News

As faith communities worldwide mark the first year of the World Council of Churches Ecumenical Decade of Climate Justice Action (2025–2034), scholars and church leaders convened at the University of Malawi in Zomba to ask a pressing question: how can religion drive structural transformation in the face of poverty, climate crisis, and biodiversity loss across Africa?

With the race to develop ever more advanced artificial intelligence applications dominated by tech companies in the United States and China, intense concerns are rising that human rights and benefits for all are being ignored for gains in wealth and power for a few.

Communicators from the Middle East—some speaking through a barrage of missiles dropping, others straining to be heard over the sounds of sirens—shared updates during a meeting hosted online on 8 April by the World Council of Churches.

Some 2.1 billion people - one in four on earth - lack safe access to drinking water, and 3.4 billion lack safe sanitation at home, according to the WHO/UNICEF Joint Monitoring Programme report published in August 2025. With those figures as backdrop, Christians, Muslims, Jews, Hindus, Bahá’ís, and others gathered at the House of Religions in Bern, Switzerland, on 22 March - UN World Water Day - and signed a joint declaration calling on religious communities worldwide to defend water as a human right and a public good.