AM PLEASED TO BE HERE AT THIS LAUNCH. BRUCE DUNCAN’S BOOKLET IS ANOTHER INTEGRAL COMPONENT OF THE AWARENESS PROGRAM, SOME MIGHT DESCRIBE IT AS A CONVERSION, THAT WE MUST HAVE. “ENDING HUNGER – HOW FAR CAN WE GO?” IS A POWERFUL TEXT, PACKED FULL OF FACTS AND FIGURES AND JUSTIFICATION FOR WHY WE CAN NO LONGER ACCEPT OR TOLERATE EXTREME POVERTY. I ENCOURAGE ALL OF YOU TO READ IT AND COMMEND THE AUSTRALIAN CATHOLIC SOCIAL JUSTICE COUNCIL FOR HAVING PUBLISHED IT.

BUT, OF COURSE, THERE ARE ALWAYS COUNTER ARGUMENTS.

WITH THE ANTI SLAVERY MOVEMENT, THERE WAS CONCERN EXPRESSED THAT IF SLAVERY WAS ABOLISHED, THE THEN ECONOMY WOULD COLLAPSE.

TODAY, ESPECIALLY IN EUROPE AND NORTH AMERICA, WE HEAR THAT THE REDUCTION OF AGRICULTURAL TRADE BARRIERS, WHICH MANY WOULD AGREE IS A NECESSARY PRE-REQUISITE BEFORE THERE IS ANY HOPE FOR THE TWO THIRDS WORLD, WILL LEAD TO HARDSHIP FOR WESTERN FARMERS. AND THIS IS NO DOUBT TRUE, AT LEAST IN PART.

BUT UNTIL WE ACHIEVE REAL REFORM IN THE AREA OF TARIFFS, OUR GENERATION WILL HAVE TO EXPLAIN TO FUTURE GENERATIONS WHY WE TOLERATED A REGIME WHERE ECONOMIC RESOURCES WERE DIRECTED ARTIFICIALLY AND INEFFICIENTLY TO ONE PLACE AND AWAY FROM ANOTHER PLACE WHICH WAS FRANKLY MORE DESERVING. IN ANY EVENT, EVEN THE SLAVE OWNERS ALMOST 200 YEARS AGO WERE GRANTED COMPENSATION BY THE STATE AND I’M SURE WE HAVE THE ABILITY TO DEVELOP APPROPRIATE SOLUTIONS IF ONLY WE, AS THE COMMUNITY AT LARGE, HAS THE WILL.

ANOTHER COUNTER ARGUMENT IS THAT ALL WE ARE LIKELY TO DO IS TO LINE THE POCKETS OF CORRUPT LEADERS AND OFFICIALS. AND THERE ARE OTHER DISINGENUOUS COMMENTS ABOUT THE NAIVETY OF SOME OF THOSE PROMOTING REFORM.

FOR EXAMPLE, JUST IN THE LAST 24 HOURS, THE AUSTRALIAN FINANCIAL REVIEW HAD AN EDITORIAL WHICH SAID:-

“THE LEADERS OF THE WORLD’S INDUSTRIAL NATIONS HAVE DONE A DISSERVICE TO THE WORLD’S POOR. SUPERFICIALLY, DECIDING TO WIPE OUT $US40 BILLION ($52 BILLION) IN DEPT OWED BY THE WORLD’S POOREST COUNTRIES LOOKS A GENEROUS ACT…..MANY CORRUPT GOVERNMENT OFFICIALS AND POCKET-LINING BUSINESSES IN THOSE COUNTRIES WILL BE SEEN TO HAVE ESCAPED ACCOUNTABILITY.”

AND IN AN ARTICLE BY WAYNE ERRINGTON AND PETER VAN ONSELEN IN YESTERDAY’S AUSTRALIAN, THEY WROTE:-

“LIVE 8 HAS ONE SAVING GRACE. WHILE THE POLITICS OF THE EVENT WILL BE CHILDISH, AT LEAST THE MUSIC ON OFFER WILL BE IMMEASURABLY BETTER THAN THE ‘80’S NEW-WAVE POSEURS WHO DOMINATED LIVE AID. ENJOY THE MUSIC. THEN FIND OUT WHAT’S REALLY GOING ON IN THE WORLD.”

I HAVE TO SAY THIS MORNING THAT THERE IS NO PLACE FOR THIS TYPE OF NEGATIVITY BECAUSE THE SITUATION IS SIMPLY TOO DIRE. THERE IS NO ROOM FOR ESOTERIC DEBATE, ONLY CONSTRUCTIVE SOLUTIONS.

