The 4^th of August 2020 was a dark day for Beirut and Lebanon. All ACT Alliance member organisations in Lebanon have been affected by this tragedy and have friends and families who sustained injuries and damage to their homes and businesses. The explosion came at a time when the country was and continues to grapple with the COVID-19 pandemic and the worst economic crisis ever experienced, with more than half the population living under the poverty line. 

The extent of the devastation left us all shocked. 

220 people were killed by the blast, more than 6,500 were injured, including 1,000 children, and approximately 300,000 households were damaged (UNOCHA). 200 schools (UNICEF), the country’s most important grain silos and at least 15 medical facilities, including three major hospitals,  have been affected with damage estimated at around $5 billion.

ACT Alliance members in Lebanon responded individually and through a joint emergency appeal that managed to help more than 60,000 people affected by the emergency. However important these actions were to help meet the immediate needs, these efforts are not enough. People continue to struggle economically but also psychologically  with processing the traumatic events of that day. The ACT Alliance family remains focused on supporting each other and the people we serve, while hoping that justice will contribute to the healing process of the families of the victims. 

ACT response to the Beirut blast

ACT members came together immediately after the Beirut Port Explosion.  The Forum launched the LEB201 emergency appeal that served 61,111 people between 1 September 2020 and 31 March 2021. 

In partnership with six local organisations, the appeal provided the following services: 

• 1 Hospital  restored
• 23,519 People received immediate shelter and non-food items
• 9,673 People received food assistance 
• 2,309 People received post-injury treatment, physical rehabilitation, medication, and home care
• 28,668 People received access to hygiene products including dignity kits, cleaning materials and COVID-19 PPE
• 1,433 People received access to MHPSS services, including GBV survivors, either through centres or home services 
• 45 Businesses received early recovery assistance
• 100 Children received electronic devices and emergency school kits in preparation for schooling
• 5,583 People received unconditional cash assistance

ACT Lebanon Forum Members’ Response to the Blast

DSPR-JCC’s Response in Mar Michael 

Medical Center Established by Arcenciel 

Beirut One Year After with SHO/Giro 555

Impact of NCA and Partners Response to Beirut Blast

LAUNCH OF LEB211: Humanitarian Response to the Beirut Explosion and Overlapping Crises in Lebanon

Going into its third year of severe economic recession, Lebanon faces its worst and hardest depression ever since the end of the Lebanese Civil War that lasted 15 years. Lebanese people are facing intersecting and multiple crises: the Syrian refugee influx crisis, widespread street uprises, the COVID-19 pandemic, a dangerous depletion of resources, and finally the  Beirut Port Explosion that left the country in shock. All these crises are putting Lebanon on the edge of collapse.

Despite a decade-long rate of 1,507.5 LBP to the dollar, the black-market value of the USD is now above 20,000 LBP, which indicates a reference of the currency’s real worth and Purchasing Power Parity (PPP). Central Bank reserves are going dry and shortages in goods and materials are increasing. The loss of purchasing power is dramatic and mostly felt by those who earn in Lebanese Lira and have no other sources of income in foreign currencies. In 2020, Lebanon’s average inflation rate soared to 84.8 percent, the highest since 1992. The end-of-year inflation (December 2020 relative to December 2019) stands at 145.8 percent with the price of food and non-alcoholic beverages increasing by 5 times and the price of clothing and footwear increasing by 6.6 times. 

Today and as the black-market USD to LBP exchange rate is still increasing, inflation is peaking. 

People are suffering and going hungry. Layoffs, wage freezes and wage cuts are all results of the ongoing political conflict that is not expected to end in the near future. With stressors adding up, poverty in Lebanon is likely to continue to worsen in 2021. UNESCWA estimates reveal that more than 55% of the country’s population is now trapped in poverty and struggling for bare necessities. These changes have contributed to disrupting people’s psychological well-being with symptoms of emotional distress, anxiety and hopelessness on the rise.

The cash-strapped Lebanese government and Central Bank are running out of resources to keep subsidising the country, a full lift would compound the country’s already alarming hyperinflation. The situation is bleak: Lebanon is already rationing fuel. Fuel rationing has led to longer power outages across the country even during daily working hours, with many pharmacy and bakery owners fearing they soon will have to close up shops. It has become commonplace to see long lines on the streets near gas stations. Customers in grocery stores are fighting over what’s left of subsidised food and basic staples, and stocking up on whatever they could find, as they fear additional price spikes. Also, the pharmaceutical crisis has deepened in Lebanon as the central bank is unable to meet the cost of subsidised medicines. 

