Introduction by the Archbishop of Canterbury George Carey

Thanks by the Archbishop of Central Africa Khotso Makhulu

Introduction by Archbishop of Canterbury

It is a great pleasure to welcome once again Mr. Noel Tredinnick and musicians and singers of All Souls' Church, Langham Place. Prime Minister, you see all around you the colourful leaders of the Anglican Communion. We represent 37 Provinces, shortly to become 38, and work in more than 164 countries. We work among the very poor as well as the very rich. We work among the most disadvantaged as well as the most privileged. We are halfway through our Conference and it seems that all is going very well indeed. There is a real sharing of concerns, new friendships are being made, needs are being shared. Differences are being confronted in a constructive spirit of Christian frankness, and love. Lady Chalker and I only this morning met together with a number of representative bishops, we met with the Chancellor of the Exchequer, the Secretary of State for International Development, a number of ambassadors and bankers to talk about the problem of international debt which is very much on our agenda.

Prime Minister, we are very grateful for the messages which you and Cherie sent at the beginning of the Conference because that act of thoughtfulness was greatly appreciated. But you are also welcome not only as a fellow Christian and Anglican, but as someone who has shown in your time as Prime Minster that your commitment to the human family doesn't stop at the shores of the British Isles. You are concerned by issues of world poverty, human rights, justice and peace. You have shown and are showing strong and compassionate leadership for which we thank you. And I particularly am personally grateful that at very short notice you agreed to speak to us. You are going to speak about the challenges and opportunities, I understand, facing the human family, and I invite you to address us now.

Prime Minister Tony Blair

Thank you very much indeed. Yet, I think this is quite the most terrifying audience I have ever set out on in my life. Are there really 750 Bishops here?

Well, I was very pleased that George said that all is going well with your Conference, that was of course before the politicians got here, but I don't, when Harold Macmillan was Prime Minster, he was once musing aloud on what he might describe a collection of politicians. And I have no idea how you would describe a collection of bishops, he said, well, you have got a flock of beasts and a herd of cows, he thought for a moment, and said, how are we going to describe a collection of politicians? A lack of principles probably!

Anyway, there is no shortage of principles or purple here today, and I am particularly pleased and indeed honoured, actually, to come along and address this Conference, with so many distinguished people from around the world. And the subject of your Conference, the day, could hardly be more important.

Which is, the subject of global poverty and the unpayable burden of debt weighing down many of the world's poorest countries. But I understand if I am right that the issue of debt was nominated by all nine Anglican Communion Provinces, as the subject for today's discussion and I think that is enormously powerful and symbolic in itself.

And if I can say to the Archbishop of Canterbury and to all of you who are engaged in the work that you are, I think, sometimes the Church gets attacked a lot of the time, gets criticised a lot of the time as you will all know, and indeed, we are pretty familiar with that syndrome too in my business, but I do believe that the Church does tremendous work, certainly in this country, I know all round the world, in towns and villages, in cities, a tremendous amount of work. Often unsung work, often work that goes totally unnoticed by the vast majority of people in a country, but it is work that is essential and has its own effect, I believe, in awakening the moral conscience, not just of a particular country, but indeed of the world. And I know not so very far from here, there is a centre for the homeless that is run by one of the Church charities, and to see the people there working with some of the most deprived, poorest, often psychologically disturbed members of the community, and to see people from the Church do that through sheer love of their common human beings, it is a tremendous signal to the whole country, and I know, as you say, that you do get attacked and criticised from time to time, but I think that the Churches in communities up and down this country, and I know throughout the world, contribute an enormous amount to the right spirit that should inform our society and indeed our political debates as well.

I also know that the Church, the Anglican Church, has played a great role as well, I would like to pay tribute to it, in peace in Northern Ireland, which is something we have been working very, very closely for, and indeed has worked with the other churches there in order to bring about greater spirit of reconciliation. And I think too, just before I come to my topic and the detail of what I wanted to say to you today. I think as well that one of the great things that a gathering like this can do, is not just to send an international signal, but also to send a signal of openness from the Churches themselves towards people, churches, of other religions. And I often reflect upon the fact that with all the differences in the world between Jews and Muslims and Christians, we are, after all, all derived as Abrahamic religions. We have actually got an awful lot in common in the values system that we have, and sometimes gatherings like this can send a very strong signal to that effect. These are the universal values of human progress, and they are important that we understand that and communicate that with people. I remember a short time ago I went to visit actually a Hindu temple, and I saw some of the phrases that were written up on the wall there and some of the stories and parables that were there, and the stories that were told, and I thought how many echoes there were with our own religion. So, when a Conference like this meets, of course you will discuss the affairs particular to the Lambeth Conference, and of course you will discuss some specific issues as well like debt and world poverty, but it is also a powerful signal to the rest of the world.

