The Commission on Population and Development convened governments, UN agencies, civil society actors, and others to its 51^st Session (CPD51) in New York from April 9- 13^th. The theme of this year’s Commission was “Sustainable cities, human mobility and international migration”.

Unfortunately, member states were unable to reach consensus on the outcome document as some member states did not want to agree on any clauses that would predetermine the Global Compact on Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration currently under negotiation at the UN. This Commission however, saw strong cross-regional collaboration on advancing the issues of migration. Transnational support was expressed from member states that had never before spoken out strongly on these issues.

Action by Churches Together (ACT Alliance) was present at CPD51, with a delegation of ACT members and partners from around the world that are committed to working towards gender equality, and are leading programmes that incorporate sexual and reproductive health care services, advocacy or normative work in their settings. ACT Alliance recognizes that human dignity is a foundation to human rights, and that conceptions of human dignity have historically arisen out of faith and religious traditions. ACT also recognizes that gender equality and access to sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) is a prerequisite for the enjoyment of all human rights and for poverty reduction.

Access to SRHR which includes access to health care services, information, family planning, etc., is crucial and should be accessible to all regardless of migration status. Globally, there are 32.3 million women refugees, half of them being girls, who are affected disproportionately by emergencies.

Women, children and adolescents, especially girls, face an increased risk of unwanted pregnancies, sexually transmitted infections, including HIV, human trafficking, child, early and forced marriage and other forms of sexual and gender based violence, and their needs and rights largely remain unprotected and unengaged. Considering these crucial times of international mobility, it was unfortunate that member states could not reach consensus on all aspects of social protection for all during CPD51.

ACT welcomed the opportunity to engage in CPD51 and to deepen the discussion around religion and SRHR in general, and in particular, in the context of human mobility and migration. ACT Alliance and partners including the World Council of Churches, the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), German Justice Commission, and Islamic Relief USA hosted a public side event at CPD51.

The event, “Faith-based approaches to Sexual and Reproductive Health in a Human Rights perspective,” was in line with Sustainable Development Goal 3.7 (SDG 3.7), “by 2030 ensure universal access to sexual and reproductive health care services, including for family planning, information and education, and the integration of reproductive health into national strategies and programs.”

The side event facilitated an interactive panel discussion, bringing FBOs from many faith traditions, working on human rights advocacy as well as on development and humanitarian service delivery, together with secular humanitarian NGOs and UN representatives.

Panellists explored the nexus between faith-based actors and sexual and reproductive health, looking at the theological underpinnings and interpretation of sacred texts that defined their approach to SRHR and services. ACT delegates showcased their experiences and perspectives as FBOs on integrating SRHR into their health, youth and other programs.

Last year (CPD50) was the first time that a platform under the CPD hosted an inter-faith event supportive of the rights-based sexual and reproductive health narrative. At CPD50, there was consensus amongst various civil society organizations for increased dialogue around faith and religion-related aspects and SRHR related aspects.

“This side event was a wonderful opportunity to continue the discussion that was started at CPD50. Some participants mentioned that they did not know that progressive faith voices existed,” said Alison Kelly, ACT’s Sustainable Development and UN Representative. “As a faith based organization with religious values at our core, values of dignity, justice, compassion and love for every individual are central to all of our work.”

Under the auspices of the Government of Sweden, ACT Alliance joined the UNFPA and other organizations in hosting a private round table discussion, bringing together FBOs and secular organisations from the Global South working on SRHR on the ground. This unique meeting explored the misconceptions and challenges that are faced in working with each other and the misconceptions that surround both faith and SRHR related items. One of the participants said, “we can harness the positive work of the communities, and remove the toxicity at the global level.”

“I am grateful that we as a faith-based family, and religious leaders were invited to participate in the discussions,” said Bishop Stephen Kaziimba of the Anglican Church in Uganda. “We need to work together in order to help people to live life in its fullness. I remain committed to promote human dignity,” he continued.