These supply problems have had a crippling effect on the Lebanese healthcare system. Anaesthetics are among the medicines that have been in short supply, causing operations to be postponed, and medicines for heart diseases, diabetes, epilepsy, and other non-communicable diseases are also lacking.

When subsidies fully stop, prices, poverty and conflict will increase much further. If this happens, observers, including the United Nations and NGOs, have warned of a disaster. 

These intersecting crises have disproportionally hit and affected vulnerable groups and disadvantaged communities, such as female-headed households, children, youth, older people, the LGBTIQ+ community, people with disabilities, refugees and migrant workers.

One year after the Beirut Blast, the deteriorating humanitarian situation in Lebanon needs global solidarity. As the  situation is escalating in the country, the ACT Lebanon Forum has launched a new two-year long LEB211 Appeal: Humanitarian Response to the Beirut Explosion and Overlapping Crises in Lebanon, covering Greater Beirut on one hand and Lebanon’s other seven governorates on the other. 

The appeal has just been posted to our website at this link: https://actalliance.org/appeals-rapid-response-funds/multi-sectoral-humanitarian-response-to-the-beirut-explosion-and-overlapping-crises-in-lebanon-leb211/

The ACT Lebanon Forum (ALF) is a shared platform and space comprising local Lebanese and international NGOs – ACT members who are engaged in Lebanon and the MENA. The ALF currently includes two local ACT members: The Middle East Council of Churches (MECC) and Department of Service for Palestinian Refugees – Joint Christian Committee (DSPR-JCC) and seven international members: Diakonia Sweden, DanChurchAid (DCA), Norwegian Church Aid (NCA), Finn Church Aid (FCA), Swiss Church Aid (HEKS-EPER), Act Church of Sweden (CoS), and Christian Aid (CA).

ACT members in Lebanon continue to respond to the needs based on their sector focus, country strategy and in coordination with local partners and relevant external actors.

ACT Alliance members are reporting from all over the world about devastating impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. More than 4 million people have died, and millions have had their livelihoods disrupted, throwing more 120 million people into poverty, according to the World Bank.

At the time of writing, a third wave of Covid-19 transmission is hitting the world. There is a sharp change in the transmission curves, and many countries struggle with a sharp almost vertical peak in transmission. Countries that are particularly hard hit include South Africa, Uganda, Indonesia and Honduras- four countries in which ACT members are serving their communities.

In the middle of this desperate situation, ACT members also report on a vibrant civil society, in which they are part, that provides basic services and that continues to raise its voice despite worrying reports of civil society voices being curbed during the pandemic.

Wide scale vaccination is still not in reach for most of our members in the south. ACT members engaged in health care are front line workers in Tanzania, Sudan, Palestine, Democratic Republic of Congo and Indonesia, upholding primary care clinics and running health services, filling gaps in the national health system. They report that they are in the prolonged acute phase, not seeing the end of the tunnel yet. Pessimistic analysis argues that many of these countries will only have significant vaccine coverage in 2023, if then.

More than 3,5 billion vaccine doses have been administered around the world. Of these, less than 1% have been administrated in low-income economies.

ACT forum dialogues

In May and June 2021, the ACT secretariat arranged a series of consultations with ACT forums in all regions. We shared and discussed the ways in which ACT members are engaged in the response to the pandemic, the status of access to vaccines in their communities and what we want to influence and change.

ACT Alliance’s General Secretary, Rudelmar Bueno de Faria, was named as a civil society representative to the COVAX Facility, COVAX being the mechanism set up by World Health Organization and key stakeholders to make possible equitable distribution of vaccines. Through consultations and dialogue, ACT Alliance can report back to decision-makers on the lived experiences of our members and the wider civil society community.

The conversation illustrates the many different contexts in which our members live and serve. Every country is different and has its specific challenges in the response to COVID-19. Some concerns are shared even if they naturally play out in different ways in their local contexts.

Lack of vaccines

First, there is a lack of a steady and predictable supply of vaccines in low-income countries, causing slow vaccination progress. ACT members are asking what more can be done to increase production and share the doses that are available, so that all countries can start the tremendous and complex operation of vaccinating their population.

When there is a lack of vaccine supply, existing inequalities are exacerbated. Our members report that there is a divide between urban and rural areas. People in rural areas have less information about the national vaccination plans and where and how to access a vaccine. While the cities in low-income countries lack vaccines, the rural areas have even fewer.