Anyway, I am delighted to be here, very much indeed.

I talk about globalisation as a politician very often, in terms of the trade liberalisation and the flows of capital, the opening of huge new markets, the revolution in technology and communications, and those are daunting challenges for the whole of the world. There are tremendous opportunities there, we should never forget that. I don't think we ever want to be people who simply sit there and say, globalisation should stop, technology is a threat and a danger, there are great opportunities opened up for our people as a result of the new communications, the new technologies, the greater trade in the world. But, they also bring with it tremendous challenges, and I think the most important thing that is happening in the world is that we don't let that global change rule us, but that we drive and subordinate it to the common good, and that the policies that we have as a government, in order to open up the world in terms of technology and trade, we are doing it deliberately and with a strategy that ensures that we don't just open up opportunities for more trade for one part of the world, when they are actually closing those opportunities off for another part. Now, there is no reason why that should happen if we get the right combination of policies to make it happen.

We live in a world today where as you know, 1.3 billion people, nearly a quarter of the world's population, two thirds of the women, continue to live in extreme poverty with an income of less than US$1 a day. Eight hundred million people end each day hungry, 900 million people are illiterate, 30,000 children die each day from readily preventable diseases and malnutrition. The causes of this poverty can be very complex. In some countries people are poor, because they lack education and employment opportunities, because they lack access to land, to markets or technology. Elsewhere people are poor, because they live under unjust or corrupt governments who misuse their countries' resources and violate human rights. Then the poor often suffer most from bad health or are victims of war or natural disasters, and frequently the poor are forced to over-exploit their own environment, destroying forests to get access to land, using trees for fuel and therefore causing solaration and problems for the environment.

The central point that we have tried to get across as a government, when talking about issues of aid and development, is that, of course, it is important to deal with these issues as a matter of moral duty and compassion, but we also believe that we have a common interest, mutually shared, in tackling these problems of poverty and injustice.

In our rapidly shrinking world, the fates of peoples across the world are more and more bound together. The new global challenges, whether it is climate change, or crime or terrorism, mass migration, these are problems that we solve together as one global community or not at all. Sorry, I hope that is not international crime and terrorism at our gates over there [PM is interrupted by sirens]! But any of these issues can be solved if we work together. Take the global environment. Global environmental threats require co-ordinated global action. And that means marrying together the agendas of environment and the agendas of development. We know that developing countries fear that industrialised countries may seek to impose environmental controls which will prevent their development. It will be impossible, however, to reach effective global agreement on those major environmental challenges, unless we commit ourselves at the same time to securing real progress in development for the poorest countries. So the issues of environmental challenge and the issues of development, are intimately connected together. Again, you can see the same mutual interdependence in the area of security. Poverty is itself a major source of instability. Most of today's wars are fought within the poorest countries, and the poor are the principle victims of those wars. But the effects of that conflict are very rarely contained within the borders of one state. They have got the capacity to spill over boundaries, generate instability, refugees, further conflict, to demand for humanitarian assistance, and eventually for external intervention. So, there is a task there for peacekeeping and security, which has again to tie in with the agenda for poverty and development. One of the reason why we in our country, we launched a major review of our defence forces, so that our defence forces could be better equipped for today's world in which as well as obviously defending the country they will be intervening, often, in international situations of conflict where we require a different type of defence force and a different type of flexibility and mobility from before. The point that I am making, however, is that our action, whether it is on the environment or on poverty or on security is intimately linked together. Development, giving people a stake in their societies is, as Kofi Annan put it, the prevention of conflict begins and ends with the promotion of human security and human development. Now, it is for all these reasons that we have tried to strengthen our commitment to international development. On taking office last year we created a department for International Development. Last November we published a White Paper on the Government's policy for development strategy, and that put a new and strong emphasis on the international poverty eradication strategy. A set of internationally agreed goals for poverty reduction, which derived from the great UN conferences of the past decade, they commit us to halving the proportion of the world's population living in abject poverty by the year 2015, and providing education and health care for all by that date. Our aim then, as a government, is to mobilise international support for the achievement of these agreed targets and the policies necessary to do so. It means building partnerships with developing country governments, which are serious about reducing poverty, pursuing sensible economic policies, and upholding human rights. However, our policy on aid goes further than simply money. It is about investing in health and education, particularly the education of girls, it means promoting sustainable livelihoods, and it means creating a fairer international system of trade. Our development effort therefore, has gone far beyond merely the delivery of aid.