In reference to this year’s theme, ACT Alliance recognizes that faith-based organisations (FBOs) have the potential to reach out to and offer security to marginalized communities, including people on the move and those in fragile or rural settings.

“The theme of the CPD this year was crucial as the needs and rights of some of the most marginalized people in the world, particularly migrant women and girls, requires urgent resolution,” said Kelly, reflecting on conversations with the ACT delegation.

Substantive progress is desperately needed in view of the grave human rights infringements and consequences for population policies by the growing numbers of refugees, migrants, and displaced people in the world today.

ACT submitted a Written Statement to the CPD51. A section from the Statement reads, “As faith actors we know of the challenges of religion in ensuring gender equality and the sexual and reproductive health and rights for all. It is however due to the presence and power of faith networks that engaging with faith actors is also crucial.”

The Statement continues, “Faith institutions’ and networks reach the most marginalized communities, where even governments have difficulty in ensuring an institutional presence, sometimes being the only functioning civil society institutions offering security in situations of conflict and fragility. Faith actors are also a diverse network and communities, institutions and leaders can contribute to challenging patriarchal attitudes and practices by promoting gender equality at all levels of society.”

The full Statement is available here.

The ACT Alliance is deeply concerned about the recent actions of the Philippine government to list a number of activist and Human rights defenders. On 21 February 2018, the government through its Department of Justice filed a petition seeking to declare the Communist Party of the Philippines and its armed wing, the New People’s Army as terrorist organisations after the government cancelled peace negotiations with the groups. One of the names of the list is Beverly Longid, who has no affiliation to either parties.

Beverly Longid is one of the CDPE (CSO partnership for development effectiveness) co-chairs and assumes an important role to foster development effectiveness principles and practices in the Philippines. She does so with the aim to achieve greater respect for human rights and the protection of human rights defenders. This is work that adheres to non-violent methods. The ACT Alliance is a member of the CDPE.

Beverly Longid and her work should not in any way be attached to the definition of terror. ACT Alliance calls for a prompt removal of the name of Beverly Longid from the Philippine Government’s list of “terrorists” and underlines the urgency in giving attention to protection of the civic space for Beverly Longid and other HR-activists.

#activistsnotterrorists #civilrights

The International Council of Voluntary Agencies (ICVA) held its 17th General Assembly on 21 March, 2018. At the General Assembly ACT Alliance, represented by Anoop Sukumaran was elected to the governing body. Anoop who is ACT’s Regional Representative for the Asia/Pacific region was also elected by the General Assembly as the Chair of the ICVA Board for a three-year term. The Chair of the Board carries the responsibility for maintaining the humanitarian identity and integrity of ICVA’s mission and to ensure that the Board functions effectively. ACT member Christian Aid was also elected to the Board, represented by Jane Backhurst, Senior Advisor on Humanitarian Policy and Advocacy.

Established in 1962, ICVA is one of the oldest networks of NGOs advocating for a rights-and-needs- based approach for effective humanitarian action. Today, ICVA’S membership consists of over 100 organizations, including ACT Alliance, who are working together for increased coordination and collaboration between various humanitarian actors and NGOs.

“ACT is a leading voice and actor in the humanitarian space, and many of ACT’s members are members of ICVA. This makes ICVA a natural partner for us, and ACT has been committed to the mission of ICVA” said Anoop.

The four cross-cutting areas of ICVA’s work are forced displacement, humanitarian partnerships, humanitarian financing, and humanitarian coordination. Each of these priority areas are in line with the work of ACT. Close collaboration with ICVA is indicative of ACT’s dedication to support and to strengthen the representation of Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) and the voices of people from the ground, especially during a time of shrinking CSO space.

“ICVA connects ACT’s work on the Grand Bargain, the Localization Agenda, WHS commitments as well as the Global Compacts that are currently being negotiated,” said Anoop. “Engaging at a deeper level with ICVA allows for us to further our work on these very important issues from a rights-based lens, and from a lens that ensures that communities remain at the center of our work,” he continued.