False information

Second, there is a major challenge in most countries with false information. It is spread in many ways, by social media and phone groups, by word of mouth, but also by state leaders, politicians, official media and by religious leaders.

While religious communities and their leaders have been a source of false information, there are also examples of religious leaders being part of the solution. In countries where trust in government is low, religious leaders are considered a reliable source of information. In Ethiopia and Uganda, religious leaders have supported health messaging by talking on radio and on TV.

Many ACT members have been part of the COVID-19 response as church related organizations often play a crucial role in health service provision. While members have run health services during the pandemic, witnessing the COVID-19 patients and many of their deaths, there might not be safe spaces to speak up, and official numbers of cases and deaths do not match the observations of our members. Lack of accountable governance feeds rumors and misinformation.

Concerns with inequality and exclusion

A third shared topic is the issue of who gets tested, and who has access to vaccines and medical care, and how vulnerable groups will have protection and support. Who the priority and vulnerable groups are differs from country to country, as  countries have chosen to prioritize vaccine access very differently.

In the Latin American consultation, the issue of migrants and indigenous peoples were prominent, illustrating how existing inequalities or vulnerabilities will play out in the COVID-19 response.

There has also been an issue with individuals buying vaccines. Our Honduran members report that the vaccines are available for purchase for those who can afford it. Similarly, in the Middle East, the wealthy could, early on, fly to Gulf States and buy a vaccine months before any vaccines arrived in their own country.

In Asia, issues were raised with people not having ID cards required to register for vaccination, the elderly in particular. In the Middle East, with a large number of internally displaced people and refugees, the people of concern do not trust their host country, or might not trust their own governments, leading to lower vaccination rates among– for example– Syrian and Palestinian refugees in Lebanon.

Weak health systems and social services

Members report that it is not only vaccines that are lacking. Primary health clinics in many rural areas were poorly equipped and staffed even before the pandemic hit. South Africa has seen health workers and civil society protests as the health budget has been cut, and many community health workers have been laid off at a time where they are more needed than ever. Weakness in the health systems was revealed not only in low-income countries but also in middle-income countries including South Africa, Peru, Brazil, India and Indonesia, the latter now representing the epicenter of the pandemic in Asia.

Malawi and South Sudan lack qualified health staff, particularly in rural areas. There is a lack of vaccines, but even more, a lack of basic health infrastructure that can provide information, collect reliable health data, offer testing and vaccines, as well as care for patients. However, in many countries there is a lack of basic PPE for health workers, and treatments such as oxygen for patients.

Vaccine hesitancy

In countries with low trust in government and the health system, vaccine hesitancy is spreading. Vaccine acceptance depends on good information from trusted sources.

Vaccine hesitancy is also fueled by the lack of vaccines. When few have taken the vaccines, fewer can convince their neighbours that the vaccine is safe. Also, as many members report, when some vaccines are not approved in European countries, but they continue to be the main vaccine available in the Global South, people ask why it would be safe for them.

ACT members in many countries have supported their governments in reaching out with information. Some ACT members have worked with the churches in their countries to disseminate information, and religious leaders have been contributing though radio and TV to ask the population to take the vaccine to protect themselves and their community. Health Communication has included the other public health advice: to keep social distance and to wash hands.

In Tanzania– a country with very few official Covid-19 cases– the church-based organizations have been important though their prominent role in the health system. They have experienced first hand the volume of COVID-19 cases because they have set up emergency wards in the hospitals, and have informed the population of how to protect themselves by other means than vaccines.

Ways forward
Religious leaders will play a key role in the year to come in countering false information and helping communicate to the population what they can do to protect themselves. The many members contributing on the ground delivering health services are preparing themselves for a protracted crisis. None of us is safe until all of us are safe.

ACT Alliance has prepared a vaccine equity brief, available here, which reflects the common priorities identified in the consultations and suggests ways forward to ensure that all may be vaccinated as quickly as possible.

And ACT Alliance will continue to raise its voice and its efforts to make that happen as swiftly as possible.

Gudrun Bertinussen is the Senior Advisor for Global Health in Norwegian Church Aid.

In Uganda, unconditional cash transfers proved to be much more than emergency financial support.

As part of the ACT Alliance global response to COVID-19, the Church of Uganda received $100,000 USD in Rapid Response Funds from ACT which they have used to fund health education around COVID-19, community hygiene stations, and cash transfers for over 1000 vulnerable households around the country.

