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Yaoundé declaration

A sub-regional seminar on "Debt in Central Africa" was held in Yaoundé, Cameroon, from 10 to 12 January 2000. The seminar falls within the framework of the Accra, Lomé, Johannesburg and Lusaka meetings.

It was jointly organised by the World Council of Churches (WCC), the All Africa Conference of Churches (AACC), the Federation of Protestant Churches and Missions of Cameroon (FEMEC) and the Ecumenical Service for Peace (SeP), Cameroon.

Apart from nationals of Central African countries and Mauritius, the seminar equally saw the participation of resource persons from various organisations of the North and the South that advocate debt cancellation (Eurodad, Uganda Debt Network, Jubilee 2000 South Africa, Jubilee 2000 London Africa Initiative).

There was a consensus on the following leading ideas:

1. The debt of poor countries should be completely cancelled! This is a main prerequisite for poverty and misery alleviation and for regaining their dignity;

2. The struggle for debt cancellation is a struggle for social justice. It aims to free the human person from the yoke of everlasting economic domination and slavery. The fight concerns all of us. All the components of civil society, without exclusion, should contribute to the fight;

3. Debt is not only an economic problem. It is a fundamentally moral and ethical problem which requires various solutions -political, legal and social.

WCC Programmes

Seventh report of the Joint Working Group

The report results from seven years' work by a dedicated group drawn from the World Council of Churches and the Roman Catholic Church. The character of the document is intentionally educational. The group believed that it would in this way best serve the interest of all who wish to know not only the Joint Working Group's agenda but the growing relationship of the WCC and the RCC within the broader perspective of the one ecumenical movement which the group has witnessed and in some measure assisted.

Joint Working Group

The effects of globalization on culture in Africa in the eyes of an African woman

Economic growth without social and cultural justice cannot be our idea of development. It is imperative that development is measured in terms of the quality of human life, which can be reflected in, for example, better education, health and life expectancy for every single member of society. This is only possible if men and women are equally empowered, in theory and in practice. And the North has a crucial role to play in this process. Anything that falls short of restoring peoples' dignity, sense of identity, continuity and security should never be accepted. Africa needs to learn to respect the dissenting voice of its own people.

WCC Programmes

Statements on the Middle East

The Executive Committee of the World Council of Churches, meeting in Sigtuna, Sweden, 14-20 September 1993, warmly welcomes the exchange of letters of mutual recognition between the leaders of Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization, and the subsequent signing in Washington, D.C. of an agreement to establish a transitional Palestinian Interim Self-Government Authority in the occupied territories of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.

Executive committee

1989 Statement by the Heads of the Christian Communities in Jerusalem

This statement is signed by:
- His Beatitude Diodoros I Greek Orthodox Patriarch of Jerusalem
- His Beafitude Michel Sabbah, Latin Patriarch
- His Beatitude Yeghishe Derderian, Armenian Orthodox Patriarch
- Very Rev. Father Carlo Cecchitelli, of m, Custos of the Holy Land
- His Exc. Amba Basilios, Coptic Orthodox Archbishop
- His Exc. Mar Dionysios Behnam Jijawi, Syrian Orthodox Archbishop
- His Exc. Msgr Lutfi Laham, Greek Melkite Catholic Patriarcal Vicar
- Right Rev. Samir Kafity, Bishop of the Episcopalian Church
- Right Rev. Naim Nasr, Bishop ot the Evangelical Lutheran Church

Ecumenical movement