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Church leaders in Sudan are welcoming a peace agreement signed between the transitional government and rebel groups on 3 October, after a year of talks in Juba City, the South Sudanese capital.

Young African clergy, theologians and laypersons are eager to engage with the challenging issues facing their continent and the world. This became clear in a recent essay competition for authors below 35 years by the World Council of Churches (WCC) in partnership with the All Africa Conference of Churches (AACC).

South Sudanese church leaders continued to amplify hope for their country, as the people quietly marked the 8th Independence Day, without an official government celebration.
The world’s newest nation which became an independent state on 9 July 2011, is facing enormous challenges including insecurity, economic stagnation and famine due to a new conflict.

Christian Aid and Christian Solidarity Worldwide are among 30 global agencies demanding urgent international action to halt violence in Sudan, where women have been leading pro-change and democracy protests.

“The people of the Republic of Sudan deserve justice, peace, and democracy” declared Rev. Dr Olav Fykse Tveit, general secretary of the World Council of Churches, as large public demonstrations continue in Khartoum despite a curfew imposed by military authorities.

The joint ACT Alliance-Caritas Internationalis response to the humanitarian crisis in Darfur remains a powerful witness to the Christian unity possible in diakonia.

The WCC, World Evangelical Alliance and All Africa Conference of Churches, along with church-related humanitarian organizations and a coalition of church-related networks and organizations and partners, are planning 10 June 2018 as a second Global Day of Prayer to End Famine to be observed in faith congregations worldwide.

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.

Observed on 15-22 October 2017, the World Council of Churches Ecumenical Advocacy Alliance invites churches around the world again to a Churches’ Week of Action on Food, an opportunity to pray, reflect and take action together, for food-justice across the globe.

Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby declared Sudan the 39th province of the worldwide Anglican communion on 30 July.

The WCC general secretary extended condolences on the death of Ambassador Bethuel Kiplagat, former moderator of the WCC Commission of the Churches on International Affairs (CCIA).

Working as a medical doctor in his home country Malawi seems to have given Dr Mwai Makoka ideal experience for his task of programme executive for Health and Healing at the WCC. He has experience in medical microbiology, HIV and AIDS, working for both government and church-based institutions after graduating as a doctor in Malawi, a country accustomed to working with church-run hospitals.

“How can we work together, to share what it is in our hands, share the work that is before us? How can we empower one another, capacity-build our religious leaders and mobilize our congregations, to be more proactive in health-promoting issues?”

“So much has changed, and yet so much remains the same. Global public health structures have changed, yet gross inequalities still exist – between developed and under-developed countries, between rich and poor, and the vision for equitable health care still lies in the far distance. Primary health care remains a task unfinished.”

“Standing at the threshold of the Sustainable Development Goals, the WCC believes it is time for the church to reaffirm the role it has played over centuries as leader in global health, and to consolidate efforts towards health and healing for all,” says Dr Mwai Makoka, WCC programme executive for Health and Healing. Meeting in Maseru, Lesotho, on 27 February, the WCC is starting the process of developing a Global Ecumenical Health Strategy, following the legacy of churches’ high profile in health care and mission historically.

Forty years after the Soweto uprising, leaders of churches in conflict-torn countries gathered in South Africa to study the ways of peace and reconciliation.

“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.

The African continent bears witness to the tragic consequences of the manipulation of religion to incite violence. Yet it is also the home of untold instances of the power of religious leaders and actors to exert a positive influence, said panellists at an international meeting in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, today.

Churches continue to play their role in peace building for South Sudan despite the dashed hopes of many in the world’s newest nation, the moderator of the WCC said at a regional meeting.