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The issue of food must be addressed "from a justice perspective". This will "not only ensure that people have food, but that their livelihoods and dignity are protected" while also protecting the environment, World Council of Churches (WCC) general secretary Samuel Kobia affirmed at the opening worship of the 47th Bread for the World (Brot fuer die Welt) campaign.
Preaching at the campaign's opening worship in Herrnhut, Germany, on 27 November, the first Sunday of Advent, Kobia affirmed the "ecclesial legacy of distributive justice as a basis for humanitarian assistance". Churches "have always [...] been engaged in the sharing of resources for the eradication of extreme poverty and hunger," he said.
Kobia recalled that "there is enough food for everyone in the world," but that "some 800 million starving people in the world" are hungry "because they do not have the purchasing capacity to buy food". Therefore, Christians should "question the dominant economic paradigm" that "places all trust on the market to solve hunger".
The 47th campaign of Bread for the World, a German evangelical aid agency created in 1959, which currently supports more than 1000 projects in Africa, Asia and Latin America, has as its theme: "God's rules for a just world" ("Gottes Spielregeln für eine gerechte Welt").