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Dr Ulysses Burley III is serving as a WCC delegate to the 62nd Commission on the Status of Women at the United Nations in New York City (CSW62), being held 12-23 March. Dr Burley, from Chicago, is a member of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. He currently serves on the WCC-Ecumenical Advocacy Alliance HIV Access to Treatment Working Group.

“What do we have the right to manipulate in creation?” The question is at the heart of a Canadian Quaker’s commitment to the process of encouraging member churches of the World Council of Churches (WCC) to reflect on scientific experiments in modifying life forms known as “synthetic biology”.

Promoting responsible agricultural investments was the theme of a session organised by the WCC at the Civil Society Policy Forum of the World Bank Group-International Monetary Fund Annual Meetings held in Washington DC from 9-13 October. “There is no doubt we need to invest more in agriculture – it feeds us all and remains an important source of employment, especially for the world’s poor,” said Athena Peralta, WCC programme executive for economic and ecological justice.

As the Churches’ Week of Action on Food is to commence on 15 October, the World Council of Churches Ecumenical Advocacy Alliance now makes available material for seven prayer services, each intended to bring opportunities for prayer, reflection and action on food-justice around the world.

The World Council of Churches - Ecumenical Advocacy Alliance endorses a newly expanded collaboration on HIV between the Medicine Patent Pool and Gilead. On 4 October, the MPP announced a licence with Gilead Sciences for bictegravir, a new integrase inhibitor part of a once-daily, single-tablet HIV regimen currently filed for regulatory approval at the United States Food and Drug Administration and the European Union.

Faith-based organizations are at the heart of a special mission: issuing a call to action—to ensure that infants, children and adolescents around the world have access to HIV prevention, testing and treatment.

Friday evening when the leaders of the G20 states will be meeting in Hamburg and discussing global economic, social, environmental and political issues, the churches in Germany are inviting people in Germany and all over the world to a common peace prayer.

Climate justice isn't a policy that can simply be thrown away by any president - it’s a moral decision that affects the well-being of millions of people and future generations across the world. Thousands of people are communicating this message via statements, posts and tweets on social media, and even with earnest conversations with their neighbors. Many are from the WCC fellowship, humanitarian groups, churches and communities, and they are bringing a clear - and unified - voice of justice after US President Donald Trump announced on 2 June that his nation would leave the Paris climate accord.

Not nearly enough is being done to save the lives of the 20 million people who face famine in Yemen, Somalia, South Sudan and Nigeria. Among them are 1.4 million children, who are at imminent risk of death unless aid reaches them immediately.

Worsening global inequality is borne out as more people face famine now than any other time in modern history. Fr Nithiya Sagayam, national coordinator of the Association of Franciscan Families of India, is gravely concerned that the global response to extreme poverty is too low in almost every country while, he says, “corporations continue to grow richer and richer.”

“She is HIV positive too. No need to inherit her late husband’s title deed. She will die soon and leave it anyway.”

These man’s thoughts during his brother’s funeral were used by Jane Ng’ang’a, national coordinator, International Network of Religious Leaders Living with or Personally Affected by HIV (INERELA+) Kenya Chapter, to push the debate on property and inheritance rights linked to HIV. The discussion was held during the 61st Session of the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women (CSW), on 16 March, at the headquarters of UNAIDS, in New York.

Athena Peralta is dedicated to observing and encouraging people who are defending their livelihood and defending creation across the world. “There is so much injustice in this world that it is really something beautiful to learn about and be able to accompany, even in tiny ways, struggles of communities and churches,” she said.

While meeting in Nanjing and Shanghai, China, from 17-23 November, the WCC Executive Committee issued a statement on climate justice that reiterates the urgent concerns of churches in relation to climate change, and calls on all states to fulfill the commitments of the Paris Agreement.

“Dignity, Freedom, and Grace: Christian Perspectives on HIV, AIDS and Human Rights,” a book published earlier this year by the WCC, will be among reports discussed at a 20 September event with the theme “Keeping the Faith in Development: Gender, Religions & Heath.”

“As a professor of economics and economic ethics with a theological background, and as dean of the GEM school, I can say that pluralistic economics – getting new prominence as an international student initiative – is an attempt to challenge neo-liberal monolithic economics. It is time for new thinking about economics”, stated Prof. Martin Büscher, first chair for economics and business ethics at the Institute for Diakonia and Management at the Protestant University of Wuppertal/Bethel, Germany, at the conclusion of the Governance, Economics and Management School held in Hong Kong on 22 August-2 September.

The globalization of the world economy has not been an even process, and in many ways governance for the protection of capital has overtaken governance for the protection of human well-being. A recent Ecumenical School on Governance, Economics and Management for an Economy of Life addressed this very asymmetry.

An economic system based on over-consumption and greed has become firmly rooted in today’s world and it is high time to change this paradigm by working for a new financial and economic architecture. The WCC together with the WCRC now convenes a first ever Ecumenical School on Governance, Economics and Management for an Economy of Life, in Hong Kong SAR.

A delegation from the WCC attended the 12th World Social Forum in Montreal, Canada, which concluded on 14 August. More than 30,000 participants from around the world gathered to discuss global issues based on their local experiences, network with others working on similar problems, and create new joint initiatives advancing a progressive path forward.

Land rights, equity in development resource flows and life-enhancing epistemologies were among the themes emphasized by faith-based organizations at the World Social Forum in Montreal, Canada on 9-14 August.

Thirty-five years into the response to HIV and AIDS, it remains a disease that not only thrives on, but exploits the lines of exclusion and inequality in society. In the Philippines, where there has been an alarming increase in people testing positive for HIV, the country’s National Council of Churches recognized that more than words were needed. While dialogue and debate were important, they needed to translate into action, given the ever-widening gap between the rich and the poor in Filipino society, and a faith-based and societal milieu still dominated by a sex-negative theology.