Session II
This session will highlight selected emphases and achievements arising from the previous
presentation to help delegates make a critical assessment of the period through reflection on
the video and questions designed to provoke critical comments by participants. Highlights will
include:
Historical overview
Uppsala 1968
The first option turned out to be shot through with paternalism and colonial
condescension and reflected an incomplete awareness of economic and environmental issues.
The second option presented a massive challenge: to change or overthrow the political and
economic structures which cause global poverty and injustice. Both approaches have found
different expressions over the years and continue to influence events today. They do so in
terms of dichotomies and polarities: charity versus change; "business as usual" versus
revolution or reform; orthodox versus new economics; elite hegemony versus democracy;
corporate power versus community; competition versus cooperation; Right versus Left.
Larnaca 1986
Prior to Larnaca, CICARWS had tried to promote reflection about justice, its relation to
service and diakonia, and the relationship between local and global realities. At Larnaca,
however, the churches together recognized the need for a more comprehensive and liberating
diakonia (Christian service) whose aim was transformation and change at all levels. As a
result, the unit started to be more proactive in trying to help the churches and related groups
in their reflections about the root causes of the problems, and to find methodologies which
would allow them to respond more comprehensively to people's needs. It was decided to
spend less time on listing and screening specific projects for funding at regional group
meetings and more time on analysis and reflection. As a result, CICARWS reduced its
involvement in projects, but continued a system of drawing up priority projects so as to
respond in very practical ways to the priorities and challenges of the ecumenical
movement.
CICARWS' mandate was to "assist the churches to manifest their solidarity by sharing their
human, material and spiritual resources and to facilitate such sharing so as to promote social
justice, human development, and relief to human need". At Larnaca CICARWS was told
to
El Escorial 1987
From Evian to Alexandria 1992-1995
The commission meeting at Evian expressed some honest self-doubt. The meeting saw the
chief global issue that had to be addressed as the need to empower people to fight suffering
and injustice. But with so many major problems in the world it was extremely difficult to
address only some of them. There was a shapelessness to the setting of priorities, just as there
was a "lack of shape to the world in which we are working". The models of sharing and
service used by the unit sometimes shared in this lack of shape.
One attempt at this point to bring shape to the discussion was to seek to establish with the
member churches a common process of action-reflection concerning diakonia within which it
might be possible to draw up guidelines defining what we understand diakonia to mean for us
today. This process led to the presentation to the Central Committee in 1994 of eleven
guidelines, which were commended to the churches for study and reflection:
a. Diakonia puts the least advantaged first.
Subsequently, these guidelines were studied by women within the commission. Their report,
"No Boundaries to Compassion?", found the guidelines insufficiently sensitive to the
consultative, communitarian approach which women bring to service, and also found in the
language and tone the patronizing and unequal partnership models which Larnaca called to be
put aside. So from the perspective of a gender approach this group rewrote the guidelines as
follows:
a. Diakonia overcomes the subordination of people.
The next commission meeting in Bangkok, Thailand, in 1993, was a pivotal one, bringing
together strands of analysis, thought and practice which had formed over previous years. It
confirmed and gave impetus to the regionalization of the unit's work and organization. It
discussed in detail the particular problems of women and youth and how to address them. And
it mentioned "jubilee" for the first time: "The concept of the jubilee year combines the old
values and ethos of the Israelite village-communities with regulations to prevent the
development... of unjust asymmetrical structures."
At the commission meeting in Alexandria, Egypt, in 1995, a "Strategy for Jubilee
1995-1998", was discussed and adopted. Staff had already begun working within the plan,
which
was intended to provide the unit with a focused statement and integrated framework for its
work. The plan sought to draw out and apply the principles of the biblical jubilee to the
contemporary world. It redefined four basic mandates for the work of the unit and identified
five key constituencies of "jubilee peoples" as a priority for practical actions of solidarity:
1. The needs and rights of children.
From the beginning of the WCC as we know it, the ecumenical family has acknowledged a
special place for responding to human need through actions of practical solidarity. The WCC's
Commission on Inter-Church Aid, Refugee and World Service (CICARWS), the predecessor
of Unit IV, handed on a significant legacy which called for the churches to reclaim their
prophetic diaconal role on the local and global levels. This review surveys the last seven years
of Unit IV and how the churches have responded to this call. During these years, the world
has changed dramatically - and so has ecumenical diaconal work. But these changes did not
start suddenly in 1991. Their roots lie deep in the past.
