It is a matter of hours before delegates of the third ACT Alliance General Assembly will elect a new moderator to lead ACT’s Governing Board.

Coming to a near completion of his four-year term, Dr Sushant Agrawal, Director of ACT member Churches’ Auxiliary for Social Action, is pleased to hand over the leadership baton with a message for the candidates.

“My best wishes are with the candidates. Whoever wins must keep in mind that socio-political challenges are emerging rapidly and that the world is changing fast. ACT Alliance will need to be flexible to respond.”

Reflecting on the new Global Strategy, Mr Agrawal said, “the new ACT strategy is contextual and progressive. Changing the strategy period from four years to eight years is good as it gives a timeframe for mid-course evaluation and a chance to re-adjust to any contextual challenges that may arise.”

“The new membership engagement model that has been passed is a historic decision. It will allow members to engage at local, national and global levels and will present the Alliance with an immense range of opportunities,” he continued.

“I think that the bigger challenge for ACT is financial sustainability – particularly for the Secretariat. We can raise funds from other networks but I think that the new Governing Board could consider developing a system to assist ACT to become a self-financing structure,” he concluded.

Dr Agrawal’s association with ACT Alliance goes beyond serving as moderator since 2014, he has contributed to giving local actors and partners a platform to have their voice heard, and the ACT Alliance family would like to thank Dr Agrawal for his service.

“Your efforts have earned you the trust of the communities you serve, and you are often directly engaged with those who are left furthest behind,” said Her Excellency Ms Amina Mohammed, Deputy Secretary-General of the UN to ACT members at the General Assembly.

A highlight from the second day of ACT’s General Assembly was a session on the role of faith-based organisations (FBOs) in achieving the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Keynote speakers for the event included Her Excellency, Ms Amina Mohammed, Deputy Secretary General of the UN; Her Excellency, Ms Isabella Lövin, Deputy Prime Minister of Sweden and Minister for International Development Cooperation and Climate; and Ms Carin Jämtin, the Director-General of the Swedish International Development Agency (SIDA).

The speakers emphasised the unique contributions of FBOs as structures rooted in the communities which they seek to serve. They also noted that FBOs and the 2030 Agenda share a similar goal: to ensure that no one is left behind.

“You are well placed to carry innovations and lessons learned across communities and national boarders, to participate, to mediate, to often be those that help to heal communities,” said Mohammed.

“Thank you for always standing up for solidarity,” said Ms Lövin.“Progress cannot be made at the expense of others or without partnerships, inclusive of the private sector, civil society, national, and international actors.”

Lövin gave the example of the response of FBOs to the Ebola crisis and applauded their deep understanding and connections to their communities which allowed them to respond to the crisis effectively.

Ms Jämtin further emphasised the significance of innovative partnerships for achieving the sustainable development goals and stressed the imperative of putting the poorest and the most marginalised at the centre.

ACT intends to continue to develop partnerships with communities, civil society organisations, and UN agencies to continueits work to ensure that no one is left behind.

One of the items on the agenda at the ACT Assembly is the new ‘Engagement Model for Membership’ for the ACT Alliance. Boring or bureaucratic stuff? Absolutely not! Because it touches several key issues:

• Whether the Alliance will enjoy a broader and more inclusive membership;
• how members can participate even more in decision-making through the national ACT Forums; and
• increased ecumenical cooperation.

Members, can ‘own’ the Alliance better!

When the ACT Alliance was formed, many members joined because they thought it may be a new way to raise money from the funding members. Others thought that practically every church or church-based organisation has the right to be a member, whether they benefit from the membership and/or contribute to its life and work, or not.

Many discussions of that time were centered on the question of whether the Alliance would be able to represent the churches’ work – in order to call itself ‘Action by Churches Together (ACT)’. The main argument in elections to governing structures was about representativeness, and not about performance, engagement, or commitment. 

In ensuing years, the ACT Alliance matured and continued to deliver humanitarian support. It started to perform in advocacy and campaigns around issues of climate, migration, the future of the humanitarian system and more. Also, it turned out that there is only one main condition for the joint engagement with other members’ networks through the Alliance – just do it! No matter the size or experience of the member. It became a learning story as well as a success story for all. It became obvious that the “secret” of ACT, or rather to say: its rationale, is around engagement! But there were barriers.

If a member was not able to contribute at least 1000 USD to the Alliance work – regardless of how much it had or would have to contribute to its work on the ground in humanitarian assistance, in community development or in advocacy towards its respective government – it was out. These organizations either could not become a member or were suspended from membership after their non-payment of fees. They could not benefit from the analysis, discussions and capacity development activities in the ACT Forums.

