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To respond to the Ebola crisis in West Africa, which has taken more than 3,000 lives, the WCC brought to the table representatives of Christian aid organizations and United Nations agencies to learn from each other and to escalate their efforts.

Father Ioan Sauca of the Romanian Orthodox Church and Peter Prove, a Lutheran lawyer and international affairs expert from Australia, have been named to key staff positions in the WCC.

Cameroon has been identified as a nation with a high prevalence of HIV and AIDS, according to a UNAIDS report. What are churches in the country doing to aid in healing communities faced with the threat of this disease?

Faith-based organizations, with the United Nations, have urged expansion of access to anti-retroviral treatment for persons living with HIV and AIDS in a consultation organized by the UNAIDS and Caritas Internationalis, from 25 to 26 February in Rome, Italy.

Representatives of faith-based organizations at the International Conference on AIDS and STI’s in Africa (ICASA) have called for the recognition of a clear link between sexual and gender-based violence and the continued spread of HIV and AIDS. Together they affirmed their significant role in the post-2015 agenda to turn the tide of HIV and related inequities.

A plenary session of the 10th Assembly of the WCC delved deeply into the question how, in a world faced with violence, conflicts and discrimination, the “God of life” can lead people, communities and churches towards “justice and peace”.

Churches in Togo have taken on a compelling fight against HIV and AIDS. Sexual minorities, highly vulnerable to the pandemic, remain in dire need of pastoral care that encourages access to HIV prevention facilities, if their lives are to be saved.

A staff member of the Ecumenical HIV and AIDS Initiative in Africa (EHAIA) has been elected as general secretary of the Council of Christian Churches in Angola (CICA). She will be the first woman to serve as general secretary of the CICA, a position she considers an “opportunity to mobilize African churches to do more” in healing HIV affected communities.

The HIV pandemic has been on the world stage for three decades now.  For most of that time the World Council of Churches (WCC) and its member churches have been deeply involved in making churches and theological institutions HIV-competent, especially in sub-Saharan Africa.

Dr Susan Parry has turned her vision of the “AIDS-competent church” into a reality that has helped thousands of people across southern Africa and the rest of the world whose lives are affected by HIV.

Three decades into the AIDS pandemic it has become clear that churches, non-governmental agencies and governments need to redouble their efforts to combat the disease and its effects, said the central governing body of the World Council of Churches (WCC) during its meeting in February 2011.

Celebrating the tenth anniversary of the Ecumenical Advocacy Alliance (EAA) today in Geneva, members and partners recognized past achievements and discussed opportunities and challenges for future coordinated Christian witness for justice.

By Nyambura Njoroge (*)

A multi-faith meeting on the eve of the 18th International AIDS Conference in Vienna has heard calls for faith communities to keep commitments they have made to promote universal access to HIV treatment, care, support and prevention.

With a new sense of urgency in view of a pandemic that grows exponentially, high level figures from many of the world's faiths have committed to exercise "stronger, more visible and practical leadership" in response to HIV, with an emphasis on eradicating the stigma and discrimination towards those affected.