Broadcasting messaging about COVID-19 and GBV

Right from the beginning of the lockdown, the Church of Uganda used radio and television broadcasts to share science-based, factual information and health advice across the country, with Archbishop Dr.Stephen Kaziimba Mugalu warning people on a nationally broadcast church service in March 2020 that “COVID-19 kills. Stay safe!”

The information sharing from the Church of Uganda quickly expanded to include information and messaging about working to end gender-based violence, providing dioceses with megaphones to help them spread anti-GBV messages far and wide.

Cash transfers- a new experience for the Church of Uganda

As part of the Rapid Response Fund received from ACT Alliance, the Church of Uganda distributed money to 21 of the 37 dioceses in the country for cash transfer work.  The regions chosen were those that had not been receiving food aid and other supports from the government, which tended to go to urban areas.

1065 families each received 100,000 shillings (about $28 USD) to spend with no conditions. 

“For us, as Church of Uganda, this was not what we had anticipated,” said Josephine Ninsiima, the project coordinator.  “We thought that people would buy food, but people decided to use the money according to the need they had at the point where the money was given.  This has made the project impactful in many ways. When you look at the different places and communities, we have different stories of how people use the money. Some used it for household basic needs, others used it for treatment, others used it for farming. It is a whole lot of things, we found out.”

Sebastian Bamuliwa used the money to lease land for three gardens, and buy inputs to grow crops. “The harvest will feed my family,” he said, “and I shall raise an income from the remaining harvest.”

“Mum received 100,000 shillings and bought a piglet so that she can raise my school fees out of the project,” said one student. “We raised it, and it produced these three young ones.”

Some families received the money in cash, but others on their mobile phones. “We were extremely excited to see that 100,000 shillings were deposited on the mobile phones on the various people in my place,” said Ven. Rev. James Kivunike, Archdeacon Muterere, Busoga Diocese.

Benefits of cash transfer

The families who received the unconditional cash often make the money go much further than it would if they simply bought food.  Their creativity and resourcefulness help the money to support the families for months into the future.

ACT Alliance has been supporting cash transfer as a method of meeting people’s needs in humanitarian responses for several years now. “By giving people the money they need, it allows them to make the purchases that will be most helpful to their family at that time,” said Elizabeth Kisiigha Zimba, ACT Alliance’s regional representative for Africa. “It also helps to support the community by allowing people to make purchases from local merchants, buying items that are appropriate and useful in their individual contexts. Therefore, a single cash transfer creates a wider impact that goes beyond the individual household recipient.”

Rt. Rev. George K Turyasingura, Bishop of East Rwenzori Diocese summed up the value of the project, “This programme came in at the right time, and the people were so grateful to receive voucher help… I would like to extend my sincere thanks to ACT Alliance, who came in at this time when we most needed it.”

Diálogo Intereclesial por la Paz en Colombia (DiPaz), an ecumenical organistion working for dialogue for peace in Colombia, is calling on the international community to urge the Colombian government to resume the full implementation of the peace agreement and strengthen channels of dialogue to resolve societal issues in an open letter to the UN Security Council on July 13, 2021.

The letter was accompanied by a letter from ACT Alliance and the World Council of Churches (WCC) in solidarity with DiPaz, supporting the call for a sustainable peace in Colombia.

The letter expresses gratitude to UN General Secretary António Guterres, the Security Council, and the UN Verification Mission in Colombia for their support promotion of the peace process, and in appealing for continued and further action to continue to build a genuine and lasting peace for all the people of Colombia.

“Nevertheless, the current national administration’s omissions and slowness to act in relation to the implementation of many points of the agreement continue to worry us, as does the lack of progress in fulfilling other agreements with communities and sectors of civil society which, together with the increase of poverty during the pandemic, gave rise to the nationwide protests and strike action that began on April 28 of this year,” reads the letter.

The letter notes violence against young people protesting, as well as towards Indigenous people, as particular areas of concern: “During the recent protests we observed how state forces acted disproportionately against the young people who took to the streets to raise their voice… In addition, there was significant stigmatization of indigenous peoples, evidence of the persistence of racism in Colombia.”

