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UNICEF, the United Nations Children’s Fund, this week invited 20 of its major partners from the private sector and civil society to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the adoption of the Convention on the Rights of the Child. The WCC general secretary represented faith based-organizations at a high-level breakfast in New York hosted by the UN agency.

Indigenous peoples have a role to play in the struggle against climate change, indigenous faith leaders said during a panel at the Interfaith Summit on Climate Change held at the Church Center for the United Nations in New York City.

Scattered throughout the recent history of Indigenous Peoples are national treaties, declarations and laws that languish in obscurity or are brushed aside and ignored.

Encouraging faith-based perspectives in the United Nations initiated dialogue on culture and its role in shaping the post-2015 development agenda, the WCC UN office in New York invites churches to participate in an e-consultation.

WCC announced it will hold an Interfaith Summit on Climate Change in September in New York City.

An “inter-generational dialogue on faith, culture, HIV and sexual reproductive health and rights” was initiated on 11 March in New York City by the World YWCA in partnership with the WCC and other international organizations. The dialogue was organized as a side event at the United Nations 58th Session of the Commission on the Status of Women.

The WCC general secretary, following a session on climate change at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, stressed the “significant role of financial policy-making by the states in addressing climate change.”

Migrants are reduced to mere commodities, traded and exchanged in the global market, according to a declaration issued by churches calling for an end to this gross violation of human dignity. The declaration was issued on the occasion of the Second United Nations High Level Dialogue on International Migration and Development in New York City, USA.

World leaders at the United Nations last week backed two steps in relation to the Arms Trade Treaty, promoted by churches, to make people safer through new laws to control deadly weapons.

The WCC general secretary on 3 June spoke to a UN conference on opportunities and challenges for the 21st century.

Talk about peace on the Korean peninsula part of discussions at ecumenical consultation on peace and security issues in Asia.

Governments sign new Arms Trade Treaty on first day

Working in alliance with churches is strategically important, said a UN representative at the recent assembly of the Latin American Council of Churches.

In Tahiti, an ecumenical delegation was told about the need for re-inscription of French Polynesia (Maohi Nui) on the United Nations list of countries to be decolonized.

As the uncertainty of the whereabouts of two Syrian church leaders kidnapped in Syria on Monday continued Wednesday, the patriarchs of the Greek Orthodox and Syriac Orthodox churches have issued a joint communique calling on churches around the world to “stand fast in the face of what is going on and witness to their faith in the power of love in this world.”

The World Council of Churches (WCC) general secretary, Rev. Dr Olav Fykse Tveit, has strongly condemned the abduction of two Syrian archbishops who were kidnapped yesterday near Aleppo in Syria.

The world's first Arms Trade Treaty is “a milestone in efforts to bring commerce in deadly weapons under much-needed controls,” according to the general secretary of the World Council of Churches (WCC).

Campaigners for the civil society coalition Control Arms say radical changes are still needed in the latest draft of the Arms Trade Treaty under negotiation at the United Nations if the treaty is to save lives. Christian voices joined the criticism of the latest developments at the Final United Nations Conference on the Arms Trade Treaty currently underway in New York, United States.

At the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women, the WCC supported women’s initiatives against violence on the basis of a Christian conviction that “women as well as men are created in the image of God and deserve to be respected, protected, and cared for.”

At a time of widespread scandals over clergy sex abuse, the World Council of Churches (WCC) and World Student Christian Federation (WSCF) have called for professional standards of clergy accountability at an international forum on violence against women.