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Voices on the ground: peace, social justice, and ethics—the way to the end of hunger

Halfway to the sustainable development goals, the latest UN indicators show a record increase in hunger. The World Food Programme and Food and Agriculture Organization report that 828 million people are hungry, an increase of 46 million from the previous year and an increase of 150 million people since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. The number of people worldwide who cannot afford a healthy diet has increased by 112 million, reaching nearly 3.1 billion by 2020, the report said. Millions of people are at risk of falling into a vicious cycle of malnutrition, ill health, and poverty, exacerbating inequalities already visible to current and future generations.

Let the food systems nourish people and the planet rather than feed the profits of the privileged

The food system is a complex web of activities involving production, processing, transport, and consumption. Key issues concerning the food system include how food production affects the natural environment, the impact of food on individual and population health, the governance and economics of food production, its sustainability, and the degree to which we waste food.

Indigenous peoples and the pandemic in the land of inequalities

476 million indigenous people live around the world, of which 11.5% live in our Latin American region. In these years that we are going from the COVID 19 pandemic in our territories (indigenous or tribal at the Latin American level), the presence of many extractive companies, mainly uranium and lithium, has increased, land traffickers and among other monoculture companies with fires for the cultivation of oil palm, logging, putting vulnerable peoples at greater risk than what is already experienced.

Seven Weeks for Water 2020, week 6: "Water, food and trade: Impact on the Pacific Islands", by Athena Peralta and Dr Manoj Kurian

The 6th reflection of the Seven Weeks for Water 2020 is by Athena Peralta and Dr Manoj Kurian, programme executives of the World Council of Churches Economic and Ecological Justice programme and Ecumenical Advocacy Alliance, respectively. In this reflection, they are focusing on the perils of cash crops such as sugarcane, produced primarily for exporting, threatening to impact the freshwater levels of Fiji. Over-dependency on food import for its sustenance is not a sustainable practice.

WCC Programmes

Seven Weeks for Water 2020, week 5: "Water and Climate Change", by Dinesh Suna

The fifth reflection of the Seven Weeks for Water 2020 is by Dinesh Suna, coordinator of Ecumenical Water Network, World Council of Churches. He is a Lutheran and comes from India. In the following reflection, he explores the importance of “hand-washing” in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic while this basic facility is not available to millions of people, particularly to children. He dedicates this reflection to World Water Day which is being observed on 22 March with the theme “Water and Climate Change.”

WCC Programmes

Rev. Dr Olav Fykse Tveit’s address to the Seminar on Food and Water for Life (Hong Kong, 4 May 2019)

Food is central to life and our faith. It is a blessing and a gift of God, in the form of the abundant creation which we depend on for our sustenance. Food is also a reflection of the quality of our relationships with each other- our caring for the other and the sharing of resources and the hospitality we show each other. Food is central to our worship life, our liturgy and the Eucharist, which helps us to be one with God and with each other.

General Secretary

Are we closer to the mental tipping point?

Are we in a time when the message of the threats of climate change is on its way to sink into our shared consciousness? After being active in the climate debates in the ecumenical and interreligious discussions and advocacy work with not so much of a visible impact on policies and action I am wondering if we are getting closer to the point where we should have been 20 years ago. A point that says that humanity needs to choose another way if we are going to secure a decent future for coming generations and to save ecosystems and peoples opportunities to have a good and peaceful life together.

WCC Programmes

Seven Weeks for Water 2019, week 6: "Leaving no one behind: the crux of water for all in the context of SDG 6", by Dinesh Suna

The sixth reflection of the “Seven Weeks for Water 2019” of the World Council of Churches Ecumenical Water Network is by Dinesh Suna, coordinator of the network. Suna comes from the Jeypore Evangelical Lutheran Church in Odisha, India. In the following reflection, Suna emphasises that "the lost, the least and the last" are at the heart of both the Bible as well as the Sustainable Development Goals. From the gospel according to Luke, Suna identifies parables by Jesus that demonstrate Jesus’s preference for vulnerable communities and challenge us to have that positive bias towards them.

WCC Programmes

Seven Weeks fo Water 2019, week 5: "Securing water for food security and climate adaptation", by Athena Peralta and Manoj Kurian

The fifth reflection of the “Seven Weeks for Water 2019” of World Council of Churches’ Ecumenical Water Network is done jointly by Dr Manoj Kurian and Ms Athena Peralta, the Coordinator of WCC-Ecumenical Advocacy Alliance and Programme Executive of WCC Economic and Ecological Justice programmes respectively. In the following reflection, they underline the nexus between water, food and climate change and how our irresponsible consumption pattern on one can influence the other sectors.  They further challenge us to review our footprints on water, climate change etc and encourage us to take actions this Lent for making our planet more sustainable.

WCC Programmes

Water and the human right to food

Water is a key resource both to provide drinking water and to generate food and energy for a growing world population. A fifth of the global population lives in regions affected by water stress - in regions where more water is used than can naturally be recharged.