IF WE IN THE WEST GENUINELY RESOLVED TO END EXTREME POVERTY AND APPLIED, IN PARTNERSHIP WITH OUR POORER NEIGHBOURS, OUR BEST MINDS TO TACKLE THE PROBLEM, THEN WITHOUT ANY SHADOW OF DOUBT IN MY MIND, IT WOULD HAPPEN.

YES, IT MAY COME AT A SLIGHT COST TO OUR ECONOMIC PROSPERITY BUT WHO NEEDS AN EXTRA CUP OF COFFEE PER DAY ANYWAY? AND AT THE END OF THE DAY, THIS IS ALL WE ARE TALKING ABOUT.

AND YES, IT WILL TAKE PLACE OVER A LONGER TIME FRAME IN SOME PLACES THAN OTHERS BECAUSE OF GOVERNMENTS THAT DO NOT PUT THEIR PEOPLES’ INTERESTS FIRST. BUT IF THERE IS THE WILL, WE WILL GET THERE.

IN CLOSING, MAY I JUST MENTION THAT THE BUSINESS WORLD GENERALLY IS NOT PLAYING MUCH OF A ROLE YET BUT I BELIEVE IT CAN AND WILL. I SAY THIS AS MUCH AS ANYTHING BECAUSE OF WHAT OCCURRED WITH THE TSUNAMI EARLIER THIS YEAR.

THE WAVE OF SYMPATHY THAT SPREAD THROUGHOUT AUSTRALIA INVOKED EVERY MAJOR BUSINESS TO RESPOND. WHAT OCCURRED INSIDE OUR CORPORATIONS WAS LARGELY UNPRECEDENTED AS EMPLOYEES SUGGESTED, AND IN SOME CASES INSISTED, THAT THEIR EMPLOYERS RESPOND GENEROUSLY. WE LIVE IN AN ERA WHERE PROCURING AND RETAINING HUMAN CAPITAL IS A MAJOR CHALLENGE. CORPORATIONS WANT TO BE SEEN AS RESPONSIBLE AND RESPONSIVE EMPLOYERS. AND THEREIN LIES ANOTHER REASON WHY WIDESPREAD AWARENESS IS SO IMPORTANT.

WHEN STAMPING OUT EXTREME POVERTY BECOMES IMPORTANT TO THE PEOPLE OF AUSTRALIA AND THE WESTERN WORLD GENERALLY, CORPORATIONS WILL FOLLOW QUICKLY WITH A SERIOUS LEVEL OF SUPPORT.

SO I COMMEND TO YOU AGAIN “ENDING HUNGER” AND CONGRATULATE BRUCE ON ITS RELEASE. AND I ENCOURAGE US ALL TO DO EVERYTHING WE CAN SO THAT FUTURE GENERATIONS WILL NOT LOOK BACK AND SAY THAT, WHILST WE HAD THE OPPORTUNITY TO MAKE A PROFOUND DIFFERENCE TO THE LIVES OF MANY, WE ELECTED TO REMAIN “TIGHT”.





Jack deGroot
CEO Caritas Australia


Thank you for this opportunity to be here and to work with our sister organization, the Australian Catholic Social Justice Council in promoting this important paper today on the Millennium Development Goals.

As the Chair of the Make Poverty History Campaign here in Australia and as the CEO of Caritas Australia, we wish to congratulate Bruce on his paper and the very timely release of it. This week we have seen the agreement on a formula by the G7 nations to cancel the debts of some of the world’s poorest nations. In responding to Bruce’s Challenge of How Far Can we Go? ( And may I say Bruce has truly reflected the age Old Catholic question in his title of “how far can you go”) The response is quite seriously the whole way.

Making Poverty History is about 4 things:
1. Canceling the debt of nations who are chained by outrageous realities that mean they spend more on debt repayment than on health or education
2. Increasing the volume and targeting of Aid. The Australian public knows the value of aid as seen in the massive outpouring of generosity during the tsunami tragedy. This aid needs to be targeted so it attends to the real needs of communities and not serves the national interest of donor countries alone
3. Fairer trade that acknowledges that we are not all on a level playing field – particularly the poor
4. And programs that achieve good governance in nations that have been victim to corruption.

Why are we on about this? Because every day throughout the world 1000s dies of poverty related hunger, ill-health, conflict or preventable disease. So what? – Well our generation has the skills, technical gifts, and financial resources to stem such poverty related death. This death does not just kill individuals – it maims communities and stifles opportunities. Ours is a generation with a great opportunity to make Poverty History

Bruce challenges us - How Far can we go to end Hunger and to Make Poverty History? – The answer is all the way.

We in Australia are part of a global community with an opportunity to do it. This is not jut a mission of rock stars and Gordon Brown – it is the opportunity of a generation to live up to the greatness that is within its imagination to achieve. The people are there, the skills are there – it is now a question of our generation’s will to go the whole way.

