PWRDF ponders new global alliance: group will oversee relief, development.

STAFF

The Primate's World Relief and Development Fund (PWRDF) has been invited to join in the creation of a new international alliance of church-related organizations that would address global issues of poverty and injustice under a common umbrella.

Provisionally called Act Global, this new international ecumenical initiative will cover humanitarian relief, development co-operation and advocacy work.

Zaida Bastos, PWRDF co-ordinator for Africa, attended a recent consultation on the proposed alliance, which was convened by the World Council of Churches (WCC) in Geneva in February.

Ms. Bastos said that PWRDF, the relief and development arm of the Anglican Church of Canada, has yet to decide whether to join the alliance. "We haven't made a decision yet. We want to know ... whether this will affect our own fundraising work, whether there will be a competition for resources," she said in an interview. She said other factors, including how non-Western, voices will be represented in this new body, are also still being worked out.

WCC general secretary Rev. Sam Kobia, who was at the Geneva consultation, called it "a turning point in a new era of collaboration between churches, ecumenical agencies and the WCC."

A steering group has been created to develop a provisional structure for this new body and to negotiate with other ecumenical groups already involved in relief and development work.