ICVA further connects ACT’s engagement with the Inter-Agency Standing Committee (IASC), which is the primary mechanism for inter-agency coordination of humanitarian assistance, as well as with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, and other UN agencies. Through ICVA, ACT Alliance can continue to work to influence humanitarian policy and to contribute to more effective humanitarian action.

“It was the women’s voices that created a tipping point.  It was their testimonies, their stories, their pain, their truth, their courage to speak truth to religious power at the time,” said Dionne Gravesande of ACT member Christian Aid, during a side event at the Commission on the Status of Women in New York.  “What was different in 2015?  They were heard.”

Gravesande’s story, which shared the experience of the Zimbabwean Council of Churches, was one concrete example of the importance of involving religious leaders in addressing harmful gender practices including early marriage, gender based violence and more.  ACT Alliance co-hosted the event, along with the Danish Permanent Mission to the UN, DanChurchAid and the UNFPA.

The goal of the event, Building Bridges, was to discuss best practices in developing effective partnerships between faith and secular actors to challenge discriminatory gender norms and secure rural women’s rights. A broad range of organisations participated, including Christian Aid, Tearfund, Abaad, Islamic Relief Worldwide, the Joint Learning Initiative, World Vision, and Norwegian Church Aid.

Dr. Selina Palm of Stellenbosch University presented research from JLI’s report No more ‘Harmful Traditional Practices’: Working effectively with faith leaders.  Palm noted that the term “harmful traditional practices” itself is problematic.  “We suggest that it is a term beloved by policy makers, but not very user friendly for practitioners,” she said.  The term often makes people defensive, and can put practises into silos isolating them, rather than addressing them in comprehensive programmes like child protection or anti-gender based violence.

Palm underscored the importance of faith communities and leaders: “Faith communities are spaces where beliefs, behaviours and social norms- both positive and negative- are created, reinforced, and can be challenged.  To engage there, you have to work through faith leaders.  They are crucial gatekeepers into wider faith communities.”

Faith leaders bring access to spiritual capital, which can be harnessed alongside the health information and knowledge, to transform, over time, opinions and norms in societies.

Irene Arena, from ACT member the Church of Uganda, echoed the importance of working with faith leaders.  Faith leaders played a key role in ending the war in Uganda.  “The faith leaders are actually the sleepy giants, which should be engaged in ending gender-based discriminatory norms and practices.”  90% of the population of Uganda is religious, so DCA and other ACT members engage church leaders as champions of gender justice, building their capacity to respond to gender issues.  2017 was the Year of the Family, and faith leaders were involved in addressing family-based gender discrimination in their communities.

Rev. Joseph John Hayab from Nigeria spoke of the need for faiths to come together in addressing gender-based violence.  “If we keep thinking it’s about them, not knowing it’s about us, there is no way out,” he said of the realization that in Nigeria, despite the 50/50 Christian/Muslim split in the country, gender issues are found throughout the nation.  They are a Christian problem as well as a Muslim problem.  Muslims and Christians have become collaborators on gender justice, creating joint resources drawing on Islamic and Biblical sacred texts, and engaging in educating boys and girls in gender issues and positive masculinity/femininity.

Dr. Azza Karam, Senior Advisor at the UN Population Fund (UNFPA) spoke of their work with religious leaders as a part of their work for decades.  “We have plenty to learn from faith-based actors,” she said, and talked about strategic learning exchanges with faith-based organisations that have helped to build a network of 450 FBOs the UNFPA has worked with since the 1970s.

Kidist Belayneh, from ACT member Norwegian Church Aid’s Ethiopia office, spoke of the engagement model that NCA has used for almost 10 years, starting with the top leadership in churches- educating them on the effects that female genital mutilation is having on girls in their communities- and then challenging them to identify their role in addressing the problem.  “It should be their agenda,” she said,” not ours.  Don’t push, but continue the journey.”

Faith-based and secular actors can come together to address gender-based practices that are harming women and girls around the world, and to tackle the underlying issues of poverty and patriarchy that help perpetuate them.  Dr. Palm summed up the danger of patriarchy at the end of the event.  “Patriarchy destroys.  Both men and women.”

