World Vision UK is urging G20 leaders to ensure the world’s most vulnerable people have an even keel in next weeks meeting in London. Since the world meeting in 2000 aimed at eradicating poverty by 2015, the current economic crisis stands to seriously undermine the achievement of this goal.

World Vision’s Advocacy Director for Africa, Sue Mbaya, said –

We’re concerned by some reports that the G20 will pursue a narrow agenda centred on piecemeal financial regulation. The summit will have failed if it doesn’t reach firm agreement on measures to protect the poorest and most vulnerable people around the world who are being hit by the secondary effects of the financial crisis. The World Bank estimates that this year alone the global economic crisis is set to trap 53 million more people into poverty. This is a double whammy for Africa, on the back of last year’s rise in food and fuel prices that drove more than 130 million driven into poverty in 2008. These numbers, and the human reality behind them, cannot be ignored.

World Vision are organising a peaceful demonstration with other members of the ‘Put People First Coalition’ in London on Saturday 28th March ahead of the G20 summit, to remind world leaders that people must come first in the decisions that they make.

Sue Mbya continued –

The cost of saving millions of lives is small in comparison to over $1 trillion already spent on bail-out packages to banks by the same countries that have been failing on a promise made in 2005 to increase aid by $25 billion a year to help developing countries. According to the World Bank foreign aid to sub-Saharan Africa is likely to decrease due to the financial crisis.  We simply can’t stand by and let this happen.