By Rev. Dr. Angelique Walker-Smith
For everything there is a season and a time for every matter under heaven: Ecclesiastes 3:1
Recently, Bread for the World held a timely national prayer vigil in DC to advocate for life saving international aid. It was an initiative-taking response to recent executive orders of the Administration. These orders were further discussed at our recent National legislative update session and in a recent Bread article, “Meeting Human Needs Because We Can.” The article states “The foreign assistance community is reeling from the order to pause new and existing U.S. foreign assistance programs for 90 days, the dismantling of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), and the termination of nearly all current U.S. foreign assistance programs. This is an existential threat and an escalation of persistent efforts to disrupt U.S. assistance to vulnerable people around the world.”
As January 2025, The Independent cites a model showing 15,000 having died, including 1500 children, because of these executive decisions. During recent discussions with African leaders and leaders of African Descent preparing for the UN Permanent Forum on People of African Descent in April, they observed that these decisions are not just part of domestic and international trends identified from within the US, but that such is part of a global scene of larger geo-political shifts disproportionately affecting Africans and People of African Descent.
These shifts happen with a long-term backdrop of African Peoples and nations being subject to human and land extractions for labor and financial gain even as we commemorate the 140th anniversary of the Berlin Conference of the Scramble for Africa in 1884-1885 this year. A conference that codified the colonial structures of African nations and her Diaspora. Additionally, the backdrop of debt of African, Latin American and Caribbean countries prevents spending on basic needs is a major challenge.
In this Good Friday Season, we understand Easter hope still abides but our commitment to be witnesses of this by taking advocacy action is what makes Easter hope real. Easter Season 2025 is a special time for this on this the 1700th anniversary of the Nicaea Council that codified the Nicene Creed foundational to Christian churches today and historically. This unique season compels us to identify global and national strategies that move us forward.
Strategic proposals that include supporting the building up of a Pan African and global focus of unity and self-determination; strategic diplomatic and trade alliances at domestic, national, and global levels, including support for the reauthorization of US trade policies like the African Growth Opportunity Act/African Women’s Entrepreneurial Program. Such also includes advocating for debt relief, climate justice, global nutrition, SNAP benefits for students, the reauthorizing and expansion of WIC, and reparatory justice. These strategies are also aligned with the UN PACT for the Future that calls for a transformation of the global financial architecture with a full awareness of a renewed global transactional ethos. I invite you to learn more about Bread’s Offering of Letters campaign where you can participate in the implementation of these strategies.
Angelique Walker-Smith is senior associate for Pan African and Orthodox Church engagement at Bread for the World.