DiPaz offers several recommendations, including the verification of all verdicts in the rulings to be issued by the Peace Tribunal of the Special Jurisdiction for Peace (JEP), Monitoring the application of the differential and gender perspective of the Final Agreement to End the Conflict and Build a Stable and Lasting Peace, and the promotion and verification of the implementation of Security Council resolution 2532, calling for a global ceasefire in the face of COVID-19, “urging especially the Colombian government and all armed groups still active in Colombia to embrace such a ceasefire as an urgent ethical necessity for the advancement of the peace process and to enable the provision of humanitarian aid to rural communities ravaged by the violence and the virus.”

Read the full letter from DiPaz here.

This week the situation in Tigray entered a new and dangerous phase. Following the unilateral ceasefire declared by Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, the conflict seems to have regained strength, as forces from northern Tigray have crossed into the neighbouring Afar region.

The eight-month-old conflict has left the country with a collapsed government infrastructure, a distorted market, and millions of people in need of assistance.

When the Ethiopian army left Mekelle in June the humanitarian situation was already dire. Agencies and church-based organisations faced many difficulties to reach communities in need and limited resources made the delivery of food and non-food items extremely problematic. According to the IPC Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, in May-June 2021 5.5 million people were facing critical food insecurity with more than 500.000 people facing extreme and catastrophic consequences.

The severe food crisis is the result of the cascading effects of the conflict which include displacement, loss of harvest and livelihood and limited humanitarian access.

ACT Alliance’s members have been on the ground to support with the delivery of emergency shelters but also providing those who lost everything in the conflict with unconditional cash transfers and psychological support.  But the supplies fall short of the immense needs of the people of Tigray.

On top of a global pandemic and a conflict that is ravaging an already fragile situation, the lack of access to water, hygiene and sanitation services puts the population at risk of disease outbreaks, including water-borne diseases.

To pre-empt a new health catastrophe, through our appeal, ACT Alliance is working to rehabilitate water points and provide those in needs with chemical latrines.

The Lutheran World Federation has for instance worked on drilling a water supply system to help those who are living in makeshift IDP camps spread out in 23 schools and colleges in Mekelle.

“The situation is worsening by the day” said Niall O’Rourke, Head of Humanitarian Affairs at ACT Alliance. “The numbers we are receiving from our members in the field give us a stark picture of what is yet to come. If action is not taken the situation will further deteriorate”.

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Why is donor support for civic space so important?

The dramatic shrinking of civic space worldwide has become even more apparent since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic 2020. Many governments have disproportionately restricted the civil liberties of their citizens during the crisis. They have violated freedom of expression, freedom of the press and freedom of assembly; they have excluded those affected from participation processes and have expanded surveillance.

Without space for civil society to act, development cannot reach everyone and reduce inequalities. The negative effects of shrinking and closing space do not only affect civil society organisations and their beneficiaries. They massively harm the political, social and economic development in countries, impacting the entire population. Strong and independent civil society organisations are the engine of social and political development. Together with people at the grassroots, they represent a future that focuses on justice, peace and environmental protection. An agenda which seeks to fight corruption, prevent outbreaks of violence, or initiate post-conflict reconciliation processes.

On 6 July 2021, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development – Development Assistance Committee (OECD – DAC) decided on on its Recommendation on Enabling Civil Society. The OECD-DAC represents 30 state members, including many of the largest aid donors. Its aim is to promote development co-operation, and it is particularly important in setting standards for donor countries in providing aid. The specific aim of the OECD – DAC Policy Instrument is to give guidance to its members, the most important state donors, on how to support civil society actors worldwide.

Donor countries can play a crucial role in protecting and enabling civil society space worldwide. The way donor countries support civil society in their partner countries can make a huge difference for civil society and their space, and can also influence civil society’s role in future development.

What are important recommendations of civil society?

Through the DAC-CSO (civil society organisations) Reference Group, civil society actors from the Global North and the Global South were able to be involved in the process through several consultations. Among many other civil society organisations and networks, the ACT Alliance and its members have been actively involved and provided comments and suggestions on how donor support to civil society should look. This entails:

• Implementing specific measures to support an inclusive and independent civil society and fully advance the respect, protection and promotion of open civic space.
• Supporting, including financially, civil society as development actors in their own right;
• Respecting human rights in donor partnerships with the private sector, where private sector initiatives may undermine community development and harm human rights defenders;
• Enabling laws and regulations that recognise CSOs as actors that have a positive impact on terrorism prevention;
• Promoting and investing in the leadership of local/national civil society actors in partner countries or territories.

