Norway's ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva has praised the ACT Alliance, a new agency bringing together 100 church relief and development groups worldwide, and says their members are "agents of goodness".
Peter Kenny writes: Bente Angell-Hansen said at the official launch of the ACT Alliance on 24 March 2010, "The members of the ACT Alliance are agents of goodness. You are close to the people in need.
"You reach tirelessly to reach out to victims of war, of poverty, of hunger, of sexual violence," said the Norwegian envoy speaking of ACT Alliance, one of the biggest church-based humanitarian bodies. "You are also agents of peace at a time when conflicts are all too often connected to ethnicity and religion."
The General Secretary of ACT Alliance, John Nduna, a Zambian-born relief and development executive said, "As a faith-based alliance, our member organisations are local with their roots firmly implanted in the communities they serve."
Speaking at Geneva's Ecumenical Centre, Nduna noted that through ACT, the churches worldwide have been at the forefront of "life-saving work in Haiti" since a massive earthquake destroyed much of Port-au-Prince on 12 January.
"On that day, nine ACT organisations were operating in Haiti and able to begin relief efforts immediately," said Nduna. "Many people know our members, but not many people know about ACT – Action by Churches Together."
The new ACT Alliance works in 125 countries with a combined budget of US$1.5 billion. It provides emergency food aid, shelter, water and sanitation facilities, and poverty reduction programmes in the world's poorest countries.
The new body is a merger of the disaster relief network ACT International and its sister organisation ACT Development, both of which had the World Council of Churches (WCC) and the Lutheran World Federation (LWF) as founding members.
"When the emergency is over, and the funds run out, churches continue to be present; they are the organisation at the end of the street or village, which remains when all others have gone," Nduna pointed out.
The General Secretary of the WCC, the Rev Olav Fykse Tveit, said in a prayer offered for the launch, "The work for another and better world is an intrinsic part of the worship of the Church of God. When we are doing the acts of justice, the acts of peace, and the acts of feeding the hungry we are doing the acts that magnify God, because these acts magnify the dignity of each human being."
He noted that "ACT's global strength" meant it was also able to assist survivors of the magnitude 8.0 earthquake that devastated parts of Chile six weeks after the Haiti quake.
The Rev Chandran Paul Martin, deputy General Secretary of the LWF, said, "ACT Alliance should pave the way towards greater efficiency and visibility in our common actions for justice through development and humanitarian work."
Bringing together more than 100 churches and related agencies in humanitarian work and development "was the most logical thing to do, both ecumenically and strategically. To be present in more than 125 countries with 30,000 or more actors with a collective budget of US$1.5 billion offers the best possible framework for joint action", Martin added.
ACT International united with ACT Development on 1 January 2010 under its new name, ACT Alliance.
The ACT Alliance can be found here: www.actalliance.org
[With acknowledgements to ENI. Ecumenical News International is jointly sponsored by the World Council of Churches, the Lutheran World Federation, the World Alliance of Reformed Churches and the Conference of European Churches.]
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