The WCC assembly in Uppsala captured and embodied two conflicting
approaches to development. On the one hand, it said, societies can adapt and can try to
eradicate poverty by duplicating and reproducing the benefits of Western capitalism
throughout the world. On the other hand, advocates can seek to promote revolutionary change
for the liberation of the oppressed.
By articulating these options Uppsala helped churches to move beyond a
narrow paternalistic approach, in order to challenge the status quo. This meant looking beyond
immediate concerns and aims in order to take a wider view of things. Twenty years on, in
Larnaca, Cyprus, in 1986, a world consultation was organized by CICARWS under the title:
"Diakonia 2000: Called to Be Neighbours". Larnaca inaugurated a radical break with the
past.
The participants at Larnaca broadened the meaning of diakonia to include forms of help
beyond the purely material. Though there had always been (and still is) an obvious need to
redistribute money and other tangible assets fairly to those in need, the new diakonia, while
including these important elements, became more comprehensive and holistic, taking account
of other, sometimes less obvious, needs. It would focus on people at a local level, but remain
aware of the global links between peoples. It would become more prophetic by denouncing
injustice and embodying new models of sharing resources. It would reach out to all the
marginalized in a spirit of solidarity. It would do so primarily by means of the local church,
which was affirmed as the main agent of this new concept of service.
The year after Larnaca another WCC world consultation was held in El
Escorial, Spain. Called "Koinonia: Sharing Life in a World Community", it focused on the
sharing of resources. Guidelines were drawn up for what it called an "ecumenical discipline"
for the sharing of resources. The participants committed themselves to:
Like Larnaca, El Escorial emphasized the holistic mission of the church and said it is artificial
to separate spiritual from material needs. Henceforth, it was declared, the sharing of resources
between North and South should be a two-way process which takes account of the whole
person in community.
Awareness of a changing world increased with the first Unit IV commission
meeting, held in Evian, France, in 1992. The need to interpret change in a prophetic spirit was
emphasized as the necessary precondition for Unit IV to respond to the needs of churches and
their communities. It seemed that the world was subject to more unexpected and urgent crises
than ever before. The unit's preparedness and capacity to respond rapidly had to be improved.
But how could it respond quickly and flexibly within the limitations of available resources?
b. Diakonia is mutual - in that those who serve the needy accept their own need to receive and
the ability of the needy to give.
c. Diakonia acts with those it claims to serve and not for them or about them or over
them.
d. Diakonia respects the needy's own judgment as to what their needs are and how best they
are met.
e. Diakonia adds to the power of the needy to control what happens to them.
f. Diakonia responds to immediate needs while understanding, resisting and transforming the
systems which create and aggravate them.
g. Diakonia shares the resources that promote life.
h. Diakonia remains faithful and refuses to desert the needy even when there are
difficulties.
i. Diakonia acknowledges the inevitable cost as well as gain.
j. Diakonia gives an account of itself to those it serves.
k. Diakonia sets no boundaries to its compassion.
b. Diakonia is mutual because it expresses our common and diverse needs.
c. Diakonia leads us to create a pathway along which we can walk together.
d. Diakonia empowers and dignifies people to know and express themselves.
e. Diakonia acknowledges each community's God given right to self-determination.
f. Diakonia challenges injustice in a holistic way through immediate and long-term
actions.
g. Diakonia preserves and shares the resources which sustain life.
h. Diakonia nurtures and sustains communities in the place of marginalization and
exclusion.
i. Diakonia acknowledges the inevitable risks, in restoring community through learning, to give
and to receive, to demand and to concede.
j. Diakonia encourages us to be conscious of the contradictions between what we believe, say
and do, and challenges us towards a deeper integrity.
k. Diakonia expresses God's unlimited compassion without abusing the dignity of the
servant.
