wfn.org | Church people in Zambia use popular media to influence European Union trade negotiations

["Franziska Surber" <Franziska.Surber@warc.ch>]

>World Alliance of Reformed Churches
>News Release
>25 May 2009

Church people in Zambia use popular media to influence European
Union trade negotiations

In a groundbreaking initiative, the United Church of Zambia is
using street theatre and broadcast media to encourage church
members to get involved in efforts to influence negotiations
between the European Union and their country on trade issues. 

At a time when the majority of countries in Africa are involved
in bilateral talks with the European Union about the terms of
Economic and Partnership Agreements, intended to open up African
markets through deregulation, church people are learning from
popular media about the importance of telling their government
not to agree to policies which would affect health and education
services.  

“Up until now, the church has not been involved in trying to
influence the government on global multilateral trade issues,”
says Puleng LenkaBula a consultant working on economic justice
issues in the region on behalf of the World Alliance of Reformed
Churches (WARC).  

“But the deterioration in the economy in Zambia has affected
health and employment. Now the church is working to influence the
response of the government to the negotiations in order to ensure
that the agreements allow for protection of people’s lives and
health,” says the feminist ethicist from the University of South
Africa. Popular education techniques are helping get that message
across and mobilize response.

As meetings of WARC’s executive committee get underway in
Geneva, stories such as these are being received from many of the
organization’s member churches. WARC, which represents 75 million
Reformed church members in 107 countries, is known for its
commitment to economic justice and concern for the protection of
the earth’s natural resources. Two-thirds of the organization’s
membership is in the Global South. 

The general secretary, Setri Nyomi, says in his report to the
executive committee that a key focus of WARC’s activities during
the two years since the governing body last met has been to
mobilize church members’ involvement in social justice issues,
especially at the grassroots level.

“The challenges of life today require a radical transformation
of the prevailing economic system which is centred on capital
accumulation and competition. There is urgency for a vision which
puts people at the centre, supporting social well-being, racial,
ethnic and gender justice, exercise of freedom and cooperation
among people,” Nyomi writes.

Projects such as the one in Zambia show that churches are taking
up the challenge. 

“We want people in church to think beyond being happy
communities of people who love Jesus, says LenkaBula.  “Jesus
talked about health and about caring for people.  The church
cannot lose that connection between social witness and
theology.”

The prime minister of Namibia is calling the final declaration
of the Durban Review Conference a moral compass that should
inspire global citizens by its moral authority.  

“I am satisfied with the deliberations of the review process and
with the final declaration”, Prime Minister Nahas Angula told
members of the ecumenical press corps in Geneva on Wednesday.  

Angula was accompanied by Namibia’s ambassador to the United
Nations in New York, Kaire Mbuende.

In comments made during a briefing at the Ecumenical Centre,
Prime Minister Nahas Angula said churches should be in the
forefront of efforts to combat racism as they were in the
struggle against apartheid in South Africa. 

The Durban Review conference convened by the United Nations in
Geneva (20-24 April) is reviewing progress towards the goals set
in 2001 at the World Conference against racism, racial
discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance held in
Durban, South Africa. 

Participants at the 2001 conference issued a programme of action
which includes calls for tougher anti-discrimination legislation,
better education, improved support for victims of racism, greater
multi-culturalism and respect for the rule of law and human
rights.

Nahula noted that the process of the Durban Review serves to
remind Namibians that even though Namibia was born from the
struggle against racism and colonialism, “unresolved racial
problems” persist in the country. 

In a statement issued Wednesday, the general secretary of the
World Alliance of Reformed Churches (WARC), Setri Nyomi, welcomes
the Durban Review process and writes, “We hope that this process
will stimulate the improved educational programmes and enforced
anti-racism legislation that can bring lasting changes in
behaviour.”

WARC has a long-standing commitment to justice for all,
regardless of race, creed or gender.  In 1982 WARC declared
apartheid a sin and its theological justification heresy.  WARC
also welcomed the Belhar Confession developed within the Reformed
family in South Africa as a gift for the ecumenical movement.  

In 2007, WARC delegates to an ecumenical conference in Jamaica
on the British transatlantic slave trade signed a joint
declaration which said that human trafficking, child labour,
child soldiers, enslaved labour in the Amazon and elsewhere, are
modern forms of slavery that need to be addressedby churches
today.

“WARC continues to say clearly and loudly that the churches must
repent of past involvement in racism and intolerance and commit
to processes which will lead to the elimination of all forms of
intolerance in the modern world,” says Nyomi.

>***

>Contact:
>Kristine Greenaway 
>Executive Secretary, Communications
>World Alliance of Reformed Churches
>150 Route de Ferney
>P.O. Box 2100
>1211 Geneva 2, Switzerland
>tel.  +41.22 791 62 43 / +41 79 508 20 43
>fax: +41.22 791 65 05
>web: www.warc.ch ( http://www.warc.ch/ ) 
>e-mail: kgr@warc.ch