PITTSBURGH (ABP) — Faith leaders including the missions coordinator of the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship said the Sept. 24-25 G-20 Summit in Pittsburgh provided a unique opportunity to raise their concerns about the plight of the world's poor.
Religious leaders, including CBF Global Missions Coordinator Rob Nash, fourth from right, process to a meeting with members of the U.S. delegation to the G-20 Summit Pittsburgh, Pa.
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Rob Nash, coordinator of global missions for the Atlanta-based CBF, was one of more than 25 Christian, Jewish and Islamic religious leaders at a Sept. 23 Faith Leaders Summit organized by groups including CBF partner Bread for the World.
"It was a privilege for me to join with other religious leaders in representing the needs of the most neglected peoples of the world at the G-20 Summit," Nash said. "My prayer is that global leaders will take seriously the realities of hunger and poverty as they fashion a response to the current economic crisis."
Formed in 1999, the Group of 20 is comprised of finance ministers and central-bank governors from 19 countries and the European Union. It is replacing the Group of 8 nations — Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States — as the new global forum for economic issues.
Faith leaders gathered in Pittsburgh called on world leaders to remember the 1 billion people who live in extreme poverty in their deliberations about actions needed for recovery from the global economic crisis.
"The most important indicator of economic recovery should be what happens to hungry and poor people — the many families who are struggling in our own country and the tens of millions who have been driven into hunger around the world," said David Beckmann, president of Bread for the World, a collective Christian voice urging U.S. decision-makers to end hunger at home and abroad.