2. The needs and rights of women who are marginalized and excluded.
3. The needs and rights of the economically and politically marginalized.
4. The needs and rights of uprooted people.
5. The needs and rights of people in conflict and disaster situations.
Exploring the mandate
1. working with the marginalized and excluded for a more just sharing of resources through
developing alternative models of international cooperation and a better understanding of the
diversity of resources needed (economic, ecological, social, cultural and spiritual) to create
sustainable communities;
2. promoting practical actions of solidarity which reflect our commitment to a more just
sharing of resources amidst growing poverty, displacement and exclusion, locally and
regionally;
3. promoting capacity-building and empowerment within communities to rediscover and
develop their own potential and resources, and to preserve the dignity and right of individuals
and communities to determine their own destinies;
4. promoting networking and advocacy with uprooted, marginalized, conflict- and
disaster-stricken communities, ensuring that they have access to speak for themselves at all
levels:
local, national and international.
At El Escorial in 1987, Sithembiso Nyoni of Zimbabwe stressed the need to see resources
holistically, so that "we share who we are first, before we share what we have". This notion at
once broadens the scope of sharing and makes it much more difficult in practice. If all that
needs to be shared is money, then who shares what with whom is relatively straightforward:
the rich North channels money to the poor South.
But what does it mean to share who we are? One immediate implication is that all of us
share something with the other, for we are all persons, all "who's". Sharing becomes a
dynamic process, which may or may not involve the transfer of money. It also implies starting
from a position of relative equality: if all share, all have something to give, to receive and to
learn.
The Bangkok commission meeting spoke in this context of "symbolic and cultural resistance".
This is a concept and a practice which resonates with possibility and promise. Such resistance
refers in part to the beliefs and practices of poor and marginalized communities as they seek to
combat the forces which oppress them. As we shall see, the ideas and activities which such
communities devise for themselves are remarkably creative: they constitute a large part of the
hope we all share for the future. If we think of these popular expressions as resources for
effecting change, then it becomes clear that they are made for sharing. An added advantage of
this sort of sharing is that it is especially appropriate and amenable to sharing between
such communities, in other words - from South to South.
In this and in other ways, sharing becomes a redistribution not just of wealth, but of mental
and spiritual resources and of opportunities. We are taken beyond and above a simplistic
definition of development as purely a matter of economics to one in which all of life in all its
aspects is of value.
Besides developing ecumenical reflection on the meaning of solidarity and service through a
just and equal sharing of our resources, the unit has facilitated studies to monitor and evaluate
practice. The study on "motivations for and consequences of the concentration policy" is an
in-depth analysis of the changing ways in which development cooperation is being conducted
within ecumenical partnerships. This study and related discussions reflect the basic concern for
the future integrity and viability of the ecumenical resource-sharing system. The changing
geo-political context of governments' international development policies has considerably
affected
the possibilities and limitations of international ecumenical development agencies. The new
climate of efficiency has changed the tone of the discussions, as have the new criteria for
measuring impact and success. All this leads us to a kairos moment for assessing
together how the common understanding and vision of the ecumenical movement can and will
influence our ways of sharing and working together for the sake of human dignity and
sustainable community among the marginalized and excluded.
Structures for sharing
1. Regional Groups. Regional Groups (RGs) were established in 1972 by CICARWS
to identify the needs of the churches and set priorities for ecumenical work. One important
task was screening specific projects put forward to them for funding by churches and
ecumenical church-related agencies. After Larnaca and El Escorial, however, they largely
abandoned this role and began instead to make better analysis of the situation in each region,
including the ecumenical situation, and to make recommendations about ecumenical priorities
and how resources should be shared and by whom. In order to do this they need to be as
credible and as inclusive as possible. Accordingly, current membership of RGs comprises
representatives of churches in the region, northern agencies, Unit IV, and ecumenical
networks and movements. Regional ecumenical organizations (REOs) are also members. RGs
also seek to include representatives of the jubilee people they wish to assist, especially women,
youth and other marginalized groups. Non-church related movements may be represented, and
specialists in particular issues may also be members. RGs are meant to perform a number of
important functions by providing
2. Round Tables. WCC-sponsored Round Tables (RTs) were initiated as an instrument
of ecumenical sharing of resources among church-related partners in response to
dissatisfaction with the project model of development and funding. Projects tended to be
short-term, piecemeal, unrelated to one another and without assured commitment to funding.
