Call for a love without barriers, borders or distinctions

Meeting with Julie Marson MP

I recently attended a conference call led by Dr Zolelwa Sifumba, a medical doctor and global health advocate in South Africa. She said that, "As a doctor in a small rural hospital here in South Africa, I've seen the myriad of ways Covid-19 has upended life and medical care, leading to tragic outcomes, even if indirectly…..I'm just one doctor trying to do my best for patients, but there is only so much that one doctor or one small hospital can do. We need a global plan. This pandemic doesn't care about where you're from or where you live. Squelching it one place means nothing if it's raging somewhere else. And we need to squelch it completely."

Pope Francis would agree. In his General Audiences of recent weeks Pope Francis has been reflecting on Catholic Social teaching in the light of the Covid-19 pandemic. On 9th September he said, "A virus that does not recognize barriers, borders, or cultural or political distinctions must be faced with a love without barriers, borders or distinctions."

Seventy-five years ago, this week after the genocide and destruction of the Second World War the countries of the world came together to found the United Nations whose aim is, 'Peace, dignity and equality on a healthy planet' The UN has released a video to mark the 75 years in this time of a global pandemic, 'Nations United - The United Nations at 75'.

See: www.youtube.com/watch?v=R_iVODmEkLQ

The video makes mention of the Global Goals. Five years ago, the world came together to agree the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (commonly known as the Global Goals). These goals are the blueprint to achieve a better and more sustainable future for all. They address the global challenges we face, including poverty, inequality, climate change, environmental degradation, peace and justice. Global Goals Week which takes place from 18-26 September includes Global Goals Day on 25 September, the anniversary of the day the Goals were agreed.

Covid-19 has had a tragic effect on progress towards achieving the goals. After two decades of progress, it is estimated that 70 to 100 million people will fall into extreme poverty this year, and that all the progress on poverty since the launch of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in 2015 will be lost. In addition to the deaths caused directly by Covid-19, the indirect impacts of the pandemic on access to health services will be huge. For example, at least 80 million children under the age of one are at risk of missing routine vaccines for diseases such as measles and polio. For example, in Pakistan and Afghanistan, the world's two remaining polio-endemic countries, it is thought that 50 million children have missed out on polio vaccines.

UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson has recently merged the Department of International Development (DFID) with the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) to form a new department, The Foreign and Commonwealth Development Office (FCDO). The Prime Minister has suggested that this is in order to 'make sure that 0.7 per cent - (a huge sum of money) - was spent more in line with Britain's political, commercial and diplomatic interests."

UK aid is at a crossroads as this merger comes in the middle of the global pandemic. Clearly the devastating impact of Covid-19 on the UK economy will result in the country spending less on UK aid in 2020. The new department under the leadership of Secretary of State Dominic Raab will have some hard decisions to make but it is to be hoped that aid spending remains focused on ending extreme poverty and is spent effectively and transparently.

At the end of July some of us were able to express our concerns about aid spending to our newly elected Conservative MP, Julie Marson (MP for Hertford and Stortford) and asked her to write to the Prime Minister on the matter. She followed her letter up with a question to Secretary of State, Dominic Raab in the Houses of Parliament on the first day of the new department, 1st September 2020. We were thrilled to know that our concerns had been taken to the heart of parliament to be addressed personally by the Foreign Secretary.

You can see the recording of the exchange here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=MfVwahrISog&feature=youtu.be

With the new Department setting its priorities and plans right now, this is a crucial time to remind the Government that the main aim of UK aid is poverty reduction. This should guide the Government's choice of spending priorities, which should include: a continued focus on the importance of education; renewed commitment to nutrition programmes; ongoing support for the fight against infectious diseases such as TB and Covid-19; and strong support for immunisation programmes. As always, political will is needed to make these priorities a reality, and it is vital that the Government sees that there is strong public support for the new Department to focus on these important 'human development' objectives.

In his General Audience on 9th September Pope Francis spoke of the importance of creating this 'political will': "I am only saying that unfortunately, politics does not often have a good reputation. But we should not resign ourselves to this negative vision, but instead react to it by showing in deeds that good politics is possible, indeed dutiful, one that puts the human person and the common good at the centre.

It is therefore time to improve our social love - I want to highlight this: our social love - with everyone's contribution, starting from our littleness. The common good requires everyone's participation."

Clearly one of these actions of 'social love' is to call our government to account. One of the ways we can contribute our part is to keep the pressure on Dominic Raab to commit to, and follow through on, high-quality aid that meets the internationally agreed rules for what counts as aid spending and meaningfully and measurably contributes to poverty alleviation. For the common good requires 'Everyone's participation' if we are to 'squelch' the blight of extreme poverty in the world.

See: www.results.org.uk/news/uk-priorities-poverty-reduction for suggestions for action.

For more information, see: www.results.org.uk/blog/september-2020-results-uk-grassroots-call-uk-priorities-poverty-reduction

Sister Gillian Price