Micah Challenge UK
| Type | Anti-poverty coalition |
|---|---|
| Focus | Mobilising Christians against global poverty |
| Location |
|
| Website | www.micahchallenge.org.uk |
Micah Challenge UK is a coalition of Christian development agencies, organisations, churches and groups, mobilising UK Christians against global poverty. As one of 39 campaigns worldwide it forms part of the wider international Micah Challenge movement of Christians seeking to hold governments to account to see that the Millennium Development Goals are met by 2015.
In the late 1990s a wide coalition of aid agencies, trade unions, churches and campaign groups grew up calling for the cancellation of unpayable developing world debt by the year 2000. Jubilee 2000, as this movement was called, was inspired by the biblical idea of the year of Jubilee. Christians were key in its birth and development and the church in the UK was the bedrock of its high-profile and successful campaigning work.
Shortly after, at the United Nations Millennium Summit in 2000, 189 member states signed the Millennium Declaration, aimed to reduce extreme poverty by 2015. The framework to measure progress towards this was provided by a set of eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).
Seeing Christians playing such a key role in Jubilee 2000 and recognising that the Millennium Declaration itself was, in many ways, a response to this advocacy activity, key figures within the World Evangelical Alliance (WEA) and the Micah Network of Christian relief and development agencies discussed how this influence could be maintained. The Millennium Development Goals were considered to be a tremendous opportunity for Christians to continue to influence policy makers.
UK representatives of Tearfund and the General Director of the UK Evangelical Alliance, put together a proposal to focus the combined strength of the WEA and the Micah Network through a global advocacy campaign. This proposal pitched to a meeting of the Micah Network in Seattle in 2003, was accepted and the concept of Micah Challenge was born. Micah Challenge was launched globally on 15 October 2004, timed to coincide with the UN International Day for the Eradication of Poverty. Approximately 11 national campaigns were launched around the world during that year, and this number has steadily increased until by the end of 2006 Micah Challenge was present in 36 countries in both the global south and the global north.
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