It was hoped that the formation of RTs, national forums and policy papers would put
programmes in the context of more strategic planning. The WCC regional desks are uniquely
placed to assist with this and to accompany the churches as they seek to implement their
ecumenical programmes.
Round Tables were composed of representatives - from North and South - of national councils
of churches (NCCs), funding agencies, mission boards and the WCC. To begin with, they
discussed programmes and decided on funding.
If RTs focus too much on money matters and on NCC priorities (rather than those of the
churches which the NCCs represent), this militates against their intended holism. However, the
reorientation of their functioning from operational to facilitative has made them a powerful
and greatly valued forum for all partners involved.
3. Refugee and Migration Service Resource-Sharing. Over the past seven years, a
systematized process of resource-sharing has been developed in concert with the constituency
of the WCC's Refugee and Migration Service (RMS). This process is based on coordination
of the inter-relationship of policy, programme and resource-sharing. Existing regional working
groups composed of church and specialist members were strengthened and new ones
established. These now engage in both analysis and priority-setting for ecumenical work in
virtually all regions. Several of these groups are directly involved in resource-sharing
recommendations for the WCC. This global network of specialized groups allows the RMS to
conduct sharing of material and other resources from an overall global and regional
assessment of needs and priorities. The regional resource-sharing is linked to a system of
inter-regional and global exchange of perspective, facilitating both coordination and common
action
among partners. These policy-funding linkages underlie development and utilization of
specialized ecumenical experience.
4. Scholarships. WCC scholarships are intended for candidates working with churches
and church-related organizations. They aim to build the capacity of these organizations and to
promote the development of their personnel. As scholarships are understood as part of
ecumenical sharing of resources, candidates are also expected to be able to make a significant
contribution to the development of relationships and understanding between various churches
and denominations.
The programme has a network of 160 national correspondents working with national
scholarships committees who are responsible for the selection process. They ensure that
completed applications are sent to the WCC and assist scholarship holders with pre-departure
arrangements.
5. ACT (Action by Churches Together). ACT International is a global ecumenical
network, established in 1995 in response to the need for a better sharing of resources, skills
and actions in emergency situations. In 1996 emergency assistance by the ACT network
totalled US$32 million: Africa received $20 million, Asia-Pacific $3.9 million, Europe $5.6
million, Latin America and the Caribbean $1 million, and the Middle East $1.2 million.
6. ECLOF (Ecumenical Church Loan Fund). This ecumenical credit scheme promotes
dignity and self-reliance by offering low-interest loans, repayable in local currency, to churches
and to communities of the most marginalized and excluded. ECLOF has evolved considerably
in the last seven years, improving the effectiveness of the national sharing instruments, the
national ECLOF committees.
Solidarity, empowerment and advocacy
Traditionally, the "practical actions" of the unit were considered to be generating and
transmitting funds through its various resource-sharing systems. However, the unit staff and
its partners have increasingly come to see enabling practical and effective actions by churches
around the world as the outcome of all of its inter-related activities - resource-sharing,
capacity-building, information-gathering and analysis, and networking and advocacy.
Capacity-building and empowerment. Capacity-building, through training,
information-sharing, provision of international analysis and exchanges, has always been a
priority of the
WCC. It has been promoted through programmes like ecumenical scholarships, which remains
a key entry-point into ecumenical life for many people. In 1994, for example, 275 awards were
given, 66 percent to men and 34 percent to women. A target for the future is to increase the
number of scholarships to women.
Regional Groups and Round Tables often identify training needs for churches and
communities. An example is an April 1997 workshop in Freetown, Sierra Leone, held on the
request of the Africa regional group to contribute to developing a strategy for building
women's capacities in their individual countries and in the subregion. Five countries were
represented. This meeting, a collaborative effort between the Africa desk and the scholarships
programme, illustrates the direction away from individual projects and scholarships towards a
more strategic and systematic planning and programming in the area of capacity-building.
Capacity-building initiatives in the area of emergencies have featured strongly in the work of
the area desks over these years. As emergency work has increased and internationalized, it has
been more and more important for the WCC to support local churches and the indigenous
populations to play their distinctive role. In the response to emergencies the place of
counselling, community reconciliation and reconstruction speaks loudly for the active
participation of local churches.
