News

ACT Alliance: Giant global humanitarian body to be created

The General Assembly of ACT Development, holding its meeting in Buenos Aires, Argentina has decided to unify with the emergency network, ACT International. Both alliances are based in Geneva, bringing together more than 150 agencies, churches and organisations.

Through emergency appeals, ACT International coordinates humanitarian operations all over the world, and has been recently active in hot spots like Sri Lanka, Gaza, Zimbabwe, Afghanistan, Colombia and India. ACT Development works on long-term development issues and coordinates work in areas such as aid effectiveness, impact assessment and malaria. The members of the alliances come from both the global north and south.

“In DanChurchAid we are extremely pleased with, that the preconditions are now there to create ACT Alliance. We have been working towards this for years” says The General Secretary of DanChurchAid, Henrik Stubkjær. He predicts that the future alliance will play a significant role in the support of the world’s poorest people.

The director of ACT International, John Nduna, says the new movement will be a professional and Christian alliance working on emergency and development. ACT saves thousands of lives every year, it is impossible to say how many.

“The magic of ACT is the cooperation with churches all over the world. When most infrastructure collapses, there is still a church that operates and that we are working with. That represents a unique network.”

Forty representatives at the ACT Development General Assembly voted for the unification with two votes against.

Media contacts:
Tomm Kristiansen, ACT International Communications Officer
(mobile: +41 79 358 3171 / tkr@act-intl.org)
Sean Hawkey, ACT Development Communications Officer (sha@wcc-coe.org)

DanChurchAid contacts:
Mads Klæstrup Kristensen, Communication Director, +45 2025 6789
Henrik Stubkjær, General Secretary, +45 2970 0600