wfn.org | Title: HIV/AIDS, 2006 assembly and public issues on WCC

["WCC Media" <Media@wcc-coe.org>]

World Council of Churches 7 Press Release
  FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE - 12/02/2004 - pr-04-02

 HIV/AIDS, 2006 assembly, and public issues
 on WCC executive's agenda

Two highlights at the next 17-20 February 2004 meeting of the World
 Council of Churches (WCC) executive committee will be an in-depth
 presentation of WCC work on HIV/AIDS, and the formal installation of the
 council's new general secretary, Rev. Dr Samuel Kobia. The committee will
 also review the progress of work to prepare the next WCC assembly, and
 consider actions on public issues.

 Kobia, who took up his new post in January, will report to the committee
 for the first time as WCC general secretary on 17 February. He will be
 officially installed during a service in the Ecumenical Centre chapel at
 18:00 on Wednesday 18 February.

 The HIV/AIDS presentation is being programmed to allow executive committee
 members to fully appreciate and take on board - in ways appropriate to
 their own churches and ecumenical contexts - the intensive work on this
 issue undertaken over the past year by the WCC Health and Healing desk.

 The work aims at bridging a perceived gap between policy and action as far
 as faith communities' responses to HIV/AIDS are concerned. It consists of
 an Ecumenical HIV/AIDS Initiative in Africa (EHAIA), and of other regional
 and global HIV/AIDS activities, all of which will be profiled for the
 executive committee. Their input will assist in the strategy direction the
 council will take on the issue in the future.

 The committee will also review preparations for the council's ninth
 assembly in Porto Alegre, Brazil in 2006. Besides reviewing developments
 in the assembly programme, it will decide how many delegates member
 churches are to send to the assembly; for each church, that number will be
 based on membership figures submitted on or before 31 January 2004.  It
 will also set the policy on subsidies for assembly attendance, and
 consider other assembly-related finance matters.

 Another part of the committee's work is to consider actions on public
 issues. At this meeting, it will be analyzing nuclear disarmament, the
 Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and the situation in Sudan, Zimbabwe, India
 & Pakistan, and is likely to issue a statement, or minute, on each.

 In relation to the role of the churches in nuclear disarmament, the
 committee will address the fact that international institutions and rules
 created to achieve consensus, confidence and common strategies among
 global and national actors on how to meet threats to peace and security,
 including the rules to govern the use of force, have been weakened.

 On the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, it will consider the position of
 churches in Israel and the Occupied Territories and of the Middle East
 Council of Churches, the status of the US-sponsored "road map", the
 "Geneva Initiative" and other alternative peace plans, and the
 implications of Israel's construction of a so-called "security fence".

 In its supervisory role, the executive committee will review overall WCC
 work since its last, August 2003, meeting, the council's financial
 situation, and organizational questions that, in this case, will include
 procedures for applying a consensus model of reaching decisions.

 The committee will also be asked to approve the procedure for WCC central
 committee to replace one of eight WCC presidents, Rev. Kathryn K.
 Bannister from the USA, who has announced her decision to step down from
 the co-presidency for personal reasons.

For more information contact:
	 Media Relations Office: tel: (+41 22) 791 64 21 /  61 53
	 e-mail:media@wcc-coe.org - http://www.wcc-coe.org 

The World Council of Churches is a fellowship of churches, now 342, in more
than 120 countries in all continents from virtually all Christian
traditions. The Roman Catholic Church is not a member church but works
cooperatively with the WCC. The highest governing body is the assembly,
which meets approximately every seven years. The WCC was formally
inaugurated in 1948 in Amsterdam, Netherlands. Its staff is headed by
general secretary Samuel Kobia from the Methodist church in Kenya.