The World Council of Churches (WCC) has completed the formation of its leadership team this week with the appointment of two well-known personalities from the ecumenical family renowned for their achievements in faith-based advocacy and interfaith dialogue.

The newly appointed staff members will head the programme on public witness and the programme on Inter-religious dialogue and cooperation.

The appointments complete a reconfiguration of the WCC staff leadership due to programmatic reshaping after the WCC 9th Assembly in 2006.

The WCC directors newly appointed by the WCC executive committee are Rev Elenora Giddings Ivory (Public witness: addressing power and affirming peace) and Rev Dr Shanta Premawardhana (Inter-religious dialogue and cooperation).

Giddings Ivory and Premawardhana will leave positions in North America to take up their new responsibilities within the Council's Geneva headquarters.

Rev Elenora Giddings Ivory is a Presbyterian from the United States, who brings to her new post almost two decades of experience in advocacy, strategic planning, management and supervision.

She formerly served as director of the Presbyterian Church's public policy, information and advocacy office in Washington.

A Harvard Divinity School graduate and pastor, she has previously served as vice-president of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the USA (NCCUSA), and as chair of the council's national ministry's unit; she was also a member of the board of Americans United for Separation of Church and State and worked on different task forces of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights.

In her new position, Giddings Ivory will be responsible for overseeing WCC initiatives in relation to churches' concerns on violence, war, peace, human rights, economic injustice, poverty, and exclusion.

Rev Dr Shanta Premawardhana is a Baptist pastor in the United States and prior to that in his native Sri Lanka, served as the associate general secretary for interfaith relations of the NCCUSA for the past four years.

An activist in a congregation-based community organising, and a pastor in Chicago for 14 years, he has previously demonstrated his leadership skills in building bridges across boundaries that divide.

Convinced that inter-religious work must include joint actions for peace with justice, he also advocates for faith-based diplomacy, with religious leaders taking the lead in diplomatic initiatives, particularly in conflicts that are religion-related.

The two final members of the WCC leadership team will take up their positions in November 2007.