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In a letter to leaders of the Group of Twenty (G20) on 17 November, the World Council of Churches, World Communion of Reformed Churches, Lutheran World Federation and Council for World Mission urged easing of pressure on countries being suffocated by debt especially in a time of pandemic. The organizations represent more than 500 million Christians across the world.

In a statement released 16 October, an interfaith e-consultation is deepening calls for releasing countries in the Global South from damaging external debt burdens. 

A panel of experts of different faiths spoke on debt cancellation and reparations as tools for promoting justice, sustainability and life-affirming economies in the third 2020 Ecumenical School on Governance, Economics and Management public webinar held on 2 October.

Hotel Beau-Séjour, Geneva, 8 August 1920. It’s been too cold an August, with average temperatures around 17.3 Celsius. Tomorrow is the opening day of a very promising post-war international consultation. Its title is “The Preliminary Meeting to Consider an Ecumenical Conference of the Church of Christ on Life and work.” However, I can tell you that a Church of Scotland delegate, J.-A. MacClymont, will certainly object to this awkward use of the word “ecumenical.”

In a video interview, Dr Torsten Moritz, general secretary of the Churches' Commission for Migrants in Europe, gives a short analysis of the new EU Migration Pact, and how faith-based organizations are working to change unbearable conditions for thousands of migrants and refugees. The Churches’ Commission for Migrants in Europe is helping to lead a dialogue between global religious groups and the European Commission offices in Brussels.

The advocacy statement of ecumenical organisations responding to the new EU Migrant Pact and the situation of migrants and refugees in Europe was received 25 September in the European Commission offices in Brussels. The statement was addressed to Vangelis Demiris, cabinet member of the vice president of the commission Margaritis Schinas, who is coordinating the commission’s work on the New Pact on Migration and Asylum. Dr Jørgen Skov Sørensen, general secretary of the Conference of European Churches, and Dr Torsten Moritz, general secretary of the Churches' Commission for Migrants in Europe, delivered the statement to Demiris, who is responsible for the dialogue with the churches and faith-based organisations.

A dozen global and regional religious organizations released an advocacy statement on the situation of migrants and refugees in Europe that defines their calling as Christians to “welcome the stranger,” and urges the creation of a world in which “we become human together.”

Christian organizations representing 2 billion people—about one-third of the world's population—have released a statement on the dire situation of migrants and refugees in Europe, and they are demanding a more compassionate approach.

A public online panel discussion—“In a Time of Pandemic, Inequality, and Climate Change: Zacchaeus Tax and Jubilee Now!”—will explore how taxation, reparations, and debt cancellation could contribute to shaping an Economy of Life in a world marked by the COVID-19 pandemic, widening socio-economic inequalities, and a growing climate emergency.

“We are in the midst of four pandemics, and they are intertwined. The COVID pandemic has revealed more vividly the pandemics of economic injustice, racism, and climate change,” said Cynthia Moe-Lobeda in her presentation to the 2020 GEM School. “This could be the gateway to far more compassionate, just, and ecologically sane ways of structuring our life together in God’s good garden earth.”