The leader of Africa's largest grouping of churches is urging faith communities and civil society on the continent to unite in a campaign for human rights, acknowledging that "we have often failed to speak with one voice" on this vital common concern.

More prayer is needed for Zimbabwe, according to Christian relief agency Tearfund who are supporting local churches to meet the desperate needs of thousands of families in Zimbabwe.

Africa's largest Christian grouping, the All Africa Conference of Churches, has pledged to "pray for an end to illegitimate rule in Zimbabwe", after a heated debate at its conference in neighbouring Mozambique.

Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf's special envoy at the All African Conference of Churches general assembly in Maputo, Laurence Konmla Bropleh, has called on the churches in Africa to help make their leaders accountable.

The general secretary of the All Africa Conference of Churches, the Rev Mvume Dandala, is encouraging mass voluntary testing for HIV by undergoing a personal test for the virus, and encourages other religious leaders to do the same.

The All Africa Conference of Churches is pleading with Kenyans to see their current political crisis as not only a national one, but as one in which the whole African continent is looking on in sorrow at the formerly peaceful country.

During his childhood in East Africa, the Rev Dr Samuel Kobia, now general secretary of the World Council of Churches (WCC), recalls that he used to see from his home the snow-topped peaks of Mount Kenya in the distance - writes Fredrick Nzwili for Ecumenical News International (ENI).

The general secretary of the All Africa Conference of Churches (AACC), the Rev Dr Mvume Dandala, has used the occasion of a major theological conference to call for practical steps towards reconciliation and peace in conflict-torn Somalia.