Micah Challenge Australia Blog

 

The Micah Challenge blog is a space for discussion and debate about the issues of global poverty, faith, advocacy and justice and the Millennium Development Goals. This blog aims to provoke thought and challenge you to learn more about the issues discussed. We welcome your comments.

Micah Challenge is a global campaign of Christians speaking out against poverty and injustice. Click here to visit the Micah Challenge website.

  • Can you measure happiness?

    Posted by Amanda

    6 February, 2012

    Ever since the economic crisis, people have been questioning whether money = happiness. For years we were told that economic growth was vital for our well-being and the best way to help keep the economic engine healthy was to spend. Japan, with economic growth of 1% pa (or less) was like a spluttering 4-door sedan compared with India and China's turbo-charged growth of over 8%. You just need to look at some recent headlines from Bloomberg's Business Week to get the picture – "What's New for China's Miracle", "A Thousand Desires Bloom" and "India's New Worldly Women". More was good and happiness was shopping, as confirmed in a blog from the Economist. But times change. It's OK to save, to enjoy simple pleasures and to be content with less. Of course, Christians should applaud this trend as it echoes the biblical truth that pursuing wealth at the expense of others is unwise, greedy and even, ungodly. Some economists and politicians now talk of national well-being in terms broader and deeper than... read more

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  • Our daily bread

    Posted by Amanda

    12 December, 2011

    There was a good reason food was mentioned in the Lord’s Prayer – give us this day our daily bread - we do need to regularly remember that food is a blessing from God, to be appreciated. But our gratitude is being swamped by our wastefulness – too often we take food for granted. The Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) in a recent report estimates that 1.3 billion tones of food is wasted every year – a staggering 33% of all food produced! My country of residence, the UK, throws away 8.3 million tonnes of food every year. That means the average family throws away over £50 (AU$76) a month in wasted food. It’s the same in the EU, the US, Australia and other countries where food has a strict Use-By date and where access to cheap food means we prepare too much and throw too much away. Food is also wasted in developing countries but for different reasons: things like poor packing and storage facilities and inadequate infrastructure. But Western economies remain the champions of food waste. The FAO Report stated, “We... read more

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  • The trouble with politics

    Posted by Amanda

    24 November, 2011

    The trouble is that politicians are always looking to the next poll, the next election, the next emergency solution rather than making brave long-term and sustainable decisions. It’s often called the 'Eisenhower Principle' after his saying: "What is important is seldom urgent and what is urgent is seldom important." So earlier this month in Cannes, when leaders of all the major economies in the world gathered for the G20, short-term interventions to fix the urgent Eurozone crisis sucked the air and media attention from innovative important ideas. Greece, a nation of 11 million people, has managed to distract and frustrate G20 leaders. I wonder if other nations of 11 million outside Europe would have the same ability to attract bailout money of €200 billion / AU$275 billion (this is the total promised by the 2010 bailout and the latest package). Chad, Guinea and Tunisia all have a similar population but their poverty, their debt and their challenges go largely ignored. Haiti, a country with a population about the same as that of... read more

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  • Just the way it's always been

    Posted by Amanda

    31 October, 2011

    Leaders of the biggest economies in the world will meet in France later this week to discuss (and try to resolve) some big financial issues. The G20 will bring together leaders from 19 nations (plus the EU) who together represent 90% of the world’s GDP, 80% of the world’s trade and 66% of the world’s population. Fears about the health of the U.S. and European economies will inevitably be at the top of the political and media agenda. Of course, private meetings between bureaucrats and Ministers have been going on for months now to decide what the leaders will agree when they jet into Cannes. And in that lengthy process of negotiation and compromise, ideals inevitably get watered down – it’s a matter of what can be achieved much more than what should be achieved. In the 2005 film, “The Girl in the Café”, about an imaginary G20-type meeting, Lawrence, a consummate bureaucrat confesses, “We get into the habit of compromising and therefore we are always compromised.” President Sarkozy, who... read more

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