Held in Amman, Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, from January 23 to 24, 2025

*You can find some photos at the end of the text.*

The Middle East Council of Churches (MECC), in cooperation with the United Church of Canada, organized a consultative seminar entitled "Dismantling the Authority of Decision or Participation in the Authority of Decision", with the aim of discussing the mechanism of the new partnership relationship between the United Church of Canada and its partners in the world, including its partners in the Middle East, such as the Middle East Council of Churches, in order to give partners more future freedom to choose their humanitarian and development needs and have their direct management to the programs supported by the United Church of Canada.

This initiative comes in response to the new strategic goals of the United Church of Canada on the topic of abandoning the authority of choice and decision that Church institutions in the West have been accustomed to following for many years in the past, which contradicts the spiritual and moral concept of respecting the needs of others without imposing specific goals or strategies that do not achieve the partners' goals and actual needs.

The consultation session was attended by the United Church of Canada partners in the Middle East from Lebanon, Palestine and Jordan, along with some ACT Alliance members present in Jordan and abroad, either in person or via Zoom.

The session was inaugurated by Father Ignatius Khalifeh, the Director of the MECC Office in Jordan, Mrs. Wendy Gichuru from the United Church of Canada, and the Secretary General of the Middle East Council of Churches Professor Dr. Michel Abs through a recorded speech in which he expressed a comprehensive vision of the concept of partnership between the Council and its partners that meets the needs of the target groups with dignity and love.

The program included the vision of the United Church of Canada on the Church’s adoption of the goals of “dismantling the decision”, which was presented by Mrs. Wendy Gichuru, who is responsible for the Middle East and the Council of Partners in the Church of Canada. As well as, the vision of the global service of the United Church of Christ and the Church of the Apostles in the United States of America, was presented by Mr. Peter Makari, who was present in Amman during the organization of the session. Then, Dr. Nicolas Abou Mrad, a Specialist in the study of the Old Testament, presented the Biblical concept in both Testaments about the sharing of authority, highlighting many Biblical evidences that reflect God’s participatory work with Man since creation with the aim of developing this world and presenting it as a sacrifice of incense and praise to God through the work of goodness and justice.

Afterwards, the participants in the session, which were the Middle East Council of Churches in Jordan, the Department of Service to Palestinian Refugees, the MECC Diakonia Department, the Wi’am Organization from Palestine, the International Organization for the Defense of Children of Palestine, the Lutheran Church in Jordan, Palestine and Jerusalem, presented their experiences and visions about the practice of participation in decision-making through their humanitarian and development activities with their partners in order to learn the positive and negative lessons and derive lessons to provide useful proposals for the United Church of Canada.

Since the concept of dismantling decision-making authority or participation in decision-making is linked to the objectives of “localization of institutions” adopted by international organizations with the aim of enabling local bodies to carry out all humanitarian and development services, starting from planning and setting goals to implementation, evaluation and follow-up, many international partners were invited to provide input on their experience and vision in this context. The seminar was attended by Kerk In Actie in the Netherlands, Church Aid from the United Kingdom, the Church of Sweden, World Vision and ACT Alliance. In order to clarify the relationship between the concept of dismantling decision-making authority from donors to implementers and the basic humanitarian standards, Mr. Rizwan Iqbal, who is responsible for the Humanitarian Standards Program at ACT Alliance, presented a vision on this topic and the necessity of involving the target groups of any humanitarian work in the process of selecting their needs and the method of presenting and evaluating them as essential partners in humanitarian work.

After that, there were general discussions and an exchange of ideas on how to develop new mechanisms to implement the objective of the session by the partners of the Church of Canada in the region through joint thinking about planning pioneering activities according to local needs as a first step to implementing the concept of participation in decision-making.

At the end of the session, the participants with the United Church of Canada decided to continue consultation, research and elicit opinions on this new concept from each party participating in the session, with the consultation to be followed up later through follow-up meetings, in person or online, so that each partner of the United Church of Canada in the Middle East can discuss the possibility of adopting this concept with its other partners.

The session ended with the visit of the participants to the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese, where they were received by the Representative of His Eminence Archbishop Christophoros, along with many Priests from the Archdiocese. Afterwards, a visit to the Church of the Monastery of Saint Nektarios, adjacent to the Archdiocese, was held, and then to the new office of the Middle East Council of Churches.