ACT Alliance

The EJN of FOCCISA is a faith-based organisation based in Cape Town, South Africa but working in 12 countries of the Southern Africa Development Community (SADC) region. We are a project of 12 National Councils of Churches (NCCs) of Angola, Botswana, Lesotho, Madagascar, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, Swaziland, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe.

Our vision
To harness the resources of the southern African region for all of its people, with a view to bringing about economic justice through the transforming agency of Christians compelled by the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Our mission
To strengthen the commitment of the church in its advocacy work on economic justice and to act as a catalyst for engaging people in the promotion of just economic and social structures. The Network will establish mechanisms to bring the experience and concerns of the marginalized and the poor people to the agenda of the church and society.

Our specific objectives are

• To develop and implement effective advocacy strategies and interventions on a selected number of priority issues affecting the region, through joint conferences, seminars and workshops;
• To undertake relevant research on issues of concern which can be used in the advocacy activities of the National Christian Councils, EJN and our partner organisation
• To facilitate information gathering, dissemination and exchange within EJN and with partner organisations on the key priority areas (debt, trade and food security);
• To encourage economic literacy programmes by the Churches at all levels;
• To liaise with similar networks in southern Africa, greater Africa and globally in order collaborate on issues of collective concern.

Our Programmes
Food Security, Debt, Trade, SADC Advocacy, and Global Advocacy.

Our Projects
Food Security (Global Week of Action on Food Security, Agricultural and Food Security Policy Advocacy nationally and in the SADC region, Food Security and Climate Change)

Trade (European Union (EU) - African and Caribbean Countries (APC) Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) Monitoring and World Trade Organisation (WTO) Trade Negotiations Monitoring).

Debt (Extractive Industries, Aid Effectiveness, Ecological and Illegitimate Debt, Climate Change)

SADC Advocacy (Informal Cross Border Trade (ICBT), SADC People’s Summit, SADC NGO Forum, Southern Africa Social Forum)

Global Advocacy (World Social Forum (WSF), Ecumenical Advocacy Alliance (EAA) Food Strategy Group (FSG)

Our Networks Memberships

We collaborate with SADC regional, Africa continental and global networks in our activities. This enables us to reach people of the SADC region, Africa continent and on a global scale.

Southern Africa Development Community (SADC)
level we are part of the APEX Organisations (Southern Africa Development Community Council of Non-government Organisations (SADC C-NGO), Southern Africa Trade Unions Coordinating Council (SATUCC) and Economic Justice Network of the Fellowship of Christian Councils in Southern Africa (EJN of FOCCISA) and the Southern Africa People’s Solidarity Network (SAPSN).

African continent
We are a member of the Pan-African Climate Justice Alliance (PACJA), Tax Justice Network of Africa (TJN-A) and the Third-World Network – Africa (TWN-A) and we work with the All Africa Conference of Churches (AACC).

Global
We are a member of the Ecumenical Advocacy Alliance (EAA) and the Reality of Aid (RoA).