PSC calls on Govts – ‘Build Back Better’

The following resolution was approved by the recent meeting of ASCA’s Provincial Standing Committee:

This PSC, noting:

The Corona pandemic has exposed the deep health and economic inequalities in our nations. “The virus has exposed the unsustainable foundations on which it is built… that must be urgently fixed,” said Archbishop Desmond Tutu.

We cannot go back to ‘business as usual’ once COVID-19 is under control. We need a new vision. Our call is for a more just and fair world, for humans and for the web of life on which we depend. The challenge is to envision a different post COVID19 society “a more equitable future, a more just future, a gentler future”. (Archbishop Thabo). We need to use the post COVID19 rebuild period to implement goals of wellbeing and sustainability, ending inequality and environmental destruction.

Our present lifestyle and economic system is severely dysfunctional, resulting in environmental destruction, causing climate change and extinction of millions species. The resultant breakdown of our life support systems is causing increasing inequality, poverty and migration.

Resolves to:

a) Call upon our Governments to implement the Basic Income Grant to reduce abject poverty and malnutrition.

b) Call for post COVID-19 Government spending to prioritise job creation in green jobs in the following areas:

· Clean power. Invest in local small scale renewable mini-grid energy solutions. End fossil fuel subsidies immediately

· Invest in public transport. Increase funding for safe, efficient and affordable public transport, which includes electric vehicles.

· Deliver energy efficient homes. Build new houses which are energy efficient and retrofit existing buildings.

· Food security: Invest in more sustainable and nature-based climate resilient solutions. Encourage farmers to move away from industrial farming practices to agroecological systems, supporting small scale farmers and promoting home food gardens.

· Avoid rollbacks of environmental protection legislation and ensure foreign economic assistance is used to support resilient and carbon neutral recovery and development.

· Land and marine sanctuaries: Support the call for 30% of land and coastal waters to be set aside as sanctuaries to save critically threatened terrestrial and marine life.

Respectfully requests

Each member of PSC to sign an open letter to the Heads of State in the countries served by the Anglican Church of Southern Africa, delivering this resolution.