Our concern for Africa is shaped by long term relationsips between Maryknoll missioners and the people of Sudan and South Sudan, Kenya, Tanzania, Zimbabwe and Namibia. We honor their strength and wisdom and believe that African cultures and traditions often suggest solutions to seemingly intractable local and global problems.
In Africa our Global Concerns work is at times country-specific, focussing, for example, on the slow process toward peace between Sudan and South Sudan, or the genocide in Darfur; the political and economic collapse of Zimbabwe; the introduction of genetically modified seeds or the political situation in Tanzania; efforts to stop corruption in Kenya, among other issues. We also address transnational issues of great concern to all people in Africa: deep and endemic poverty; the HIV and AIDS pandemic; the call for the cancellation of illegitimate and overwhelming debt without conditions that worsen poverty; just trade agreements; the rights of women and children; and environmental degradation.
Last June, Congress mandated that U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman examine ways to advance trade relations with African nations beyond one-way trade preferences. In response, Ambassador Froman held a hearing in Washington, D.C. in January.
Just days before Congress votes on the Electrify Africa Act, 18 African civil society organizations issued a statement calling on African governments and public and private financiers to find socially and environmentally sustainable solutions to Africa’s energy needs.
On December 11, Maryknoll Office for Global Concerns was one of 17 faith-based and food security organizations who wrote to Michael Froman, the U.S. trade representative, calling for a change in the Obama administration’s trade policy, leading into the tenth ministerial meeting of the World Trade Organization (WTO) in Nairobi, Kenya.
During his first visit to Africa, Pope Francis gave two important speeches to non-church groups that were remarkable in their global message about peace, poverty, and the environment.
Just prior to the arrival of Pope Francis for his first pastoral visit to Kenya, a network of Catholic justice and peace organizations met in Limura, Kenya, for a major conference on land grabbing and just governance in Africa.
The Maryknoll Fathers and Brothers Society Center in Nairobi recently hosted a five-day interfaith conference to orient primary and secondary school teachers from diverse areas of Kenya to the potential for interfaith-based religious education, as a vehicle for peace-building in Kenya.
On October 8 the Senate Foreign Relations Committee approved the Electrify Africa Act (EAA), legislation that aims to bring 20,000 additional megawatts of power to sub-Saharan Africa by 2020. Tehre are major concerns that this plan will fail to reach the more than 600 million people in sub-Saharan Africa who have little to no access to electricity.
Recently, Maryknoll Office for Global Concerns staff member Sr. Claris Zwareva visited her homeland of Zimbabwe. Sr. Claris serves as Maryknoll’s representative at the United Nations where the Maryknoll Sisters and the Maryknoll Fathers & Brothers have consultative status with the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC).
The death and displacement that occurs in the out-migration from Africa and the plight of internally displaced peoples across the continent were the subject of a recent hearing before the House Subcommittee on Africa, Global Health, Global Human Rights, and International Organizations. What emerged in the testimony of several governmental and NGO experts was a picture of tragic human suffering.
An excerpt from the article “What does the environment encyclical mean for Malawi?” written by Alex Muyebe, SJ, director of the Jesuit Centre for Ecology and Development, Lilongwe, Malawi, and Peter Henriot, SJ, who works with Loyola Jesuit Secondary School, Kasungu, Malawi, and published in in the August 28 issue of the British Catholic magazine The Tablet.
President Obama visited Kenya and Ethiopia, probably for the last time as head of state, from July 24-28.
In January, Tanzania published its Draft National Energy Policy 2015, which, despite its length, devoted little attention to the challenge of bringing electricity to the country’s roughly 11 million residents who live in poverty in rural areas.
Fr. Wayman Deasy, MM, who served in Tanzania, wrote the following reflection which was published in A Maryknoll Liturgical Year: Reflections on the Readings for Year B, available from Orbis Books.
Liz Mach, a Maryknoll lay missioner in Tanzania, wrote the following reflection which was published in A Maryknoll Liturgical Year: Reflections on the Readings for Year B, available from Orbis Books.
The following reflection was prepared by Susan Gunn, and can be found in A Maryknoll Liturgical Year: Reflections on the Readings for Year B, available from Orbis Books.
Sr. Veronica Schweyen, MM, who served in Tanzania, wrote the following reflection which was published in A Maryknoll Liturgical Year: Reflections on the Readings for Year B, available from Orbis Books.
The essential role of infrastructure is being rediscovered worldwide as a key component of a comprehensive development strategy. However, in order to be sustainable and deliver real benefits to the communities and the environment directly affected, infrastructure projects need good governance, meaningful civil society participation, and real accountability.
According to the IMF’s April 2015 report “Regional Economic Outlook: Sub-Saharan Africa Navigating Headwinds,” Africa’s economies are predicted to grow at about 4.5 percent during 2015, yet African economies face enormous uncertainties and risks.
