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The Archbishop of Westminster, Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor, president of the Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales, has urged the British government to maintain its promise of donating a part of the nation’s wealth to the poorest countries of the world. Over thirty years have gone by the cardinal recalled – since Great Britain promised to the United Nations to donate 0.7% of its gross domestic product in aid to the developing countries. But the promise has never been kept, nor has a date been fixed for it to be honoured. During a meeting at the House of Commons at Westminster, Cardinal Murphy-O’Connor said that Great Britain ought to maintain its promise by 2012. “I cannot imagine any more convincing sign than this: for the poor of the world to be at the centre of our concerns”, he explained during a meeting organized by the Catholic association of aid to the Third World, CAFOD, emphasizing that, if the current level of aid is continued, the United Kingdom will only achieve its objective of 0.7% of GDP as aid to development in forty years’ time. According to the president of the Bishops’ Conference, the multilateral round of negotiations launched by the World Trade Organization (WTO), at its meeting just ended at Doha in Qatar, ought to guarantee to all countries a “vital opportunity for change”. The objective of these negotiations, which ought to be concluded in 2004, according to the timetable approved at Doha, must be, in the archbishop’s view, that of “eliminating the factors that have prevented the poorest countries from harvesting the fruits they hoped for from the liberalization of trade”. CAFOD fears that the WTO negotiations will end up by enlarging, rather than narrowing, the gap between rich and poor. That’s why the association, in recent days, organized a demonstration for justice in trade in London. Calling for fairer rules in international trade, it drew over 7,000 participants to Trafalgar Square.
