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How can religion and faith communities contribute to achieving the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals? Setting out to address this very question, a panel of faith representatives gathered at World Water Week in Stockholm on 29 August, introduced by keynote speaker Cardinal Peter Turkson, president of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace at the Vatican. The panel was also welcomed by Rt. Rev. Thomas Söderberg, Church of Sweden.

An economic system based on over-consumption and greed has become firmly rooted in today’s world and it is high time to change this paradigm by working for a new financial and economic architecture. The WCC together with the WCRC now convenes a first ever Ecumenical School on Governance, Economics and Management for an Economy of Life, in Hong Kong SAR.

Every morning a cheerful and articulate man arrives at his office in East Jerusalem with at least a grain of hope. Dr Bernard Sabella has devoted his entire life to the rights of the Palestinian people. In his job as the executive director of Department of Services to Palestinian Refugees, he encounters issues concerning the Palestinian-Israeli relationship daily.

The leadership and representatives of the World Evangelical Alliance and the WCC met in the Ecumenical Institute at Bossey, Switzerland to explore and discuss possible areas of future cooperation.

On 8 February, the WCC convened a strategy meeting between principals and senior staff of the ACT Alliance, Anglican Alliance, Caritas Internationalis, Globethics, Lutheran World Federation and WCC, to discuss communication and collaboration in policy engagement, advocacy and action.

The Ecumenical Disability Advocates Network of the WCC in collaboration with the Council for World Mission and International Disability Alliance hosted a two-day seminar on the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.

The WCC general secretary has sent a letter to the President of the Republic of Indonesia H. E. Joko Widodo appealing for clemency for the 10 death row prisoners scheduled for imminent execution in Indonesia.

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 need for enhanced cooperation between the WCC and the ACT Alliance – a partner organization of the WCC, especially in addressing the threat of climate change and a human rights-based approach to development – was stressed at the 2nd General Assembly of the ACT Alliance in Punta Cana, the Dominican Republic.

People have the right of access to archives of public bodies, argued Trudy Huskamp Peterson, an archivist from the United States, in her recent talk organized by the WCC Archives in Geneva, Switzerland. She said public access to information is particularly relevant for archives documenting human rights violations.

Politicization of religion, rights of religious minorities and stateless people, peace and reunification of the Korean Peninsula and just peace served as subjects of the public statements adopted at the WCC 10th Assembly in Busan, Republic of Korea.

The WCC general secretary called diakonia an expression of faith that “embodies the signs of God’s reign and makes it visible in all experiences of hope amidst turmoil, in actions that heal and nurture people and relationships.”

In his meeting with the Sudanese minister Alfatih T. Abdallah, World Council of Churches (WCC) general secretary Rev. Dr Olav Fykse Tveit stressed the important role of Sudanese churches in rebuilding their nation after years of conflict, along with the assurance of their religious freedoms.

Dr Magali do Nascimento Cunha, a Central Committee member of the World Council of Churches (WCC) and professor at the Methodist University of São Paulo, has joined Brazil’s National Truth Commission as a researcher. The commission will investigate human rights violations in Brazil that occurred between 1948 and 1988, including the years of military dictatorship in that country.

Climate change is causing massive violations of human rights. This point was made at a side event on “human rights and climate change” during the 22nd session of the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva, Switzerland.

In an inter-religious service organized by the Vatican, the World Council of Churches (WCC) general secretary Rev. Dr Olav Fykse Tveit stressed the importance of "€œexpressions for peace and the mutual respect for the dignity of the other"€.

"Churches cannot challenge injustice if they cannot recognize its entrenched presence within the church itself,"€ reads a document by a working group of the World Council of Churches (WCC) programme on Just and Inclusive Communities.

The World Council of Churches (WCC) “ is defined by all the three key words in our name. We are global, in all continents, and therefore also in solidarity with one another, seeking peace in all its meaning for the whole earth,” said the WCC general secretary Rev. Dr Olav Fykse Tveit.

"€œDiakonia is an essential ecclesial function. It must be prophetic and transformative. It cannot be opted only in convenient forms,"€ asserted participants of a World Council of Churches (WCC) conference, reflecting on "€œTheology of Diakonia for the 21st Century"€. The event took place from 2 to 6 June in Colombo, Sri Lanka.

In a public hearing at the Ecumenical Centre in Geneva, church activists from the Philippines criticized the Aquino government for not being able to improve the situation regarding human rights violations, citing an increased number of victims of extrajudicial killings, forced disappearances, as well as evictions in the country. Â