BWA General Council Resolution 1982.1
The General Council of the Baptist World Alliance, meeting in Nairobi, Kenya:
2. Notes that October 16 is the anniversary date of the founding of the UN Food and Agricultural Organization has been declared World Food Day.
3. Supports the proposal of BWAid that October be set aside as World Hunger Month and agrees with the following contentions:
- that food for every child’s growth and for lifelong health is a basic human right;
- that the well-being of farms and farm families is vital to national and world progress;
- that careful stewardship of the land and water resources on which food production depends is a global responsibility;
- that all nations would work together to build a fail-proof system for world food security and world food justice;
- urges the BWA member bodies to participate in this observance, not as a single day or single month event but to be aware of the responsibility we have to hungry people around the world every day of the year.
With 15-20 million people dying from the effects of hunger each year, 40,000 each day, 28 each minute (21 of them children), half the world’s population going to bed hungry every night, 1.2 billion people without pure water, 1.6 billion without effective medical care, 12.6 million refugees, we need to hear again Christ’s statement: “As you did it to one of the least of these…you did it to me.”
4. Pleads for massive support from our Unions/Conventions, churches and individuals to do all that is in our power in both relief and development to reverse this situation which is an insult to the Creator and a crushing indictment on us all.
Furthermore, to bring pressure on those governments in a position to help to see it as a major priority in their economic planning. It is our conviction that food for the hungry can never be seen as a political weapon.
Citations
Original Source Bibliography: Claas, Gerhard, editor. Baptist World Alliance 1982 Yearbook: Minutes of the General Council Meeting and Directory. Washington, DC: Baptist World Alliance, 1982.
Original Source Footnote/Endnote: Gerhard Claas, ed., Baptist World Alliance 1982 Yearbook: Minutes of the General Council Meeting and Directory (Washington, DC: Baptist World Alliance, 1982), p. 69.
Online Document Full Citation: BWA General Council Resolution 1982.1 World Hunger; https://baptistworld.org/resolutions.
In-text Online Document Citation: (BWA General Council Resolution 1982.1).