For civil society worldwide, it is of particular importance that the DAC passed the Policy Instrument as an official Recommendation to give it the leverage that it deserves. Although OECD Recommendations are not legally binding, they are official legal instruments and have traditionally had great moral force and there is an expectation that OECD members will do their utmost to implement them. This hopefully means that more donor countries in future will do more to better support civil society and their space.

Link to the Recommendation: https://legalinstruments.oecd.org/en/instruments/OECD-LEGAL-5021

Download a social media kit from DAC FOR here.

Christine Meissler works as Policy Advisor on Civil Society for Brot für die Welt and is also Coordinator of the ACT Alliance Community of Practice Human Rights in Development.

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As religious actors and networks of faith-based organisations, who work for the achievement of the Beijing Platform for Action and support the Action Coalitions, we welcome the Generation Equality Forum. We take this opportunity to speak out about our role and recommendations to the UN and its Member States, to the leaders and fellow commitment-makers of the Action Coalitions and the WPS-Humanitarian Action Compact,and to our civil society colleagues.

In 1995, 189 countries adopted the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action, a bold and ambitious roadmap for gender equality. In the last 26 years, religious actors have been working from the local to the global, to transform gender norms, implement programmes, reform unjust laws and promote genderjustice.

We lament that some religious actors have also contributed to slowing, or even blocking progress, towards achieving the Beijing Platform for Action. We call upon our constituencies to be accountable for our own human rights violations and to counter anti-rights actors, who are instrumentalising religion.

Commitment to Action Coalitions 

The Action Coalitions are a new impetus to address pre-existing systemic and structural issues, while also seeking to address new challenges, including the COVID-19 pandemic, increasing inequalities, rising racism, and the climate crisis.

As religious actors rooted in local communities, we understand how forms of repression are interrelated and recognise gender injustice as an intersectional issue; therefore we are pivotal partners in addressing them in local to global spaces and are making significant commitments to the Action Coalitions.

We are called to work in partnership for the protection and promotion of human dignity and to achievegender justice. We recognise that we all benefit from a more gender-equal society.

Gender Based Violence

As people of faith, we are mobilising and equipping our communities around the world to address the root causes of gender-based violence, including promoting prevention and early intervention strategies, decolonising language and scripture, and speaking out against gender injustices. We are also working to serve those who have been subjected to gender-based violence, by creating safe spaces and advocating for their rights.

Economic Justice and Rights 

The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed pre-existing structural injustices and inequalities. We are committed to working for economic justice and rights, which is essential for broader social change. This includes tackling systemic issues related to unpaid care work, unequal pay, social protection, and reforming family laws, while also transforming gender norms.

Bodily Autonomy

Religious actors are mobilising to address entrenched gender norms, which act as barriers to bodily autonomy. Religious leaders are often trusted voices in communities, and therefore, have a critical role in transforming gender norms, promoting Comprehensive Sexuality Education, and enabling access to genderresponsive sexual and reproductive health services.

Climate Justice

Ecological degradation and the impact on people and life forms are entwined, they are one phenomenon and must be addressed holistically. Religious actors are powerful forces for climate advocacy, which addresses interconnected issues, such as racial justice, ending gender-based violence, and defending Indigenous rights at local, regional and global spaces. We advocate for a just transition, towards a low carbon economy, which ensures women’s rights are protected and promoted.

Technology and Innovation 

The challenges posed by COVID-19 have awakened us all to the effectiveness of digital technologies but also the limited access that many of our communities’ experience. We are alarmed by the global rise in racism and hate speech in virtual spaces, which is often experienced by women, young women and girls in all their diversity. We all, including religious actors, have a role to play in enabling access to safe online spaces, which we believe are a ‘common good’.

Feminist Movements and Leadership 

We recognise the absolute need to advance the leadership of women, young women and girls in all their diversity, in all spheres of society, including in our faith communities. We are committed to addressing the power dynamics and barriers that currently exist, and to promoting inclusive leadership in the spaces that we occupy and create. We are working with feminist theologians, to strengthen narratives for gender equality. We are also working to support young women and girls of faith to be heard in decision-making spaces. The faith community is and will continue to be an integral part within grassroots led feminist movements, working to break silos, and counter patriarchal backlashes.

Women, Peace & Security and Humanitarian Action 

Women, young women and girls are important stakeholders in peacebuilding, conflict prevention and conflict resolution. However, they are often excluded from participation in peace processes, due to gender norms and tradition, which we seek to transform. We also uphold the critical work of Human Rights Defenders, who are working for peace and gender equality. We will continue to amplify and protect courageous voices, who are boldly speaking out to achieve human rights for all.