Some ACT Forums were very active, setting up their own strategy for their national context in accordance with the overall ACT Alliance strategy, giving active inputs to studies or policy-debates conducted on the global level, coordinated their work much better and shared resources, so all members of those Forums benefited from others. Other Forums were very inactive, waiting for someone to bring resources and to steer the cooperation. So there was nothing happening, and members were wondering, why they should pay 1000 USD at all if nothing was going on that was relevant for them.

A similar process took place regarding the participation in global governance or advisory structures of ACT: Some members contributed very well to the debates on the global level, were well prepared and showed a keen interest. Others were not very well prepared and did not show much interest within debates. Neither did they bring in inputs from their region into the global discussions, nor did they report back to their fellow members in the region. They were not accountable to their region.

There is also an issue related to small ACT members: Tiny organisations or small churches don’t need to understand all international UN debates and may not have the capacity as an individual organization to contribute to them. Yet it makes a difference, whether they bring in their local perspective into the global debates through their national ACT Forum. The overall global picture changes, when its enriched by many actors from all regions and even the remotest places.

It was obvious for the Membership & Nominations Committee (MNC) and the Governing Board that a change of the status-quo was urgently needed, with the membership issue as one of the main measures. With support of the Secretariat, a consultative process was started. Several rounds of consultation with the membership took place in March 2017 and April 2018. In this process, many members took part. They concluded that there is the need to address these problems.

Today they bring to the General Assembly for decision a new model- the “Engagement Model for Membership”. It is based on the idea of an inclusive membership in the Alliance. It shall foster active engagement and participation, and contributes to a growing dynamic in the Forums. Barriers that hinder engagement for smaller and national members are addressed.

The new model is based on the following principles:

1. An inclusive membership: Churches and church-based organisations of all sizes can become members.
2. The model is responsive to members’ needs and capacities: Each member contributes and participates in the life and work of the Alliance according to their potential and their interests and needs.
3. Members’ active engagement is centre: cooperating ecumenically, working together actively and sharing of resources play the key role in the life of the ACT Alliance. Who does not cooperate and contribute according to its strength and resources has does not gain anything: benefit is created through commitment and engagement.
4. All ACT members engage in decision-making processes through active participation in the debates of the National Forum who give input to regional and global debates and will form the basis of Alliance documents, studies, policies.
5. The number of members in the Forums and its relevance for the members and for the Alliance will be increased. They will become the heartbeat of the Alliance.

Needless to say, because it’s not really new: ACT members’ compliance with all mandatory policies remains key. That helps to prevent other national Forum members, the whole Alliance or even the ecumenical family of churches from becoming punished if one member fails.

From the different elements of the ‘Engagement Model for Membership’ which should help to implement these principles, I would like to highlight only one: The new Forum Fee of 1,000 USD, which replaces the former Membership Fee. This is a milestone, both, on the practical and on the symbolic level. It gives all Forums some resources they can use for their work. That could be for the coordination of the Forum, joint capacity building activities and alike – or whatever they decide is important.

Transparency and accountability are with the Forum itself. Forum Fee can be paid in cash or in kind. This allows membership for smaller organisations/churches and strengthens ownership and responsibility of the Forum members. It underlines the relevance of the ACT Forums as the basic element of the ACT Alliance.

Uppsala, Sweden – October 29 2018 – “Faith organizations and their leaders play a critical role in addressing the needs of those that are left behind,” said Ms. Amina J. Mohammed, United Nations (UN) Deputy Secretary-General, on 29 October, during a plenary of the 3rd General Assembly of ACT Alliance, being held in Uppsala, Sweden.

Acknowledging the dedication and contribution of Faith-Based Organizations (FBOs), such as ACT Alliance, Mohammed said: “your efforts have earned you the trust of the communities you serve, and you are often directly engaged with those who are left furthest behind.”

“You are well placed to carry innovations and lessons learned across communities and national borders, to participate, to mediate, to often be those that help to heal communities,”added Mohammed.

The UN leader was one of the speakers of a panel on the role of faith-based actors in achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

“I am grateful to the ACT Alliance for making the SDGs a focus and an inspiration to its activities, finding common ground,” added Mohammed. “As an organisation working in more than 120 countries, you have a broad reach into communities around the world and tremendous ability to help socialise the SDGs in everyone’s life,” she said.

The UN Deputy Secretary-General concluded by reflecting on the shared objectives between the UN and the FBOs: a future of dignity, prosperity and peace on a healthy planet.

“To reach this, we must deliver for the people we serve, stay true to our ambitious global goals and make good on our collective pledge to leave no one behind. Let us continue this partnership together,” she said.

ENDS

For more information contact Simon Chambers, Head of Communications, ACT Alliance +1-416-435-0972 simon.chambers@actalliance.org