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Conflict has ingrained itself in the people of Mozambique for many decades from the days of Portuguese colonial rule, to the ensuing civil war which only ended this century, and now Daesh along with the unseen enemy of COVID-19. So, the churches have their hands full as peacemakers.

In a joint letter, the World Council of Churches (WCC) and ACT Alliance urged the president of Mozambique, Filipe Nyusi, to protect lives, property and livelihoods from increasing violence in the country.

The last of three capacity-building seminars on Human Resources and Church Leadership for Diakonia and Development took place in Maputo, Mozambique, 18-20 June. This most recent seminar was for Portuguese speakers in Africa, with participants coming mainly from Angola and Mozambique. The first two seminars - for French and English speakers respectively - were held in May in Cotonou, Bénin, and Nairobi, Kenya.

The huge impacts of businesses on the communities in which they operate often bring benefits, but companies can disregard and even harm people’s rights in pursuit of economic gain. The WCC, ACT Alliance and the Lutheran World Federation hosted a side event at the 6th United Nations Forum on Business and Human Rights in Geneva on 28 November, in this context.

“Statelessness renders people’s vulnerability to abuse and to denial of their rights invisible to national authorities. In this sense the right to a nationality is a threshold issue for access to protection of all other human rights - almost a 'right to have rights'”, said Peter Prove, director of the World Council of Churches (WCC) Commission of the Churches on International Affairs (CCIA), following a regional training workshop on birth registration and gender discriminatory nationality laws in Africa, organized by the WCC in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, 11–13 May.

«L’apatridie rend invisible aux yeux des autorités nationales la vulnérabilité des personnes face aux abus ou à la négation de leurs droits. En cela, le droit à une nationalité est un enjeu fondamental pour l’accès à la protection de tous les autres droits humains. Il s’agit presque d’un "droit d’avoir des droits"», a déclaré Peter Prove, directeur de la Commission des Églises pour les affaires internationales du COE, après un atelier régional de formation traitant de l’enregistrement des naissances et des lois sur la nationalité qui entraînent une discrimination en fonction du sexe. Cet atelier était organisé par le COE à Addis-Abeba (Éthiopie) du 11 au 13 mai.