Since poverty has been repeatedly singled out as a particular severe social problem, RICSA decided to form a research team, consisting of Samuel Silungwe, Monique Viljoen, and Juan Garcés, under the supervision of James Cochrane, in order to collect, abstract, and disseminate information that can help churches to play an empowered role in dealing with poverty.

The first work done by the project involved helping to draft, for Anglican Archbishop Ndungane, a document that could help to set objectives, provide guidelines and define results for the 1998 Poverty Summit. Due to staffing limitations, the Poverty team's contribution was an exercise in ‘investigative journalism’ that would include short interviews with leading specialists in order to draft the aforementioned input.

The Poverty Project team has a strong commitment to any church initiative that deals with poverty in general, and the Archbishop's initiative in particular. As a research institute, RICSA feels that it is a moral imperative to do so, and that this should be done in collaboration with any other organisation that thinks along similar lines.

Project leader: Sam Silungwe

Researchers: Gcobani Vika, Monique Viljoen

Articles and Publications

• A Christian Perspective on Poverty
• Albert Nolan on the Debt Crisis
• A Biblical Perspective on Jubilee 2000
• Molefe Tsele on South Africa's Debt

Other Resources

• Sam Silungwe's Proposal for Research on Poverty
• Working Definitions for the Project

Links

• Poverty Commission Report
• Jubilee 2000 Home Page