By Anglican Alliance, with contribution from ACNS staff

The Anglican Alliance has joined more than 30 leaders from world religions and global faith-based organisations in a commitment to collective action to end extreme poverty by 2030.

The leaders have signed a declaration, Ending Extreme Poverty: A Moral and Spiritual Imperative, that sets out a vision for action: that humanity has both the responsibility and the capability to lift the last billion people out of extreme poverty in our generation.

This is a goal shared by the World Bank Group, which has convened a dialogue process with faith groups under the leadership of World Bank President Jim Kim.

The declaration highlights the gains made since 1990 in raising nearly a billion people out of poverty. It cites the evidence from the World Bank and elsewhere that the world now has the capacity to end the injustice of extreme poverty.

The declaration, drafted by a multi-faith committee, was discussed and shaped at the roundtable convened by the World Bank Group in February 2015. This was the first high-level meeting between President Jim Kim and leaders from religious communities and global faith-based organisations. The Anglican Alliance was represented at the meeting by Co-Executive Director, Rachel Carnegie.

"The Anglican Alliance will give its best efforts to connect and strengthen the response of churches and agencies across the Anglican Communion in collaboration with others to fulfil this vision of ending extreme poverty. Our scriptures speak of God’s call for justice,” said Carnegie.

Recent years had seen millions lifted out of poverty, she said further. “We must complete this work, so no one is left behind. To God no one is invisible.”

She said that the inequalities in the world should not be allowed to deepen and wound the very body of our common humanity and to undermine best efforts to eradicate poverty and injustice. “Our focus is on sustainable development, in which economic growth is balanced with the needs of the environment, so that all humanity can flourish in harmony with the planet."

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Read more on the Anglican Alliance website.