But there is hope.  “Transforming patriarchy requires engaging men and boys and having male champions,” she said.  “Engaging masculinity and femininity and how they are constructed is important in how we do this work.”

Doing this work with faith leaders is one key way of helping it to happen.

On March 21, 2018, Alison Kelly, ACT Alliance’s Sustainable Development and UN Representative, presented an oral statement on behalf of ACT, the Lutheran World Federation and the World Council of Churches at the 62^nd Commission on the Status of Women at the UN.

“As networks of Churches and Christian faith based organizations working in humanitarian response and human rights-based development in over 145 countries – in rural areas that are often out of the institutional reach of national governments – we call for an end to gender inequality and injustice,” the statement began.

ACT, LWF and WCC focused on the role of faith actors in combatting harmful practices including early marriage and female genital mutilation.  “The importance of involving faith actors cannot be overemphasized, as they can play critical and influential roles and have the potential to bring lasting change… churches in Uganda, Ethiopia, Tanzania and Zimbabwe have intentionally targeted support to vulnerable women and girls in rural communities. Their deliberate efforts to promote gender justice within the church structures, schools and congregations have led to concrete actions to address early and forced marriage and female genital mutilation.”

ACT members have been involved in a variety of events at CSW over the past two weeks, focusing on the role of faith leaders in ending harmful practices, in the role of gender in achieving the vision of the Sustainable Development Goals to Leave No One Behind, engaging youth in gender justice and more.

The full text of the oral statement is here, and you can watch it here (beginning at 8:00):

At the inaugural General Assembly of the ACT Alliance in Arusha, Tanzania in 2010, there was widespread consensus amongst members that climate change was threatening the lives and livelihoods of the communities that they serve. Since that first General Assembly, ACT Alliance members and forums across the world have prioritized climate change in their advocacy work.

Today, ACT Alliance continues to advocate for climate justice, particularly in support for community resilience in developing countries, low greenhouse gas emission development, the respective means of implementation and for the full implementation of the Paris Agreement, guided by the principles of equity, human rights and gender justice.

Since the adoption of the Paris Agreement, ACT Alliance has engaged in climate advocacy and capacity building initiatives through a series of regional workshops focused on enabling the national level implementation of the main instruments of the Paris Agreement, namely, the Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), National Adaptation Plans (NAPs) and the mid-century long-term low greenhouse gas emissions development strategies or Long-term Strategies (LTS).

ACT Alliance is pleased to share our newest Toolkit for national level advocacy, Towards the Ambitious Implementation of the Paris Agreement. This Toolkit will support the climate change advocacy of ACT members, forums and partners at the national and regional level. It will help faith-based organisations to effectively advocate for key climate goals including keeping global temperature rise to 1.5°C and to bring to life the Alliance’s common vision of shaping our future in ways that take up the call for a strong moral and religious imperative in overcoming the climate crisis.

The Toolkit is composed of three modules, one for each of the three instruments mandated by the Paris Agreement; namely the Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), National Adaptation Plans (NAPs) and the mid-century long-term low greenhouse gas emissions development strategies or Long-term Strategies (LTS). Each module follows the same structure, guiding FBOs in a step-by-step process to prepare their national level advocacy plans. The Toolkit incorporates key messages, questions and answers, checklists and lessons learned, as well as diagrams and infographics as visual elements to facilitate the learning process. Best practise examples are used to further illustrate the content. The Toolkit also proposes various advocacy interventions for FBOs, which can be adjusted to suit their local context.

We welcome all of our members and forums to use this Toolkit for advocacy and capacity building and to facilitate internal discussions and reflections to ensure that their national contexts are integrated into our global climate justice work.

The Toolkit is available here in English and here in Spanish. 

