New Year's message from the Moderator | ACT Alliance

Dear friends in the ACT Alliance,

Greetings to you from Copenhagen in this Epiphany season!  As we celebrate the arrival of the magi to visit the baby Jesus, I am reflecting on our own journeys over the year that has just concluded and thinking about the future that is before us as 2021 dawns.

With this letter I would like to update you on some of work of the Governing Board in 2020, as well as some of the exciting things planned for the year we have ahead of us. Looking back at 2020, it was a year of unprecedented events, with none more disruptive and historic than the COVID-19 pandemic. I would like to express my gratitude for the exceptional work all of our members in the ACT Alliance undertook to respond to the challenges of this global emergency.

The regional COVID-19 consultations held in November and December showed the huge commitment to our joint response and also the necessity of continuing in the course laid out in our Global Strategic Plan, tweaking it to better serve us in the new times we face. The final regional consultation, for Europe on January 21, will be followed by the February 10 deadline to send in your answers to the questionnaire on the effects of the pandemic. I hope that you will contribute to that questionnaire.

In May 2021 the first term contract of the General Secretary Mr Rudelmar Bueno de Faria concludes. Rudelmar has been our General Secretary since June 2017. In that time, he has inspired the alliance with his bold vision, built relationships among members and with external bodies, especially UN agencies, and been an unfailing champion for gender justice. I am very pleased to announce that the Governing Board at its meeting in December unanimously decided to extend the contract of the General Secretary for another term, until end of May 2025. I am confident that his leadership will continue to build our alliance and position us well for the coming years.

In December we informed you that the 2020 Extraordinary Electronic General Assembly voted yes to increasing the number of seats on the Governing Board to allow for two youth, and to change the spacing between physical assemblies and add an electronic assembly between physical assemblies. Please remember to put the dates of the 2021 Electronic General Assembly of November 29-December 3 in your calendars. This week will provide us with the opportunity to see each other, to talk and learn together, and to do the work of the alliance in this new virtual setting. More information will come later.

I encourage you to nominate candidates for the new Governing Board, it is an important role for our alliance, and personally rewarding to be part of the Governance. More information will come in January. I am particular pleased that we now have two seats for Youth. They will give valuable input to the work of the Board and hopefully make the decisions more in tune with the hopes and aspirations of the global youth, whether it is on issues such as the climate, equality or global fellowship.

The Governing Board also approved the ACT Advocacy Strategy for this strategic period, which you can find attached here. The document, intended for use by the ACT members, forums and the Secretariat, is an excellent summary of our positions on all our key thematics and will guide our advocacy work into the future.

In addition to the assembly coming up this year, we will continue to work hard on revising the Humanitarian Mechanism to make it more effective and efficient.

I ask that you take the time in February to return the annual ACT member survey and the forum reports. These documents help us to understand our work as an alliance and allow us to understand how we are doing at living up to our strategy.

Thank you, as always, for your continuing work as the largest Protestant and Orthodox network of churches and agencies engaged in humanitarian, development and advocacy work. Together, we live into our diaconal ministry, standing for our shared values as an alliance, and helping to create positive and sustainable change in the lives of poor and marginalised people around the world.

I send you my very best wishes for the New Year 2021!

Kind regards,

Birgitte Qvist-Sørensen
Moderator of the ACT Alliance