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With the aim of monitoring how the Pilgrimage of Justice and Peace is unfolding and to develop suggestions for its various initiatives and activities, with a special focus on the Africa region in 2017, the World Council of Churches (WCC) convened a meeting of the reference group of the pilgrimage in Nigeria from 20-27 February.

The 54th meeting of the WCC Commission of the Churches on International Affairs (CCIA) began today in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, marking its yearly regional focus on Africa. During the meeting CCIA members are discussing the commission’s previous work and its outcomes focusing on Middle East, as well as setting strategic directions for activities until 2021.

The World Council of Churches welcomes His Holiness Abune Matthias I, Patriarch of Ethiopia, Archbishop of Axum, Echegue of the See of St. Teklehaimanot, at his first official visit to the Ecumenical Centre in Geneva. We are pleased to invite you to participate at this event of historic significance to the ecumenical movement.

A delegation from the WCC, led by WCC Central Committee moderator Dr Agnes Abuom, visited Addis Ababa, Ethiopia on 21-22 October as an expression of solidarity to the member churches there. The delegation met with leaders of member churches, members of the Ethiopian interfaith council, and government representatives.

After recent reports of widespread violent demonstrations in Addis-Ababa and other parts of Ethiopia, local church leaders and members of the WCC joined in a call for peaceful dialogue and restraint on all sides.

PROCMURA (Programme for Christian-Muslim Relations in Africa), an ecumenical Christian organization that focuses on strengthening Christian-Muslim relations at all levels, dedicated a new central office and conference centre on 2 July in Nairobi, Kenya.

“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.

Between 7-27 March, more than 100 images with the hash tag #7Weeks4Water were posted by Instagram users who joined the World Council of Churches (WCC) contest. Most of them told stories about water justice, illustrating the Lenten campaign “Seven Weeks for Water,” promoted by the WCC Ecumenical Water Network annually since 2008.

What is the role of religious actors from Africa in preventing incitement to violence which could lead to atrocity crimes? This will be the focal point of a meeting in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, from 9-11 May.

The first of what will be 1,000 refugees from camps in Lebanon, Morocco and Ethiopia are arriving this month in Italy through a “Humanitarian Corridors” project organized by the Federation of Protestant Churches in Italy, the Sant’ Egidio religious community and the Italian government.

Azad is a refugee from the north of Aleppo, Syria and is currently in The Jungle camp in Calais, France. “It’s hard here” says Azad, and then falls quiet. “People are hungry, cold, afraid and we can’t do anything”. He’s sitting cross-legged on the floor of a small shelter.