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For any additional information on the Toolkit, please contact Joanna Patouris, Climate Change Communications Coordinator: joanna.patouris@actalliance.org

As I sit in CASA’s (Church’s Auxiliary for Social Action) Mumbai office to write this blog, nearly 50,000 farmers -women, men and some of their daughters as young as 1 year old have assembled in Mumbai, marching 180km in scorching heat to demand that the government pay heed to the escalating disastrous situation in rural India due to the agrarian crisis there. The 62nd Commission on Status of Women, which continues in New York this week, with its priority theme as “Challenges and Opportunities in achieving gender equality and empowerment of rural women and girls” is very apt and echoes similar sentiments to the farmers marching on Mumbai.

Let me also bring to you the report UN published on International Women’s Day (March 8 2018) highlighting the vulnerability of women, and how climate change impacts women more than men. 80% of people displaced by climate are women. As primary care givers and providers of food they have to collect fuel and water, even during droughts and floods, which makes them more vulnerable and having to work harder.

The ACT Alliance works at the grassroots with vulnerable groups affected by disasters, involved in sustainable development, and in advocacy.  ACT members are currently participating in the 62nd CSW, working to help increase the opportunities to convert the challenges of girls, women, and LGBTQ people to lead and take control in their own lives.

At COP23, the international climate conference held In 2017 in Bonn, the Gender Action Plan was approved, acknowledging that women are disproportionately affected by climate change. The plan highlights the need for capacity building, participation in decision making and leadership positions in climate meetings, along with many other provisions.

The needs of women and girls in humanitarian situations are enormous.  Lake Chad in central Africa has lost 90% of its water, leaving nomadic indigenous groups at risk. In Haiti, women who were displaced by flooding’s sanitary requirements received little attention. More women get killed in catastrophic situations than men for many reasons including their attire—women wearing saree during the 2004 tsunami were slowed down by their clothes. Women with more socio-economic power are less affected by such situations. For the best gender sensitive responses we need more women in the negotiating bodies of humanitarian organizations.
Let’s provide opportunity and make the rural women lead their life as well as the world to a green, just and peaceful existence.

Last word: Can you imagine the thoughtfulness of the farmers as they walked their last leg of the March into Mumbai in the middle of the night so they didn’t inconvenience the Mumbai school children who were taking their final Board exam on 12th March.

How thoughtful are we to other’s needs? This is a first step in making a green just and peaceful world.

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Dr Joycia Thorat, Co-chair of Advisory Group on Advocacy, ACT Alliance and Project Officer & policy desk in charge, Church’s  Auxiliary for Social Action (CASA), India

The Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) is an opportunity highlight some of the important work in the UN Peasants Declaration, which will have significant impact on the rights and lives of rural women and girls.  This Declaration will also impact the upcoming Conference of Parties (COP24), the international climate change conference taking place in Krakow, Poland this December.  Land use and seed diversity are key to develop solutions for responding to climate-induced impact. Land and seed rights are a cornerstone of rural women’s and peasants’ rights.

 “We are peasant women.  We are many. We are the Guardians of fertile land and reproductive seeds. We are ‘farmacologists’. We protect medicinal plants and generate local knowledge.”

Several ACT members are also founding members of the Global Network for the Right to Food and Nutrition, which for ten years has gathered stories and raised the voices of peasants, fisherfolk, pastoralists, landless people, consumers, urban people living in poverty, agricultural and food workers, women, youth, and indigenous peoples –  that recognize the need to act jointly for the realization of the right to adequate food and nutrition.  The Network’s voice has helped to shape the new draft of the UN Peasant Declaration.

The revised draft UN Peasants Declaration of 12 February 2018 recognises that access to land, water, seeds and other natural resources is increasingly at risk for rural people.  The Declaration calls for support to agricultural practices of indigenous people and rural communities that are in harmony with nature, with Mother Earth . These practices include respecting the biological and natural ability of ecosystems to adapt and regenerate through natural processes and cycles.

The Declaration stresses that peasant and other rural women play a significant role in their economies, including through their work in the non-monetized sectors of the economy, but are often denied tenure and ownership of land and productive resources.  To redress this injustice, their right to access courts, to seek immediate redress, and to be protected from violence, abuse and exploitation must be respected, fulfilled, and promoted.