Linked to the task of capacity-building is the growing need for ecumenical formation.
Regional and global workshops with church and ecumenical leaders and with international
ecumenical agency staff are evolving. A curriculum has been developed for agencies to use
with new staff or those unfamiliar with the ecumenical movement and its goals. In the regions
the focus is on the future viability of the movement through self-reliance and renewed
leadership.
Finally, the unit has sought to develop and promote gender guidelines for the work of
sharing and service, conscious that this approach offers a new way for realizing the vision of
community based on mutual dignity and equality between men and women.
Networking and advocacy. Networking and advocacy connect the local with the
global. Networking ensures that otherwise disparate communities concerned about the same
issue get to know one another. Advocacy makes the connections between specific problems -
and their various local manifestations - and the international agencies and policy-making
bodies responsible. Marginalized groups are by definition excluded from the decision-making
which affects their lives. The globalization of political and economic decision-making has
made it nearly impossible to determine who is ultimately responsible for many policies which
profoundly affect local people in local environments. If the church's voice is to be heard then it
must be involved in the politics of national and international policy-making and review.
Effective advocacy needs to be local, national and international. Local advocacy means
empowering groups and communities to speak out and influence local government policies, so
as to improve the immediate circumstances in which people live. Nationally, it means
encouraging and supporting the advocacy of national and ecumenical church organizations,
and sometimes challenging church leaders to contribute to national policy debates.
Internationally, it means seeking to influence ecumenical organizations, intergovernmental
institutions and the United Nations. Globalization has drastically reduced the power of
national governments to undertake this role, which is why the WCC's efforts are so
important.
This comprehensive approach to advocacy requires careful monitoring and evaluation. It must
be planned and coordinated for maximum effectiveness. It must be adapted in the light of
experience and achievements. Above all, it must be ethical: advocacy should not be allowed to
put lives in danger. Many churches, for example, are vulnerable to persecution because of their
minority status or because their country is governed by an oppressive regime. In other
situations, churches may be close to the seat of power or be otherwise privileged by the state.
Both situations present obvious challenges and dangers.
The awareness-raising aspects of networking and advocacy demand an appropriate and
professional use of mass media. Such an approach involves communicating signs of hope as
well as issues of concern. The many good things which have been achieved and are being
achieved throughout the world - things which have made a positive difference to the lives of
countless people - must be upheld as examples and models of what is possible. Such initiatives
are beacons of hope and faith.
Organizing international campaigns is sometimes the most effective way of bringing attention
to serious issues of global concern and of achieving changes in international policy. In step
with member churches, the WCC has initiated or participated in several major campaigns in
recent years. In each case, the entry point has been a fundamental commitment to the jubilee
people: women, children, the uprooted and the politically and economically marginalized.
1. Solidarity with the politically marginalized: networking and advocacy with the
churches against nuclear testing in the Pacific. The resumption of French nuclear testing
on Moruroa and Fangataufa in 1995 evoked surprise and disappointment in the whole world
but especially in the Pacific. In response, Unit IV's Pacific and Communications desks became
fully engaged in coordination: receiving and diffusing information, producing advocacy
material (including postcards, a testimony document, a poster), and participating in a wide
range of meetings in Europe and in protest demonstrations and interviews in Geneva. The
Europe-Pacific Solidarity (EPS) network played an important part in this. The Unit IV report
to the WCC Central Committee in September 1995 was the starting point for a research
project on the effects of nuclear tests on the health and well-being of the people of French
Polynesia; and in October 1997 EPS published Moruroa and Us - Polynesians' Experiences
during Thirty Years of Nuclear Testing in the French Pacific. One of its findings was that
6 percent of the Polynesian workers were 16 years of age and 10 percent 17 years or less
when they started working at the French nuclear testing sites. As soon as the study was made
public, it evoked reactions around the world, especially in France and in French Polynesia and
the other Pacific Island states.
