|PIC1|Famous Christian author, speaker and broadcaster Jeff Lucas has launched a new educational film, which is appealing for Christians to take responsibility for those living in poverty across the world.

The educational film, produced by child sponsorship charity Compassion UK, follows Lucas on his recent trip to the troubled country of Ethiopia.

Lucas reported, “This is a great resource to encourage the Church to take up the responsibility we have to our brothers and sisters across the world. I encourage every church to get hold of a copy.”

Following last year’s G8 Summit at Gleneagles in Scotland, it was hoped that large steps would be taken towards the full eradication of poverty across much of the world.

However, in June this year, UK charity Oxfam joined a number of relief and aid organisations in declaring that the aid increases made by the world’s richest G8 countries are not enough to meet the promises they made at the Gleneagles meeting last year.

|TOP|The G8 countries made the commitment to increase development spending by £27 billion a year by 2010. The raw data, showing a £11.4 billion increase in development spending in 2005 over 2004, look as if they show some progress towards that target.

However, Oxfam says 80 per cent of that figure was in the one-off cancellation of debt to Nigeria, along with cancellation of debt to Iraq. The charity states that if those figures are taken out then “the underlying trend in aid by some G8 countries actually gives cause for serious concern”.

Oxfam has said, however, that the debt cancellation and other measures have made a real difference. It says, “Across Africa, lifting the burden of debt is allowing millions of dollars to be directed to fighting poverty instead of repaying rich countries.”

But in combining the total together with other development payments, the developed world is "double counting" the money.

|AD|“The danger is that this will mask a failure to increase the underlying volume of real aid in line with their Gleneagles commitments, allowing the G8 to take their foot off the accelerator,” say Oxfam.

Oxfam’s analysis of the figures finds that once debt repayments are taken out of the equation, the total increase in development aid offered by the G8 countries is a shockingly low 8 percent.

Poverty figures reveal that half the world — nearly three billion people — live on less than two American dollars a day (Just a little more than £1).

In addition, the GDP (Gross Domestic Product) of the poorest 48 nations (i.e. a quarter of the world’s countries) is less than the wealth of the world’s three richest people combined.

Lucas has explained how, by partnering with the local church, Compassion UK mobilises Christians to reach out to children at risk in their community.

During his trip to Ethiopia, Jeff met with children whose lives had been changed through sponsorship, he also visited churches that have grown from eight to 350 members as a result of their partnership with Compassion.

The pastor from one such church in Southern Ethiopia commented: “We used to have no place for the children but now we have more than 700 visiting in one week, and this is thanks to Compassion.”

Following his journey to the African country, Lucas is calling for the churches to make a united stand in an effort to fight poverty, and is hoping the new resource made in partnership with Compassion, will go a long way to encourage churches to take action.