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The World Council of Churches (WCC) and Religions for Peace will issue on 9 May a joint message on statelessness, “Belonging—Affirmations for Faith Leaders”.

The document is one of the most recent fruits of WCC work that has been ongoing for more than a decade around the issue of statelessness. It is currently available in English, French, Spanish and Arabic.

A joint interfaith statement for World Food Day, being observed 16 October this year, calls us to pray and act against hunger at a time when 811 million people are going to bed hungry each night.

At the G20 Interfaith Forum, which took place 12-14 September in Bologna, Peter Prove, director of the World Council of Churches (WCC) Commission of the Churches on International Affairs, spoke on religious commitments to the Sustainable Development Goals, particularly those focusing on children, hunger, water and sanitation.

A diverse group of Christian and Muslim believers and international diplomats met at a side event at the United Nations in Geneva in a celebration of diversity with key speakers shunning extremism and committing to tolerance as a gateway to peace.

At the beginning of the World Interfaith Harmony Week the General Secretary of the World Council of Churches encouraged churches to work for interfaith harmony. In a letter to the WCC fellowship the WCC general secretary Rev. Dr Olav Fykse Tveit reflected that we are reminded each day, in both promising and painful ways, of the inevitability of interreligious dialogue for the wellbeing and wholeness of the entire creation.

The Christian Conference of Asia (CCA), on 11-12 July, held an international consultation on “Towards Revitalising the Ecumenical Movement in Asia.” The gathering of 60 church and ecumenical leaders was organised by the CCA at its headquarters in Chiang Mai, Thailand as a prelude to its Diamond Jubilee celebration.

A public panel on “Interfaith Hospitality in a World of Islamophobia” explored how faith communities can respond effectively to increasing tendencies of Islamophobia. Focusing primarily, but not exclusively, on the American context, the panel, organised by the Wesley Theological Seminary, a leading Methodist seminary in the United States, offered diverse perspectives on what interfaith hospitality might entail in today’s world.

Churches in Europe have a crucial role to play in responding to the arrival of refugees in Europe, Germany's interior minister has told a gathering in Geneva of governments, United Nations agencies, church and faith groups and civil society organizations.

A coalition of faith-based organizations is emphasizing a joint approach in addressing unprecedented levels of violence against women and girls.

The WCC general secretary Rev. Dr Olav Fykse Tveit has expressed deep concern over the renewed wave of violence in Jerusalem. In a letter to WCC member churches in Palestine and Israel, he expressed solidarity with the churches and peoples of the land, and affirmed WCC’s commitment to justice and peace in Palestine and Israel.

A statement calling for a binding agreement on climate crisis, and a call for two degrees rise in temperature, the internationally-agreed target for limiting global warming, was presented to the French President Francois Hollande by representatives of the Conference of Religious Leaders of France on 1 July at the Elysée Palace in Paris, France.

A declaration issued on 2 December by religious leaders calling for the eradication of slavery has prompted an expression of appreciation from the WCC. The declaration, issued at the Vatican, brings together signatories from the Catholic and two WCC member churches: Anglican and Orthodox, with Buddhist, Hindu, Jewish and Muslim leaders who signed a joint declaration of commitment against modern slavery.