2. Solidarity with the economically marginalized: networking and advocacy to
promote debt cancellation for the poorest countries by the year 2000. The WCC, churches
and church-related organizations have long given priority to helping to counteract the impact
of foreign debt on the poorest countries. An appraisal by the Council's Advisory Group on
Economic Matters of the international financial system served as the basis for a Central
Committee statement on foreign debt already in 1985; and the WCC helped to organize a
hearing on development and the debt issue in Berlin in 1989. More recently, the Council has
been analyzing the debt crisis in the context of the jubilee tradition.
In September 1997 the Central Committee called for a joint ecumenical action plan to address
the debt issue in support of the WCC's work on globalization, social movements and
exclusion. The Central Committee recommended that the WCC assist member churches in
cooperation with ecumenical partners to (1) develop an ecumenical action plan in support of
the cancellation of foreign debt for the poorest countries by the year 2000, and (2) work
together within this action plan to develop a joint statement by the churches for adoption by
the Harare assembly.
Churches and church-related organizations have also conducted research, lobbying and
campaigns to mobilize public opinion and governments on this issue. A consultation has been
convened to prepare a statement for the assembly to respond to, elaborate an ecumenical
action plan and work out a strategy for setting up an international mechanism to prevent the
recurrence of the unpayable debt burden cycle. The methodology will be rooted in the
exchange of experiences among churches and bodies.
3. Solidarity with children: networking and advocacy for children's rights and
dignity. Since 1990 the Latin America and Caribbean Desk of Unit IV has worked with
the Latin American Council of Churches and the National Council of Churches in the USA to
establish a network of marginalized children. The network was set up originally by groups of
children and adults working with children in areas not usually served by churches. Children in
this region are often the victims of violence; for example, Brazilian street children may be the
targets of police death squads intent on "cleaning up the streets"; children may be left behind
in the Dominican Republic when their parents are forcibly deported to Haiti.
Inspired by the experience in Latin America and its relationship with children's initiatives in
other regions, Unit IV started a process of supporting the rights of marginalized children. The
objective was to support children in their own advocacy role and to support the churches in
being in solidarity with them. Central to the strategy is the building of a global ecumenical
child network.
In May 1996 a consultation was held in Geneva which included nine children from five
continents among its participants. The particular problems of street children - child sexual
exploitation and child labour, for example - were vividly brought to life by these children, who
demonstrated tremendous courage and insight. The WCC is virtually unique in its
encouragement of such meaningful inclusion of children in its own advocacy work and in its
recognition of children as leaders in addressing their own problems.
A second consultation was held in Brazil in October 1997. More than 30 children and young
adults met with adults, representing 25 countries. Participants adopted an action plan laying
out the next steps for the development of the network up to the assembly and beyond.
4. Solidarity with the stranger: networking and advocacy through the 1997
Ecumenical Year of Churches in Solidarity with Uprooted People. The urgency of the
global situation of refugees, internally displaced persons and migrants led to a new WCC
policy statement on uprooted people, adopted by the Central Committee in September 1995,
"A Moment to Choose: Risking to be with Uprooted People". This policy statement emerged
from an 18-month process of consultation and dialogue conducted by RMS with member
churches and related agencies around the world, many of which elaborated their own
submissions by conducting consultations with their constituents.
Along with the policy statement, the Central Committee also passed two resolutions regarding
its implementation: churches were invited to mark 1997 as the Ecumenical Year of Churches
in Solidarity with Uprooted People; and local congregations were invited to collect signatures
to protest the manufacturing of anti-personnel mines and to urge the immediate clearance of
existing mines.
The Geneva launch of the Ecumenical Year took place in March 1997 at the annual meeting of
the WCC's Global Ecumenical Network on Uprooted People. Churches responded
enthusiastically; and many decided to extend the campaign into 1998, thus reaffirming the
global ecumenical commitment to many millions of refugees, internally displaced persons and
migrant workers. Rekindling serious conversation about what it means to be the Church of the
Stranger, churches have considered what actions are needed to express practical solidarity
with uprooted people and church partners.
As part of the International Campaign to Ban Landmines, the WCC collected signatures in
support of the campaign and worked jointly with the Lutheran World Federation to raise
awareness about the need to ban this indiscriminate weapon, and supported church
participation in the campaign.
