Vatican conference on global solidarity in face of humanitarian needs
March 01, 2016
The Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences recently hosted a conference on the world’s urgent humanitarian needs.
The conference was co-chaired by the Kristalina Georgieva, a Bulgarian economist who serves as vice president of the European Commission, and Nazrin Shah of Perak, a Malaysian sultan.
“Imagine a country of 125 million citizens, the planet’s eleventh largest, made up entirely of people who are in need of urgent humanitarian assistance,” they wrote on the eve of the conference. “Now imagine a country of 60 million citizens, the same size as Italy. That is the number of people who have been forced from their homes by conflicts – and the toll continues to rise.”
Other speakers included Archbishop Paul Gallagher, the Vatican’s Secretary for Relations with States; Archbishop Marcelo Sánchez Sorondo and Margaret Archer, the chancellor and president of the pontifical academy; Anglican Archbishop Desmond Tutu; and Stephen O’Brien, the United Nations’ Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator.
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Further information:
- Reaffirming Global Solidarity, Restoring Humanity (Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences)
- Reaffirming Global Solidarity, Restoring Humanity (European Commission)
- Talks from the conference (YouTube, EndSlavery)
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