Archbishop of Canterbury to Strengthen Churches in South Africa and Angola

The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, will travel to South Africa and Angola as part of a visit to the Anglican Province of Southern Africa next week to assess the Anglican churches' role in the province's development.

The visit from March 5 to 13 was announced in the Archbishop's Presidential Address to the Church of England's General Synod on Monday. During his visit, Dr Williams will take in a special Anglican Communion conference on the Church's contribution to the achievement of the UN Millennium Development Goals in South Africa.

The TEAM (Towards Effective Anglican Mission) conference, being held near Johannesburg, will be hosted by the Archbishop of Cape Town, the Most Rev Njongonkulu Ndugane. It brings together those working from the Church to end the scandal of extreme poverty, stop the spread of HIV and ensure proper care and treatment of those affected by the virus.

Around 350 people are expected to attend the conference from across the Anglican Communion to discuss how the Church can do more as one of the world's largest grass roots development networks.

A key theme is the Christian faith as a powerful component in the transformation of motivation needed to end poverty and face the issues of climate change both in the affluent North and global South.

"It is upon the grass roots delivery networks of the churches in Africa that achieving the Millennium Development Goals will depend, to a very great extent", Dr Williams said.

Dr Williams will preach at the opening Eucharist in Tsakana and give a keynote address at the conference next Wednesday on the biblical principles for social activism and programmes by the Church.

On Friday, Dr Williams will travel to the recently-inaugurated Diocese of Angola where he will dedicate two schools, attend a Eucharist in a football stadium in Uige, and visit a shrine in memory of clergy and others killed during the struggle for independence from Portugal and in the subsequent civil war. Dr Williams will witness firsthand development and human rights work being undertaken in partnership with the Church.

He will also meet government and non-governmental leaders as well as those working to encourage better human rights and a wider civil society in a country emerging from the effects of decades of civil war.

Dr Williams said the visit would be vital in coordinating what the churches of the Anglican Communion had to offer: "The TEAM meeting represents the best opportunity Anglicans will have in the coming year to put the extraordinary human resources of our communion at the service of the most vulnerable in our world and our own local communities."

Dr Williams said Angola was one of the youngest and "most vulnerable" of Anglican churches in the communion but he praised its rapid growth and engagement in active development work and in a fast-expanding programme of primary evangelisation.

"I am hoping to hear at first hand of their experience, see some of the aid and development work that they are involved with and take them encouragement from their brothers and sisters across the Anglican Communion," he said.