On the AGAPE Consultation on Poverty, Wealth and Economy

Programme Review and Programme Direction

Two key deliberative sessions during the 15th CCA General Assembly are the Programme Review and Programme Direction sessions.

The Programme Review and Programme Direction sessions will both be conducted in three groups relating to the CCA’s programme areas, namely, (i) General Secretariat (GS), (ii) Mission in Unity and Contextual Theology (MU) and Ecumenical Leadership Formation and Spirituality (EF); and (iii) Building Peace and Moving Beyond Conflicts (BP) and Prophetic Diakonia (PD).

Assembly participants will have the option to join one of three groups for both the Programme Review and Programme Direction sessions. For the sake of coherence, the assigned group will remain the same for both sessions.

General Secretariat

The General Secretariat oversees the coordination of programmatic, administrative, and financial activities of the organization. The GS comprises various departments such as church and ecumenical relations, relations with ecumenical partners, finance, administration, and communications, which provide crucial support and services for the implementation of programs and contribute to the overall functioning of the CCA.

Programmes: Relations with member churches and councils, ecumenical partners; advocacy at the United Nations; ecumenical responses to emerging issues in solidarity; income development and finance; and communications.

Mission in Unity and Contextual Theology (MU) and Ecumenical Leadership Formation and Spirituality (EF)

Under the MU programme area, the CCA accompanies Asian churches to strengthen their mission and witness in multi-religious contexts, revitalise and nurture church unity and the Asian ecumenical movement, and develop contextual theological foundations.

Programmes: Asian Movement for Christian Unity (AMCU); Congress of Asian Theologians (CATS); Asian women doing theology in the context of wider ecumenism; contextualisation of theology in Asia and ecumenical theological education.

The EF programme area focuses on nurturing and developing ecumenical leaders in Asia. The programme aims to enhance spiritual formation and theological understanding, enabling people to actively engage in ecumenical dialogue and collaboration.

Programmes: Ecumenical Enablers’ Training in Asia (EETA); Asian Ecumenical Institute (AEI); Youth and Women Leadership Development; Ecumenical Spirituality and Nurturing of Contextual Liturgical Traditions; Asia Sunday

Building Peace and Moving Beyond Conflicts (BP) and Prophetic Diakonia and Advocacy (PD)

The BP programme area is dedicated to promoting peace, justice, and reconciliation in Asia’s diverse contexts. Through training, advocacy, and dialogue, the programme addresses the root causes of conflicts, empowers communities, and fosters sustainable peacebuilding initiatives.

Programmes: Pastoral Solidarity Visits; Churches in Action for Moving Beyond Conflict and Resolution; Young Ambassadors of Peace in Asia (YAPA); Ecumenical Women’s Action Against Violence (EWAAV); Eco-Justice for Sustainable Peace in the Oikos.

The PD programme area focuses on promoting justice, human rights, and social transformation in Asia. Through advocacy, capacity-building, and raising awareness, the programme addresses systemic injustice, empowers marginalised communities, and advocates for prophetic actions and meaningful change.

Programmes: Human Rights advocacy; Migration, Statelessness, and Trafficking in Persons; Asian Ecumenical Disability Advocacy Network; Asian Advocacy Network on the Dignity and Rights of Children (AANDRoC); Ecumenical Solidarity Accompaniment and Diakonia in Asia (ESADA); Health and Healing; Good Governance; Action Together to Combat HIV and AIDS in Asia (ATCHAA).

First Preference:
Building Peace and Moving Beyond Conflicts (BP) and Prophetic Diakonia and Advocacy (PD)
Second Preference:
Mission in Unity and Contextual Theology (MU) and Ecumenical Leadership Formation and Spirituality (EF)
10 November 2009
christian conference of Asia, Asia christianity

November 2-6, 2009

Forced by extreme poverty, political repression and ecological destruction, people migrate to developing countries like Thailand. An estimated 2 million migrant workers are in Thailand. Migrant workers are the most vulnerable to human trafficking and exploitation.

The ‘sufficiency economy’ model aims to make a community produce sufficiently to support its members. It also assumes that the community or a family owns a piece of land to cultivate to be able to be self-sufficient.

For a newly industrialized economy which is agriculturally-based, land constitutes the basic requirement for self- sustainability and sufficiency.

Janejinda Pawadee, coordinator of the Mekong Ecumenical Partnership Program, says that this alternative model of ‘sufficiency economy’ remains abstract, for example to the indigenous Lahu people who migrate to the city. “They lost land to tourism development investors they do not have anything to start on. The model remains abstract for the common Thai people.”

Additionally, the model would also be challenged by self-sustainability. Would a community be able to sustain self-sufficiency in the face of aggressive forces of globalization?

Asia, whose vulnerability in terms of climatological features is further aggravated by poverty showcases the poverty-wealth-ecology links, according to the research report presented by IBON Foundation, a research think-tank based in the Philippines.

The research was conducted at the most critical times in Asia, in a context of grave ecological and economic crisis. More than one-half of the Third World’s poor live in Asia. Viewed as a dynamic and promising place to invest, Asia plunges deep into poverty, thus reducing the resilience and adoptability of Asians to sharp climate changes.

Grassroots people who live everyday in poverty see poverty not as a problem, but a phenomenon within an exploitative system. The challenge therefore to the church is to aspire together with the poor, the oppressed and the marginalized of the earth, to get out of an exploitative system into a just and sustainable one.