Anglican Alliance calls for Anglican Bank and financial literacy and rights campaign

[Worldwide Faith News <wfn@igc.org>]

Anglican Alliance calls for Anglican Bank and
financial literacy and rights campaign

Posted On : April 15, 2011 11:11 AM | Posted By : Webmaster
ACNS:
<http://www.anglicancommunion.org/acns/news.cfm/2011/4/15/ACNS4847>ACNS4847
Related Categories:
<http://www.anglicancommunion.org/acns/news.cfm/ACO--Anglican-Alliance>ACO
- Anglican Alliance

> By ACNS staff

> Delegates attending the first consultative
> conference for the
> <http://www.anglicancommunion.org/ministry/alliance/>Anglican
> Alliance in Nairobi have called for the Communion
> initiative to have as two of its key priorities
> the development of an Anglican Bank for savings
> and loans and a public education campaign on financial literacy and rights.

The consultation to take forward proposals for
development, relief and advocacy across the
Anglican Communion yesterday (April 14th)
received a strong endorsement from Archbishop
Eliud Wabukala, the Primate of Kenya.
Yesterday?s economic empowerment workshop heard
presentations from Peter Warutere of the World
Bank, Moses Ochieng of the Consultative Group to
Assist the Poor and Peterson Kamau from the
church?s own micro-finance agency Five Talents.

They set out the challenges facing developing
countries and set out strategies to overcome
poverty globally, nationally and locally.

In subsequent workshops participants decided on
the priorities that they wanted to see the
Anglican Alliance develop. These included:

> * An Anglican Bank for savings and loans

* A public education campaign on financial literacy and rights

* Partnerships and collaboration for development

* Participatory budgeting to improve economic governance

> * Advocacy for economic justice

The consultation, comprising delegates from right
across Africa and other regions of the world,
agreed that the Alliance should also focus on
peace and reconciliation as a second area of
development policy and governance as a third area.

The consultation also decided the outline of
advocacy strategy. For 2011 participants decided
to focus on economic empowerment, the theme of
this year?s G20. They decided to focus on the key themes of:

> * Access to finance

* Food security ? working on the impact on
people of increased prices of food

* Financing of basic services, including health, sanitation and water.

The economic empowerment workshop came after a
day-long site visit to see holistic development
work in Mount Kenya East diocese where a scheme
is now providing a water irrigation scheme, fish
farming and other projects that have transformed
the lives of the rural community.

Homes have been provided with electricity, and
the community has been mobilised to build a
secondary school. About 10,000 people had been
enrolled into a savings club to fund the
irrigation and had raised 1,500,000 Kenyan shillings.

Using church community mobilisation the scheme
empowers hard-pressed communities to identify
their resources and then put them to use for
community priorities. Faith is the driving force
in the community?s development, which regenerates
the church as well as the local well-being.

Known as ?Umoja?, or ?together?, the system of
holistic development was pioneered by <http://www.tearfund.org/>Tearfund.

The development is also sustainable ? the

projects at Mururini have been sustained and
grown over a period of eight years.
Participants at the Alliance conference were
inspired by what they had seen at Mount Kenya
East and said they wanted to see the theological
tools extended to other communities across the Anglican Communion.

> ENDS