Knowledge generated by peasant women provides insights into the complex matrix of nature. Microbiological research is now able to visualise the extent to which we are what we eat; discovering that soils are an integrated system that nourishes communities and keep them healthy. Traditional peasant women have known of the health benefits of phytonutrients and protective bacteria for a long time; they are ‘farmacologists’, a term coined by Daphne Miller from University of California, San Francisco.

For the first time, a UN Declaration provides a comprehensive list all of rural women’s and girls’ rights and the importance of their contribution to life for all in times of climate change.  These include:

• The Right to seeds (Article 19), which calls for the protection of women’s traditional knowledge relevant to plant genetic resources for food and agriculture. It affirms the right to save, use, exchange and sell their farm-saved seed or propagating materials. It calls for the respect of women’s rights to rely on their own seeds or on other locally available seeds of their choice, and to decide on the crops and species that they wish to grow. And it calls for research into ‘orphan crops’.
• The Right to biological diversity (Article 20), which establishes the right of women peasants and rural communities to use and develop biological diversity and associated knowledge; and the right to traditional agrarian and pastoral and agroecological systems upon which their subsistence and the renewal of biodiversity depends, and the rights to the preservation of the ecosystems in which those processes take place.
• The Right to physical and mental health (Article 23), which includes the right of women peasants to use and protect their traditional medicines and to maintain their health practices, including access to and conservation of their plants, animals and minerals for medical use.

It is important to recognize this Declaration and the legitimacy of peasant women and girls as rights holders around the world as the Commission on the Status of Women continues to discuss the empowerment of rural women and girls. For we know since the adoption of the Beijing Platform for Action that access to and control of productive and reproductive resources is a precondition for enhancing gender equality. It will also have a positive effect on preventing violence against women and girls and be key to their wellbeing and the full realisation of human rights.

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Karin Ulmer is Senior Policy Officer with ACT Alliance EU (previously APRODEV), specialising in EU trade policies and global food security. The current focus is on human rights and trade, land and seed issues, agricultural policy and research. Based in Brussels. Educational background in cognitive, social and human science. German nationality.”

Related to building trust and ACT governance, including strategic collaboration as part of the wider ecumenical movement and learning with other forums

Uganda Forum has excelled as one of the most exemplary and progressive forums in Africa and globally. These are some of the good practices we have undertaken:

We have managed to recruit a forum joint staff whose title is the Advocacy Officer. This position is jointly financed by forum members who pool resources together to meet the human resource needs of the staff including technical advocacy work. The joint staff has ably coordinated and implemented advocacy initiatives of the forum.

Related to humanitarian, development and advocacy work of ACT Alliance

The Forum has been able to develop an advocacy strategy with 4 thematic areas and out it, developed project proposals, and we successfully won an external grant amount to 2,445,208 DKK approx 400,000USD for a 3-year climate change advocacy project. Through this project, we have been able to lobby the government of Uganda to prioritize and scale climate change finance through budgetary allocations and access to international funds. This was mainly implemented by religious leaders, a constituency that we felt had the moral call to duty as stewards of mother earth.

We went ahead to include Muslim and Catholic faith leaders in the project in order to uphold the values of inclusivity, tolerance and diversity in our approach to serve humanity. The Forum also developed and financed its own 2-year project on Good governance and active citizen participation in electoral democracy. The project aimed at enhancing active and peaceful citizen participation in electoral democratic processes. This strengthened civic responsibility among Ugandan citizens anchoring majorly on religious leaders, church structures and institutions. This was the first advocacy project that the forum piloted in an effort to actually jointly finance and to work together.