Faith in Beijing Call for Partnership 

We call upon you all to work with religious actors and faith-based networks to advance our shared goals forgeneration equality.

1. Recognise the unique role of religious actors, including women and girls, and our power to influence in the communities that we serve. Our platforms can be used to transform gender norms and to mobilise our diverse constituencies towards achieving gender equality at every
2. Increase funding and resources to enable strategic partnerships at all levels with religious actors, who have strong track records of working for gender equality and fulfilling the Beijing Platform for
3. Enable all stakeholders to engage critically in the gender and religion nexus, including working with men and boys, and religious leaders, to advance action towards achieving the Beijing Platform for Action and Agenda 2030.
4. Co-develop gender justice policies, strategies and programmes with religious actors, whichstrengthen intersectional approaches to institutional changes and
5. Partner with us to promote feminist theologies that promote equality and counterbacklashes to achieving gender equality, in particular, when anti-rights actors areinstrumentalising our religions to block progress.
6. Recognise us as a reference point, who can enable partnerships with local communities, and share our learnings from working with religious and traditional leaders to be catalysts for social change.
7. Partner with us to amplify the unique voices and perspectives of young women of faith within policy and advocacy forums and debate.
8. Join us in national, regional, and global advocacy, as we seek to reform and implement laws and policies to address systemic inequalities, and to advance gender equality in all spheres of
9. Address the lack of gender-disaggregated data and accountability mechanisms to strengthen our collective efforts and understanding of policy and programmatic impacts to advance gender
10. Work with us to tackle systemic racism, wherever it is encountered as we will never achievegender equality without racial justice.

Signed:

1. Act Church of Sweden
2. ACT Alliance
3. Alliance of Inclusive Muslims
4. Anglican Communion
5. Buddhist Tzu Chi
6. Centro Regional Ecuménico de Asesoría y Servicio – CREAS
7. Christian Aid
8. Ecumenical Women
9. The Episcopal Church
10. Islamic Relief
11. Joint Learning Initiative on Faith and Local Communities
12. Loretto Community
13. Lutheran World Federation
14. Mercy International Association – Global Action
15. Mothers’ Union
16. Muslims for Progressive Values
17. The Network for Religious and Traditional Peacemakers
18. Our Lady of Charity of the Good Shepherd
19. Salvation Army
20. Side by Side: Faith movement for gender justice
21. Sisters of Charity Federation
22. Soka Gakkai International (SGI)
23. UNANIMA International
24. United Religions Initiative
25. IVAT International
26. World Association for Christian Communication
27. World Communion of Reformed Churches
28. World Council of Churches
29. World Evangelical Alliance
30. World Jewish Congress
31. World Vision
32. World YWCA

New report calls for strategic partnerships with religious actors working for gender equality.

At a time of rising fundamentalisms, which are pushing back hard against women’s rights at every level and across the world, a new report ‘Looking Back to Look Forward: The Role of Religious Actors in Gender Equality since the Beijing Declaration’ argues that understandings of the gender-religious nexus is critical for achieving Sustainable Development Goal 5: Gender Equality.

The report, authored by Dr. Nora Khalaf-Elledge, reveals how religious actors have advanced and hindered gender equality since the adoption of the Beijing Platform for Action and Declaration in 1995 and provides a critical and contextualized understanding of how religion and gender politics are intertwined in all countries, high and low-income alike.

The pushback

The report addresses how patriarchal gender norms continue to be packaged in the language of religion because it legitimises them. Nearly 84 per cent of the world’s population identify with a religious group and anti-rights actors are mobilising religious language to block or even reverse progress on gender equality. Religious language can make patriarchal practices appear divinity-ordained and unchangeable.

For example, although 189 states have ratified the 1981 Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), many countries still maintain reservations to specific articles of the convention. Over 60 percent of the 440 recorded reservations are religion-based.

The potential

The report also profiles the work of religious actors, who are advancing gender equality from maternal health to LGBTQI+ rights. The examples given in the report show how religious leaders and actors are often trusted voices within communities and can act as critical change-makers, in advocating for stronger gender just laws, challenging social norms, acting as moral compasses and legislators and stepping in, when governments fail to provide social protection.

