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Recalling the World Council of Churches' (WCC) foundational mandate to make "the church in every place a voice for those who have no voice" as well as its firm commitment to justice, rooted in the "ecumenical perception of God's preferential option for the poor," WCC general secretary Samuel Kobia affirmed encounters with the Bretton Woods institutions as a "critical engagement in the search for viable pathways towards global justice, so that all people can have their fair share in the common wealth of all".
"Through mutual listening and dialogue, we have reached a basis of understanding which allows the WCC and the IMF and World Bank to engage together on areas of mutual concern and identify areas of disagreement," Kobia commented after a breakfast meeting at WCC headquarters with World Bank (WB) president James D. Wolfensohn and International Monetary Fund (IMF) managing director Rodrigo de Rato. The meeting prepared the encounter of representatives of the three institutions to be held this afternoon at the same venue; the encounter is expected to produce a Joint Statement and will be followed by a press conference (see programme below).
Anticipating his planned remarks for the afternoon's discussions, Kobia also highlighted the Council's concern to put people at the centre of economic development. "For us, it is essential to listen to the cries of the people in order to achieve a new, just, global order," he stressed.
When listening to those cries, including those coming from the growing number of inhabitants of the "global South" within the Council's constituency, certain concrete concerns, among them the international debt, can be clearly heard. "Since millions have borne the social, political and ecological costs of the tenacious cycle of debt, the churches understand themselves to have been called to seek effective ways of breaking the stranglehold of debt, to redress its consequences and to ensure that subsequent debt crises will not recur," Kobia stated.
Recognizing that "the World Bank’s vision of a poverty-free world resonates well with a substantial portion of the Council's analysis," Kobia also manifested the concern that "poverty 'reduction', rather than eradication, is a trickle-down approach to development that implies that some people are expected to remain poor".
The Council is also "troubled by assumptions of growth without limit, and neglect of the ramifications of growth as regards issues of equity and the ecology," and it remains "profoundly concerned about the issue of human rights and justice in regard to the acknowledgment of voices and apportionment of votes in the governing bodies of the Bretton Woods institutions," Kobia added.
Manifesting his gratitude for the "openness to honest dialogue that the IMF and the World Bank have shown in the process," Kobia expressed the hope that the dialogue may continue since "there is still a great deal that each of us can learn".
This afternoon's meeting, which ends with a press conference, is open to the press provided advance accreditation is requested. See the programme at:
www2.wcc-coe.org/pressreleasesen.nsf/index/pr-04-49.html
High-resolution photos of the encounter are available on our website at: