(PHOTO CREDITS: Courtesy WORLD COUNCIL OF CHURCHES)
The Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors of the Group of 20 (G20)
Your Excellencies:
Our organizations, the World Council of Churches (WCC), World Communion of Reformed Churches (WCRC), Lutheran World Federation (LWF) and Council for World Mission (CWM), have followed with profound concern how the COVID-19 pandemic and the related economic crisis have continued to destroy lives and livelihood around the world. To date this has resulted in more than half a million deaths, massive unemployment, increase of debts, poverty, and inequality in many parts of the world.
We want to express our appreciation for the G20’s prompt efforts to address the crises by offering fiscal measures to support public health response, temporary debt relief for the poorest countries, and emergency financing facilities as agreed at your last meeting on 15 April 2020. We also welcome the G20’s recognition of the necessity for governments to work together in a coordinated and coherent manner. At the same time, we think that more can and ought to be done to mitigate human suffering and promote a truly just and sustainable recovery.
As you are well aware, the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic has demonstrated how many countries are ill-equipped and poorly resourced to respond to an emergency of this scale and magnitude. It has exposed the deeper crisis which is a result of the current economic and development model, namely the exploitation of resources in a manner that destroys the planet and leaves the majority of people in poverty.