ACT Appeals: The Forum has continued to jointly implement ACT Appeal in response to the refugee crisis in South and Northwest Uganda) for Congolese and South Sudan influx. As the biggest host of refugees in Africa with over 1.5Milion refugees, many ACT Alliance members are involved in humanitarian work to ensure the immediate needs of all refugees are met. The ACT Appeals are jointly developed as a forum, some members contribute finances and implemented by both international and national members of the forum in order to build their capacities Exchange learning and forum collaborations: Uganda Forum has also initiated regional visits by sending faith leaders and staff of ACT members to visit other Forums in Africa, for example, Malawi and Kenya Forums were visited in previous years. We equally hosted other Forums in Africa including forums from Kenya, Tanzania, and South Sudan who have come to learn from our best practices. As a leading forum, we guided other forums with our approaches and supported them to grow.

The forum has continued to present itself as one of the most exceptional forum globally. The leadership of the forum is rotationally every 6 months and led by a different member. Members met every month on the last Thursdays and this is on everyone’s calendar permanently, this meeting is graced by only heads and senior management staff with decision-making powers.

ACT Forum Uganda pictures

Related to building trust and ACT governance, including strategic collaboration as part of the wider ecumenical movement and learning with other forums

The interested WCC members in the country are being assisted in its application to become a member of ACT whenever possible.

Active engagement in regional and global initiatives, with a clear division of roles and how to support: World Humanitarian Summit, Ecumenical Strategic Forum on Ecumenical Diakonia, CoPs – Climate Change and CBPS; Child Safeguarding Training, Roll out of the humanitarian mechanism. The ACT Forum also nominates their representatives to different regional and global meetings and activities. All out-of-the-country activities are properly echoed with other Forum members by the nominated representative through various means such as reporting & workshop, while other concerns were addressed in regular Forum meetings.

Invited both regional representatives to the Philippines to establish relationships and strengthen coordination with the regional office (2016), where the regional representatives presented the updates regarding the restructuring of the ACT Alliance, and other regional focus. The Forum convenor attended the Asia-Pacific Forum meeting (2017), and ACT Forum members contributed to the global sharing on Ecumenical Diakonia and how it is concretized in the Philippines (2017). Over all, there is a culture of supporting each other; complementing rather than competing; openness and transparency; appreciating what each one brings to the table.

ACT Forum piloted a Core Humanitarian Standards Training-Workshop (2016) opened to WCC members and other local faith-based humanitarian groups to influence quality and accountability in the FBOs’ humanitarian work. The ACT Forum has a pool of trainers who facilitated the 2-day event. Aside from this joint venture, the Forum shares each capacity building activities with other ACT Forum members such as ACT Security Training, CBPS, CHS & SPHERE Standards, Complaints Response Mechanism, and others. (Capacity development)

Understanding the faith-based dimension of humanitarian work in the country from the keynote speeches of the Protestants (NCCP) and Catholics (Catholic Bishop’s Conference in the Philippines) shared during our pre- and post-WHS for a together with WCC members, and other FBOs in the country. In all its undertaking, the Forum brings the spirit of putting people at the center as the heart of its humanitarian work.

Practise/ Policy (innovative, replicable): Building trust by purposively deepening understanding of Faith-based Emergency Response and Ecumenical Diakonia amongst ACT and FBOs

Results:

• ACT recognized for initiating conversations and coordination amongst FBOs (Visibility)
  • Pre-WHS Conference (Putting People at the Center: Role of FBOs in Humanitarian Action)
  • Post-WHS Conference (Changing People’s Lives: From Delivering Aid to Ending Need)
  • FBOs meeting with the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council (The Philippine Government’s DRRM Council)
• Formation of Philippine FBO Forum (FBO PH) that brings together the 3 largest national Christian networks
  • Joint learning sessions that enhanced understanding of faith-based dimension of humanitarian work; partnership established at the national level together with other non-Christian religion
  • Coordination of FBO’s response in Marawi siege
  • Engagement of FBO PH with United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, push for more representatives of national networks in Humanitarian Country Team; reaching out to United Nations Development Program
• Contributes to ACT WHS commitment

Annexes:

About_Transforming faith into action

About_FBOs working together for Marawi

About_ACT Annual Mtg with FBOs