Recommendations

Co-published by ACT Alliance with Act Church of Sweden, Islamic Relief Worldwide and Side by Side, in partnership with the International Partnership on Religion and Sustainable Development, the Joint Learning Initiative on Local and Faith Communities and Sexual Violence Initiative GBV Hub, and Goldsmiths, University of London, the report provides the following recommendations:

• Choose partners who are leaders on gender issues in their contexts: International collaboration and partnerships are pivotal for achieving all SDGs, especially now as the world tries to recover from the global COVID-19 pandemic. Achieving SDG 5 is deeply interconnected with achieving all SDGs.
• Encourage religious literacy: Development agencies need to provide training throughout their organizational structures that conveys a basic understanding of the ways in which religious discourses are context-specific, historically situated, internally diverse, continually reinforced and altered by both internal and external factors.
• Conduct comprehensive gender analyses prior to projects and partnerships: A comprehensive, context-specific, and theory-based gender analysis can highlight the religion-gender intersection in each locality and facilitate the inclusion of religious actors. It can also uncover the patriarchal power dynamics behind religious arguments supporting gender inequality.

Generation Equality

As world leaders, institutions, civil society, and faith actors virtually gather at the Generation Equality Forum in Paris, we must find common ground and together work to counter rising fundamentalisms, strengthen progressive movements within faith communities and demand the necessary steps required for achieving the Beijing Platform for Action.

Find the report here

The first online session with UN climate talks ended on June 17. Parties had, for three weeks, tried to make progress in the talks, leading towards the upcoming summit (COP26) in Glasgow in November. And they failed.

I must admit that conditions for a breakthrough were bad from the start. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, negotiations had to take place online, with difficulties because of internet access, time zones and technique. It was also agreed that talks this time would not delver any decisions, so what could we expect?

I may be naïve, but reading recent climate science reports, and looking at ongoing climate related disasters around the world, I had hoped parties would have taken the opportunity to scale up ambition, to search for diplomatic solutions, and to ensure that the climate emergency would be taken seriously. Unfortunately the talks, to a large extent, instead became a space for presenting existing positions.

But lack of progress in online negotiations should not be an excuse for climate inaction. Each party should now do their homework, and make sure that their country is moving forward with scaled up ambition.

Concretely that means revision of national climate plans. Recent research reminds us that we are rapidly moving towards a 1.5 degree temperature increase, and all parties, including those who have already submitted their national plans, should consider what more can be done in the coming five years, to reduce global warming.

Their homework also includes an increased focus on adaptation, and climate change induced loss and damage. As a broad alliance of developing countries stressed during the online talks, loss and damage is not getting enough attention on the UN agenda. At the same time more and more people face climate related disasters each year, which, with lack of adaptation, may lead to loss and damage.

But neither mitigation, nor adaptation or loss and damage related activities in developing countries, can happen unless the required support is made available. Developed countries are lagging behind with their existing commitments to mobilise climate finance, and this is a big concern for developing countries, and poor and vulnerable communities, urgently lacking support. Developed countries must mobilise the support which has been promised, and they must do so now.

The next climate summit will take place in November, in Glasgow, in Scotland. That meeting will be important, and it must deliver a success. Parties have already presented their positions, and it is now time to search for solutions, which can promote international cooperation and a scaled up climate ambition. I hope all parties will do their homework, before the summit November.

Mattias Söderberg, Senior advocacy advisor in DanChurchAid. Mattias serves as co-chair of the ACT Climate Justice Reference Group.

ACT Alliance joins with Lutherans around the world in congratulating Rev. Anne Burghardt on her election as the new General Secretary for the Lutheran World Federation, based in Geneva.

LWF is a key part of the ecumenical family, and of the ACT Alliance, as it represents 148 Lutheran churches around the world in 99 countries.  LWF’s humanitarian, development and advocacy work is globally recognized and a valued part of ACT’s identity and work.

“I am very pleased at the election of Anne Burghardt,” said Rudelmar Bueno de Faria, General Secretary of ACT Alliance. “her appointment is a benchmark for the Lutheran Communion and the entire ecumenical world, as she is the first woman to lead a global communion. I am looking forward to working closely with Anne in this time when prophetic theology and diakonia are crucial.”

The new General Secretary will begin her term on November 1, 2021, serving for seven years. 

“I am excited to work in close collaboration with Anne in the coming years,” concluded de Faria. “The success of ACT Alliance is the work of our members, and LWF has a long and successful history of working to meet the needs of the most vulnerable in the world.  We know that work will thrive under Anne’s leadership.”