CHRISTIAN AID ELECTION MANIFESTO 2010

'Poverty is an outrage against humanity. It robs people of dignity, justice, freedom and hope, of power over their own lives. Poverty is political, a scandal created and perpetuated by our own systems and structures. At its core lies the misuse of power, within and among countries, groups and individuals. But a problem created by people can be solved by people and, in the wake of the economic crisis, there has never been a better time to challenge its existence.'

These words are not mine, or those of the Green Party. They are the preamble to the Christian Aid Election Manifesto 2010.

http://www.christianaid.org.uk/Images/ChristianAid2010ElectionManifesto.pdf

The document then identifies five areas for action:

• make development work for poor people
• deliver climate justice
• link transparency and taxation to support development
• invest in good government and crack down on corruption
• support the transformation of conflict into sustainable politics

I strongly support the Christian Aid manifesto and the determined action it requires. It is in close alignment with the policies that the Green Party urges voters to support in the general election in just a few weeks.

Social justice is a fundamental concern to Greens. It is the poor that are suffering most due to climate change.

I believe we should reassess the nature of debt, by recognising the historical ecological debt owed by rich to poor countries. The ecological debt has been built up by: the extraction of natural resources without proper payment, the use of local and indigenous knowledge for the development of products - eg medicines - without proper recompense, the use of local land for mono-crop export rather than for feeding the local population, and the appropriation of the atmosphere for the disproportionate emission of climate change gases.

Simultaneously, the Green Party wants to see the cancellation of all unjust and unsustainable traditional debt 'owed' by the developing world to richer countries. At the moment there are lots of strings attached to debt cancellation, often unjust and undemocratic in themselves. We want to see these strings removed.

We have plenty of local problems in Mid Bedfordshire, and those issues are rightly of great concern in this general election. But voters also have an opportunity to send a clear call for action against global injustice and poverty.