On trade we have tried to argue that the benefits of globalisation need to be spread more widely, so that developing countries feel that they, too, have a stake in the world's trading system. And during our presidency of the European Community recently we fought hard and successfully for a mandate for the renegotiation of the Lome Convention that should protect the trading interests of the 71 African, Caribbean and Pacific countries, and that was a real achievement of our presidency.

Now, I know that today on debt Gordon Brown and Clare Short have already set out the Government's policy in some detail. I believe that we made some significant progress at the G8 conference in Birmingham. I know that many people feel that it wasn't enough, that is always the case, that is what you learn about being in Government, it is never enough, but we are trying to do more and we will try to do more, and this Government attaches the highes priority to doing that. We are working to ensure that by the year 2000 all highly indebted poor countries have embarked on a systematic process of debt reduction under the Mauritius Mandate, we are taking the initiative in accelerating IMF assistance to post-conflict countries, we set aside a special sum of money as a supplement for individual donors amounting to £60 million, and we must ensure that countries are getting the relief they need in order to secure a lasting exit to the debt problems that so dogged their development. So, on trade, again we have tried to push the boat out and move further. But on aid, we also need greater flows of official development assistance. That is why we have made a commitment to increasing spending on development, so that we are reversing a long period of years of decline, and we have begun to move towards the UN target of 0.7% of national income.

It will mean a cash increase in our aid and development budget of some £1.6 billion over the next three years. I think that is a clear measure of our commitment to development. This extra money will be spent on achieving measurable progress against the key international development goals. More access to primary education, lower maternal and child mortality, reversing the loss of environmental resources to a national strategies for sustainable development. As a concrete example of what I mean by this, we are today committing some £18 million to help eradicate polio in East Africa over the next three years. That is additional money. Working together with the World Health Organisation, we shall provide immunisation for all infants in Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda. Now, that is just one example of what we can do to give a whole generation of children the chance to lead healthier lives.

Sometimes, when we make the greater commitment, whether it is in aid or development, or in resources necessary to promote policies of sustainable development for the environment, people say to us, well, the country doesn't want to spend money on these things. People don't want to pay money out for these types of activity. I believe that that is wrong. I think that the British people do want Britain to provide a lead in the international efforts to eliminate poverty, and they want to feel pride and commitment in what we are doing, actually what they are doing through us to help others throughout the world.

I know that from time to time people will argue against this and say that it doesn't fulfil the purpose we have set out for it, but I do believe that to be fundamentally wrong. I also know that it will always be the desire of the Church to say, "You could do more." There are other and better and different things you could be doing, and that is always going to be the role of the Church to warn and to criticise, to face power, if you like, with truth.

But I think that we are embarked on a different era of international relations for the future. For a long period of time, people did regard issues of aid and debt simply as issues of compassion. And of course they are issues of compassion. We want to make sure that we are making a commitment to people who are in need, and we do that within our own society as well as outside it. But just as I would argue in Britain today that if we have a large group of young people who are permanently excluded from the work force, or you have got groups of people growing up in inner city estates without family stability, with crime and drugs and poor educational opportunity and high levels of unemployment, just as I would argue that in the end that problem affects all of Britain and all of our society, so, I would argue to you, that when we forget the needs of those countries that desperately have to develop and change over a period of time to become prosperous and do well, when we forget those needs we all lose as a result of that. It is not a situation in which we have to choose between the interests of our own country and the interests of others. That extra commitment that we are making to aid and development, is a commitment that I believe serves this country well, as well as the countries to whom we are making that commitment.

