“One quarter of the world population is poorer today than they were 10 years ago,” according to a video report presented by the United Nations’ Commission for Social Development in New York on Feb. 17.

Following the presentation, Vusi Madonsela, director general of the Department of Social Development of the government of South Africa, spoke of his ongoing concerns since the 1995 Copenhagen Declaration.

“In Copenhagen, countries agreed to improve the framework for cooperation for social development,” Madonsela said.  “Ten years later, we find ourselves in a world of even greater interdependence ... yet conflict, poverty and disease continue to foreshorten the lives of many.”

He added, “Much work remains if the goals are to be realized. What is needed is a people-centered approach, above abstract thinking. My government hopes that capitals will now give the outcome full consideration by addressing the most important questions facing this age: the imprisonment of poverty, unemployment and social disintegration. That is the least the citizens of the world expect from us.”

Reviewing past performance, Johan Scholvinck, director of the United Nation’s division for Social Policy, highlighted the fact that U.S. $1 trillion is spent every year on military defense—20 times more than is spent on social development.

Representing the Seventh-day Adventist Church at the Commission meetings were Jonathan Gallagher, U.N. Liaison director, and Christopher Banks, volunteer intern.

“As a world church, we follow the clear example of Jesus who announced the gospel to the poor, healing the brokenhearted, and deliverance to the captives,” said Gallagher. “We are committed to the betterment of humanity, in the physical sphere as well as the spiritual. Adventists around the globe would endorse the statement made in the report, that ‘no human being should be consigned to a life of poverty just because of their place of birth, gender, social status, religious affiliation, or ethnicity.’”

In a statement on homelessness and poverty voted in 1990, the church recognized that “individuals and families are destituted by political, economic, cultural, or social events largely beyond their control,” and that as Christians “we are to restore and care for the poor. If we carry out the principles of the law of God in acts of mercy and love, we will represent the character of God to the world.”