On July 12, 2022, at the Baptist World Alliance Conference at Samford University, Birmingham, the Hunger and Poverty Task Team under the BWA Commission on Human Rights, Peacebuilding and Reconciliation submitted a paper titled Loving Our Neighbors: A Timely Contextual and Advocacy Approach to Addressing Hunger and Poverty.
In this paper, the Task Team listed three recommendations for the BWA and its affiliated bodies and institutions to adopt, as practical steps to erase poverty and hunger. The recommendations included: (1) Confess our complicity in the plight of those affected by hunger and poverty and exhibit lifestyles more exemplary of stewarding the resources that belong to all people as a first step in developing strategic partnerships and an action plan with global, regional, and local civil society and faith organizations for achieving the UN Sustainable Development Goals 2030. (2) Cultivate relationships with governments, public policy leaders, and various governance bodies to advocate for “pro-peoples’” policies on poverty, hunger and human development and insist on responsible exercises of democratic governance and self-determination to create inclusive and responsive systems. Such pro-active engagement can help reduce increased cases of conflict and war. (3) Be in solidarity with and advocate with Indigenous and various racialized peoples and communities that were colonized and marginalized, and that have lost their lands, forests, and resources and disproportionally affected by climate change, racial and gender inequities as well as illegal or corrupt acquisition by governments and multinational corporations.
Furthermore, the Task Team urged that “the recommendations should be implemented in a manner that is interdisciplinary, decolonizing, re-humanizing, and reflective of an ethic of Christian love.” It believed that this “will better ensure a people-centered, bottom-up approach that will emphasize our shared humanity and people of faith.”
Since the Nagaland Baptist Church Council (NBCC) is an affiliated member to the BWA, it needs to respond to this call to eradicate poverty and hunger in Nagaland and throughout the region. First steps could include talking about Hunger and Poverty and engaging in serious dialogue on how to implement the Task Team’s recommendation. The NBCC could have a leading role addressing these serious issues of inequality through social engagement by the church.
Hunger and Poverty are realities that impact millions of people in tangible ways. Though experienced globally, they are fundamentally contextual, and their constitutive effects are manifested in ways that are particular to the context in which they occur. The consequences of COVID-19 Pandemic have increased the conditions of Hunger and Poverty while exposing how existing systems are designed to respond to only a few, and not for all of humanity.
Hunger and Poverty are interconnected and involve multiple factors, driven by inequality which are structural and systemic in nature. For many indigenous peoples around the world, including Nagas, this is a symptom, a by-product of centuries of colonial oppression, economic exploitation and the denial of the basic right to self-determination. Given our current state of global affairs, the state of Hunger and Poverty and its intersectional relationship with other issues is even more urgent.
The most recent The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2022 released on July 6, 2022, reported that as many as 828 million people were affected by hunger in 2021 and that “an estimated 29.3 percent of the global population – (2.3 billion people) – were moderately or severely food insecure, and 11.7 percent (923.7 million people) faced severe food insecurity.” The report also pointed out the growing gender gap in food insecurity.
A May 4, 2022, news release by the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) on Global Report on Food Crises listed the key drivers behind rising acute food insecurity in 2021. The FAO pointed out that: Wars and conflicts have pushed more than 139 million people in 24 countries into acute food insecurity; extreme weather events have been responsible for extreme hunger for another 23 million people in eight countries, while economic shocks have affected 30 million people in 21 countries.
According to David Beasley, head of the U.N. World Food Program, “a record 345 million acutely hungry people are marching to the brink of starvation.” He further stated, “There’s a real danger it will climb even higher in the months ahead. “Even more worrying is that when this group is broken down, a staggering 50 million people in 45 countries are just one step away from famine.”
All these data and information remind us of the clear link between Conflict, Climate, Energy, Health, Economic and Finance in the struggle against Hunger and Poverty. A common thread that weaves our collective response to Hunger and Poverty is Justice and Peace – a JustPeace. History has demonstrated that without Peace, Hunger and Poverty will continue to increase. We need to reflectively ask ourselves whether catalyzing JustPeace is the answer to Hunger and Poverty.
“No Poverty” and “Zero Hunger” are the first two goals of the United Nations’ 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) (2015) as part of their vision for “peace and prosperity for people and the planet, now and into the future.” The aim is to achieve these interconnected goals by 2030. What does this mean for us Nagas, the majority of whom are Christians, and are called to love our neighbors?
Hunger and Poverty, being without food and economic means, denies us the ability to be fully human. This means our response to Hunger and Poverty must go beyond being speculative or theoretical, rather it needs to be personal, contextual, holistic, critical, practical, transformative and sustainable.
