Anglicans Create 'Actionable Plan' to Fulfil MDGs

Anglican leaders from 30 provinces came out of a global conference, mainly focused on the Millennium Development Goals, on Wednesday with "actionable plans."

|PIC1|"Our intention was not that this be yet another gathering that recounts the many challenges facing our world," Cape Town Archbishop Njongonkulu Ndungane, Primate of the Anglican Church of Southern Africa, said at the final plenary session, according to the Episcopal News Service. "Rather, the intention was that in accordance with our mission as the body of Christ, we develop actionable plans and strategies that can be utilised to instill new hope and vision in our communities and in the world at large."

The Towards Effective Anglican Mission conference convened more than 400 people in Boksburg, South Africa, for eight days of discussion on the Anglican Communion's response to the MDGs - which include the halving of extreme poverty and halting the spread of HIV/AIDS by the year 2015.

Some of the issues raised included the humanitarian crisis in Sudan, HIV/AIDS, poverty, women, education and restorative justice.

The international conference issued 10 recommendations to direct Anglican churches to live out their mission in the world, Ndungane calling it a "momentous period in the life of our church".

''Here we have people of God gathered together in the context of prayer and theology, sharing diverse experiences and views on specific social issues, renewing the Church's commitment and capabilities to respond to God's call to service in the 21st century," said Ndungane, who plans to retire by 2008.

The Archbishop of Cape Town, notorious for his liberal stance on homosexuality, had criticised the domination of the controversy over homosexuality within the Anglican Communion at the talks, saying that it sidetracked global issues of Aids and poverty.

With Anglican attention solely on the MDGs in the past week, delegates from most of the Communion's 38 provinces went beyond recommendations to help advance the developmental agenda.

The report of the 10 recommendations, which articulates the rights of women and children and pushes on the eradication of poverty and strengthening the capacity of educational institutions, will be sent to every Anglican province, according to Ndungane, asking recipients to make an official response. And the conference planning group will propose a strategy for implementing the recommendations.

In a March 14 letter to the Episcopal Church, Episcopal delegates, including Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori and former head, the Rt Rev Frank T Griswold, affirmed their commitment to the MDGs and said that the communion is "alive and well" in pursuing God's mission.

"There is no doubt in our minds that The Episcopal Church is called by God to mission in the world. The provinces in the Anglican Communion are our mission partners in faith and commitment to the work of Jesus Christ in the world," stated the letter, according to ENS.

As Ndungane stressed, Olaposi Abiola of the One Village Foundation of Nigeria told ENS he hopes delegates will take home with them their "ability to act on what [they] heard", such as identifying and supporting projects designed to raise awareness about the HIV and Aids pandemic.

Ndungane proposed for another meeting in 2014.