5. Solidarity with women: networking and advocacy for women's empowerment
through a gender approach. Unit IV has taken seriously the long history of WCC
commitments most recently focused in the Ecumenical Decade of Churches in Solidarity with
Women by working to increase consciousness of women's needs, capacities and potential
when allocating resources in advocacy, development and communications.
As noted above, the Scholarships programme has sought to encourage more women
candidates. A new emphasis on shorter-term scholarships and an increase in South-to-South
placements also helps women whose traditional household responsibilities preclude long
periods away from home to consider training.
At the international level, RMS was a founding member of the international NGO working
group that co-hosted the first consultation on women refugees (1989) whose lobbying resulted
in the creation in 1991 of a special office within the office of the UN High Commissioner for
Refugees (UNHCR) to address the needs of women refugees.
The Unit IV commission meeting in 1993 recognized that there is still a gap between
articulated commitments to women and practical actions. Since then all desks have reviewed
their work with women in regional groups and have sought to reflect these commitments in all
their responsibilities.
In response to the continued need to address the gender gap in the work of the unit, the
commission decided at its next meeting, in Alexandria in 1995, that the needs and rights of
marginalized and excluded women should be one of the five priorities of the unit's work. The
commission recognized that solidarity with jubilee women must not place the full responsibility
of change on women or isolate their concerns as "women's issues and projects". The
commission recommended that the unit should have a gender approach in this work.
Over a period of six months, all unit staff discussed the particularity of a gender approach to
their work. A working group on advocacy with women produced a set of development
guidelines entitled "Gender Guidelines: Nurturing Spirituality in Sharing and Service". The
focus of the gender perspective on which the guidelines were developed is the understanding
that God's purpose for humanity is expressed in the saving love of God in the renewal of the
whole creation, of which women and men are full participants.
The guidelines were prepared to assist Unit IV desks to raise questions about gender relations
in daily work and in relationships with regional and local partners. They are also being applied
to policy and planning, monitoring and project evaluation.
Lessons learned and directions for the future
The evaluation intentionally upheld the values contained within the vision statement, and
included the following components:
The World Council of Churches Programme on Sharing and Service assists
member churches and related ecumenical agencies and organizations to
promote human dignity and sustainable community with the marginalized and
excluded, by
Over the decades much thought has gone into definitions of sharing. Thinking about who
should share what with whom within an ecumenical and developmental context has expanded
to take account of new insights, especially as structural inequalities between peoples and
regions have stubbornly remained, despite efforts to eradicate them.
The regionalization of Unit IV embodies a response to the need to devolve
responsibility and power. Six key structures for implementing this kind of sharing have
functioned in Unit IV: Regional Groups, Round Tables, the Refugee and Migration Service,
the Scholarships programme, emergency response (ACT) and credit loans (ECLOF).
Regional Groups have also facilitated communication of their work and the exchange of
information between regions.
Practical actions. Solidarity can only be expressed between people.
There is a certain solidarity in sharing the beliefs, values and aims of others, but unless it finds
practical expression in some way it is not of much help. The evolution of Unit IV as a whole
has made it more and more of an enabler, promoting (in the words of its mandate) "practical
actions of solidarity which reflect our commitment to a more just sharing of resources amidst
growing poverty, displacement and exclusion, locally and regionally".
Between late 1996 and mid-1997, Unit IV engaged in an extensive evaluation process,
including a concerted attempt to examine the work accomplished by the unit as a whole and by
each working group within the unit individually, in order to establish priorities for the
future.
A small committee of staff and consultants drafted a questionnaire to solicit feedback from
partners. The questions were related to the mandate of the unit and issues of relationship, and
comments were invited on limitations, unmet expectations and priorities for work in the
future.
This period has seen a significant strengthening of networks and
platforms for common planning, resource-sharing and action. On the global level the creation
of the heads-of-agencies network has been highly appreciated by the agencies; and it is hoped
that this will further develop in the next years as a platform for discussion and cooperation
between agencies and the WCC on a variety of common concerns related to issues of sharing,
solidarity and justice.
On the regional level, Regional Groups have moved away from the traditional role of project
screening and into the field of policy-analysis and dialogue. They have sought to promote
cooperation between the growing number of ecumenical partners and networks and to provide
an ethos in which mutual criticism and encouragement can flourish. The widening role of these
groups is anticipated in the future serving the needs of the Council as a whole.
