Chairman’s Address AGM 2025

You are all very welcome here this afternoon for our AGM. You are a vital part of the CMS Ireland family, and your presence today, taking the time out to be here, means a lot and gives an important boost to Jenny and her team.

I would like to hold on to that theme of family for a moment …

Last October I was at a meeting of Chairs of CMS organisations in Cambodia. You may have seen a blog post on our website. The meeting was in Siem Reap, right beside the temples of Angkor Wat.

The Global Chairs Forum was set up to enable the chairs of the autonomous “cousin” CMS organisations to share their experiences, challenges, and solutions. We get together twice a year by Zoom, and always had the intention to meet face-to-face, but Covid delayed things.

Our meeting included Chairs from CMS Britain, AsiaCMS, CMS Australia, CMS New Zealand, CMS Africa and SAMS USA. And CMS Ireland, of course. It was held alongside AsiaCMS’s Board Meeting and Senior Staff meeting, and CMS Britain kindly covered our costs on the ground.

We might consider this part of the CMS worldwide family, and it was a blessing to get to know my fellow chairs and the people of AsiaCMS.

Having travelled so far, it would have been a shame to waste an opportunity. Carol, my wife, wasn’t free to join the meeting, but followed me out afterwards.

We visited Angkor Wat, of course. It’s somewhat humbling to see the traces of a civilisation we know little about and a city that had a population heading for 1 million in the 13th century – the size of imperial Rome at its height. It serves as a reminder that we have viewed the world through a particular lens which may now be changing.

Having celebrated my birthday looking out over the lights of Phnom Penh, we joined a cruise down the Mekong, which took us eventually to Ho Chi Minh City, which most of us are old enough to remember as Saigon. Along the way there are many memories that we treasure.

But this isn’t a travelogue, our holiday snaps. In life, there’s always light and shade, and the trip included darker moments:

·      we flew via Doha, so from the start our route was affected by wars in the Ukraine and Syria;

·      we visited the Killing Fields from the Pol Pot/Khmer Rouge era in late 70s Cambodia;

·      and we saw what’s now called the War Remnants Museum in Ho Chi Minh City / Saigon with material from French and US times.

And, of course, we are in a dark place now. Our partners are already affected by tensions and conflict in DRC and South Sudan, as Linda and Keith described this morning. And hanging over the world right now are actions which are punitive and devoid of empathy by the current US regime, with similar actions elsewhere …

In 2023, the US contributed $72 billion, around 32%, of what the OECD terms Official Development Assistance (ODA). Cutting this by $60 billion (about 1% of the US federal budget) will have significant implications for all humanitarian and development work. We have already had anguished messages about schools and health facilities being shuttered overnight. Bill Gates has warned these actions could undermine decades of progress in global health, and could result “in literally millions of deaths”.

The US cuts are the most abrupt and severe, but in the UK, the Chancellor announced at the end of March that she will start moving money immediately from the UK’s ODA budget to fund an increase in defence spending. The UK aid budget will start to be reduced from 2025/26 to reach 0.3% by 2027.

Ireland, as in the Republic, is an outlier in that it has re-stated its commitment to allocate 0.7% of its gross national income to ODA by 2030. I say that not to score points with an all-island audience, but to suggest that Ireland has the opportunity to play a leadership and influential role at a number of 2025 meetings linking with like-minded partners.

The strong temptation is to put our heads under the covers in despair, but we can’t afford ignorance now. Much of modern media thrives on outrage, so we must apply calm discernment in seeking out what is important and truthful.

Our calling is to walk alongside those we have partnered with in solidarity. We can’t “fix” the present crisis, but every small act counts. The lectionary reading last Sunday was from Isaiah 55.

My plans aren’t your plans,

nor are your ways my ways, says the Lord.

God’s mercy is far more extraordinary than we can comprehend.