And that, after all, is the basic principle of community. It is the basic political philosophy that informs my life, the idea that we owe obligations to one another as well as to ourselves, but more than that, that in part we fulfil our own talent and potential through what we do with others. That essential guiding concept, a belief in the dignity and worth of each human being is not some platitude that we should dismiss. It is actually at the heart of ensuring that our nation and our world have some sense of purpose. You see, it is very easy today to be cynical about these values, and I guess probably in the Church you meet as much cynicism as you do in politics, and I don't say from time to time we don't practice a bit. Certainly my branch of the profession, if you like, but in the end the belief that there is something more than me is the only basic belief that it is worth running a society or country upon. And the fact that we have all these people here today, and I don't doubt everyone will have a great time in the week, as I was reading in the foreword to your little pamphlet that you produced, the most important thing is that people come from all different parts of the world, they share the problems that you have, they see some of the common solutions, and most of all they recommit themselves to those universal values which inform the Church and indeed inform the best part of any society. And the fact that we have the chance today if I might say so, for religion to be seen not as some exclusive sect, which is the worst part of the way that people see religion, but as the possibility of opening up the world to other people and sharing certain common values that bring people together. The fact that we have that possibility today, should be a cause for optimism. I am essentially, as we approach the 21st Century, optimistic about it. I know that sounds very strange when we look around the world today and we see all the poverty and the disease and the war, but I am optimistic because I think we can leave behind the prejudices that informed the worst part of the value system that used to dominate all our countries in the world, and we can leave in place and intact the best of the values of basic justice, of belief in community, the notion of society being important to advance the individual. So, when I look ahead and I see all the challenges they are and I realise that my kids are going to grow up in a completely different world to the world that I inhabited, and if any of you have ever sat and watched your own children in front of a computer terminal, if you are lucky enough to have one, and you see a child operating that computer, and you feel a deep sense of humiliation and inadequacy. You know, they are going to grow up in a completely different world, it is true. But the values that they will need to make sense of that world are the values that people have used to make sense of the world since time immemorial. That never changes. And indeed, the more the world opens up, and the more the opportunities there are, the more those values are important. And if we ever forget that, then, of course, that is when we descend into the dark ages. The dark ages aren't a product of a lack simply of technology or advancement, they are a product of when people forget the basic values that make life worthwhile.

So, if I could just say to you, George, and to all your colleagues, I am delighted and thrilled to come along here today to tell you some of the things that we have been doing in respect of aid and development. To say to you how immensely gratified we are that you are here, to make you feel very welcome and to say to you that we look ahead, let's feel that sense of optimism. I think there is a lot to be hopeful for, and as you know better than me, there is a lot more work to do.

Thank you.

Archbishop of Canterbury

Prime Minister, that applause indicates the warmth of our response to that excellent speech. I am now going to call upon one of our most significant leaders in the Anglican Communion, the Archbishop of Central Africa, the Most Revd Khotso Makhulu, to express on our, all of us, our grateful thanks. Khotso.

Reply by Archbishop of Central Africa Khotso Makhulu

Your Grace, Prime Minister, distinguished guests, when I was a young man I went to a doctor's surgery and there was a lady there singing the praises of her beautiful child. And the doctor said, "Father, don't worry. Every mother sees beauty within the ugliest child". And sometimes when I look at us in the Church, that is how I feel God looks at us!

We are indeed most grateful to you, sir, for having come to address us on such a very important subject, because what you are really saying is what we are struggling with during our Conference. Our different sections of the Conference are really at best trying to address what it is that we can do to realise the best in humanity. And so whether you speak of our responsibility about justice in society, about peace in the world, about community, ultimately, you are saying to us something about the affirmation of people at every level. The poor, the simple, the marginalised, the unloved, the ugly, the beautiful, the plump, the slim, you are saying something about their inherent dignity. When you talk of the global, whether it be through trade or in the search of peace and other models of good governance, you are also indirectly reminding us of the global aspect of the Grace of God. Because that grace is indeed about our betterment, about our affirmation, and if it is at all possible to make the ugliest of us beautiful. So with these few words, I would like to thank you and thank you for the encouragement that your words bring to many of us, so that we can look at the poor once again with a sense of hope, that, yes, although Rome was not built in a day, there are things in place that will do something to enhance quality of life, the betterment of people and indeed to join with you in seeing children who are able to switch on to a computer terminal, but much more importantly, but to live in a world of peace where our children can walk hand in hand, arm in arm, irrespective of race, colour or creed for a better tomorrow.

Thank you.