Round Tables have been thoroughly reviewed and are now undergoing a systematic
revitalization. It is expected that Round Tables will grow in numbers and importance so long
as the WCC can ensure that the performance of this instrument can be maintained and
sustained. The criteria for measuring quality and effectiveness are clearly set out in the new
ecumenical guidelines on Round Tables.
Practical actions of solidarity
Increasingly, the role of the WCC has become one of enabling networks to come into place
whereby a variety of actors, local and international, can coordinate their efforts and maximize
their impact. This task however is not merely administrative. The role of the WCC is to carry a
vision and communicate values and ways of working together which ensure that practical
action is not driven by money and the thinking of those providing the money. The WCC will
need in the future to elaborate much more on how to carry out this role of facilitation
effectively. The creation of sound and efficient networks like ACT and ECLOF, as well as
effective platforms for decision-making and sharing, such as Regional Groups and Round
Tables, are one important step in this direction.
Ecumenical formation and capacity-building
All regional desks have been involved in training - mostly in workshop style events. Target
groups for this training, especially project-planning and management training, have been
Regional Ecumenical Organizations, national councils of churches, Round Table partners,
church-related NGOs and local agencies. In Latin America, as a result of a series of
workshops on popular education, a regional network was created which now provides a space
for reflection for more than 50 groups and churches related to the regional desk.
Emergency preparedness is another priority area for capacity-building initiatives. The Pacific,
Asia, Latin America, the Caribbean and Europe have all supported workshops for this
purpose, often in conjunction with ACT.
Responding to the need to avoid dependency situations, many regions have begun to promote
credit as a funding possibility. For some regions, notably Africa, this represents enormous
change from a grant-oriented methodology. ECLOF has been the chosen instrument for many
years in some regions for promoting this idea.
Ecumenical formation has grown to be an urgent priority in these last seven years. In many
situations there is a lack of awareness and sensitivity to the "ecumenical approach". This is due
to generational changes in the leadership, evolving and secularizing mandates within related
ecumenical bodies and hesitation on a local level to think ecumenically rather than
confessionally.
Networking and advocacy
The newly created Global Network of Children Helping Children is not envisaged as a
permanent network of the WCC. It is being started up with discrete short-term goals. WCC
support and services will gradually give way to a structure which has its own autonomy.
The networks related directly to the work of resource-sharing - Regional Groups, Round
Tables, ACT and ECLOF - have a more permanent character and are essential to the staff in
Geneva for carrying out their work effectively and cooperatively. They are in reality a hybrid
between representative bodies (committees or advisory groups) elected by the WCC
governing structures (and others) and networks of actors who voluntarily come together to
cooperate.
Though loosely used, the term "network" does convey the dynamic character of the work.
Structures are not rigid but evolve according to changing contexts and needs. This flexibility is
absolutely consistent with the future pattern and working style of the Council.
The key to success in all these networks is relationships and communication. Without trust and
mutual accountability there is no relationship, and without open and systematic sharing of
information and ideas little can be achieved. So while the ecumenical guidelines on the sharing
of resources may in their present written form be a little dated, the challenge to develop new
and more appropriate ethical guidelines is very much before us.
The work of the WCC is known worldwide because it is practical. By
supporting and accompanying local churches and groups, it seeks to make a practical
difference. The evaluation has been able to quantify this work and thus gain some perspective
on its scale and impact.
This element of the Council's work is more and more important for the
constituency. It is a primary focus for the future. In all cases the partners surveyed find this
aspect of the work motivating and beneficial. To quote one: "As a result of WCC Unit IV's
input and support, a number of Christian councils have undergone evaluation exercises leading
to turn around' strategies that have enhanced the image and performance of councils in West
Africa."
The networks supported through the work of Unit IV take different forms.
Some are permanent networks, whose work directly relates to the mandate and work of staff
teams. An example is the Global Ecumenical Network on Uprooted People, which was created
by the WCC with its member churches and related ecumenical organizations and is serviced by
the Geneva secretariat. The same can be said of the Global Ecumenical Child Network.