Make Poverty History will hold its first International White Band Day to coincide with the G8 meeting in Gleneagles during the first week of July. In Australia, we will launch our campaign on 1st July and ask all Australians to wear white bands that call us to Make Poverty History. Prominent buildings, landmarks in every city will see this. The agencies who raised over $315 million to respond to the tsunami are the ones calling on Australians not for money but for the commitment of our nation to play our part in Making Poverty History. We will have more White Band Days in September to coincide with the UN millennium summit plus 5.

In closing lets I invite you all to join in this campaign to Make Poverty History. We have great public messages and faces to our campaign. Corporate Australia can contribute to this activity to move our government to play our part.

So I leave you with this one message to Make Poverty History


Bruce Duncan CSsR
Author: Ending Hunger – How Far Can We Go?


Thanks to all of you here today, and especially to the Australian Catholic Social Justice Council for inviting me to write this booklet, Ending hunger – how far can we go? and to Caritas Australia for their close involvement.

We are here because of our concern to promote the wellbeing of the poorest people on our earth, recognising that the UN Millennium Development Goals represent one of humankind’s brightest hopes at this stage in history. I see them as a marvellous godsend, fleshing out the Gospel plea to feed the hungry and care for the afflicted.

I particularly thank our two guest speakers. Cardinal Cassidy is well known to us from our TV sets, and has played a leading role not only in the diplomatic corps of the Vatican, but also in ecumenical and inter-faith affairs. It is wonderful to have him back in Australia, and I wish to give you my heart-felt thanks for flying down from Newcastle to launch this document so thoughtfully.

I also thank Mr Simon McKeon for his contribution. He has long been keenly aware of the human tragedy of hunger and gross poverty. As a prominent member of the business community, he has been involved with efforts to link businesses and community groups to tackle specific social problems. It is undoubtedly true that if we are to make major inroads into global poverty, we must look to the business community for their energy, ideas and expertise. How might we pursue this?

Those with a development background will be familiar with the message of this little booklet, Ending Hunger. I wrote it out a sense of acute frustration that many Australians seem not to have heard that there is no economic need for anyone in the world to be hungry. Yet this claim is surely astonishing good news. It is the first time in history we have been able to say it.

This message is not just my view, or that of some wild enthusiasts. It is the view of leading development economists. It is the thinking behind the United Nations Millennium Development Goals, which summarise how to move modestly but firmly in this direction.

The message has not yet been taken up strongly in Australia. In contrast to Britain and some of the European countries, there has been no strong movement in public opinion urging Australia to play its full role in this global effort to reduce hunger and the most extreme forms of poverty.

This needs to change. This campaign to Make Poverty History aims precisely to raise public awareness that not only can we do this, but with our current phenomenal wealth, the advanced countries can provide the needed funding relatively easily. The project is not utopian or hopeless. It is do-able in our lifetimes, as Jeffrey Sachs argues in his wonderful book, The End of Poverty.

Various writers have compared the eradication of hunger today with the abolition of slavery in the nineteenth century. Both projects represent a giant leap of the moral consciousness of humankind.

And this is the point we need to keep highlighting: the challenge for us is primarily a moral one, not an economic one. If we have the political and moral will to abolish hunger, then the economists can show us how to do it.

Throughout history, many people considered slavery unfortunate but inevitable. Many business people and writers defended it on economic grounds. But the issue became for a great many people primarily a moral one.

The same is true today of widespread hunger and the most severe poverty in developing countries. Yet shifting a mere five per cent of current world military spending would provide the funds needed immediately to double aid and implement the Millennium Development Goals. It is time to end this sheer madness in the way we misallocate resources.

Most Australians would go to great lengths to save the life of another human being, especially that of a child. Yet we in the developed countries have the opportunity to save the lives of an astonishing 30 million children in the next ten years, and to lift hundreds of millions of people out of the most severe poverty and hunger.

The generous response to the Asian tsunami demonstrates that there is immense good will in the Australian population towards others in great suffering.

The challenge for us is to stimulate the public conversation about these issues, invite business people and all those with special expertise to help find practical solutions, and to encourage our political institutions to support the UN Millennium Goals robustly and generously.

Once there was little we could do to help impoverished peoples far away. But today when we see hungry or distressed people on our TV sets, we know that can help them. It is possible to eradicate hunger and the most severe poverty just about everywhere, if we really want to.

I think it was St Basil in the fourth century who said: ‘Feed the man you see dying of hunger, for if you have not fed him, you have killed him.’ Let us bestir ourselves and our nation to make severe poverty, and hunger, history.