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The 2014 Annual Review of the World Council of Churches, now published and posted online, reports on the 2014 activities and projects of the council.

As part of churches’ on-going struggles for climate justice, the campaign Act Now for Climate Justice was launched at the Ecumenical Centre in Geneva, Switzerland on Earth Day.

The WCC has joined over 30 leaders from major world religions and heads of global faith-based organizations today in launching a call to action to end extreme poverty by 2030, a goal shared with the World Bank Group.

The increasingly influential role of the financial sector, its impact on communities and their struggles toward a just financial system remained the focus of discussions in the workshops organized by the churches at the World Social Forum.

Anglican and Reformed member churches of the WCC have taken significant new actions toward climate justice.

The social and ecological cost of expanding mineral exploration and extraction was highlighted by churches at the World Social Forum.

This Lenten season, the WCC invites its member churches to pray on Sunday 29 March for those affected by wars in the Middle East, especially in Iraq, Syria, Libya and Egypt. The season of prayer is meant to revive hope from hopelessness, taking into account the vulnerability of minority communities and the threat of losing the diversity of the social fabric in this region.

Ahead of World Water Day on 22 March, a number of Christian organizations are reflecting on the significance of water – a scarce resource threatened and denied to millions around the world.

A coalition of civil society and labour groups has launched an Independent Commission for the Reform of International Corporate Taxation in response to rising inequality and mounting public anger over corporate tax cheats. Among the organizations responsible for the establishment of the Commission is the WCC.

In a high level panel on Climate Change and Human Rights held at the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland, the WCC general secretary Rev. Dr Olav Fykse Tveit said that despite all negative conditions “we have the right to hope” – not as a matter of passive waiting but as an active process towards justice and peace, in which human rights should play a key role.

The WCC and the Ecumenical Advocacy Alliance have agreed to re-establish the EAA as the WCC’s ecumenical initiative, preserving the future of this diverse Christian network for international action on selected, focused issues.

Publications focusing on eco-theology, ethics and climate change were presented by their authors in an event hosted by Globethics.net – a Geneva-based global ethics network in collaboration with the WCC.

Dr Fulata Mbano-Moyo, the WCC programme executive for Women in Church and Society, called on the movement of Christian students to reclaim its radical transforming nature towards a “pilgrimage of gender justice”.

The ACHAP has urged governments in the region to engage strongly with church-based health bodies as crucial partners in achieving Universal Health Care, at the conclusion of its biannual meeting in Nairobi, Kenya.

A resource book titled Jamaica Praying: a manual for HIV and AIDS sensitive liturgies and sermons was launched last week by the United Theological College of the West Indies. The resource aims to equip church workers to offer a sensitive response to people affected by the HIV and AIDS pandemic.

The idea that HIV is present in the life of every human being, regardless of their susceptibility to the disease, could be seen as shocking. It could even be offensive.

An ecumenical workshop held recently in Matanzas, Cuba strongly promoted life-affirming epistemologies that can help to envision and construct alternatives to inequitable and destructive socio-economic systems that prevail in today’s world.

The Episcopal Church of South Sudan and Sudan’s diocese of Wau has developed a course titled “Reconcile - Moving Forward in Peace”, inviting people to be peace-builders this Lenten season.

Outcomes, disappointments, as well as encouraging signs from the United Nations Climate Change Conference and the Peoples Summit held late last year in Lima, Peru, were discussed at length by representatives of faith communities.

Churches and religious leaders are at the forefront of efforts to mobilize action for a legally binding agreement on world’s climate at the United Nations Climate Change Conference to be held in Paris at the end of 2015. The motivation of the WCC for its role in this arena is summarized in the title of its environmental programme: Care for Creation and Climate Justice.