TANZANIA: The Church in Africa Must Become Self-reliant: AMECEA Secretary General Insists
TEC Workshop Participants
“Time has come for our Church in AMECEA region and the entire African continent to become self-sustaining. We must learn how to sustain ourselves, make best use of the resources that we have and invest for future sustainability of Church ministries.”
The AMECEA Secretary General Rev. Anthony Makunde said this during the capacity building training on self-reliance of local churches to Development Officers, Treasurers, Project Coordinators and Finance Managers from 34 Catholic Dioceses in Tanzania.
The training took place at Tanzania Episcopal Conference in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, from 27th October to 6th November 2019.
The training was organized by AMECEA Secretariat in collaboration with Tanzania Episcopal Conference’s (TEC) Secretariat, and Catholic University of Eastern Africa (CUEA) with financial support from Missio Aachen.
Father Makunde said that this training comes as a second phase of the trainings, first being the one that was conducted for the bishops in Tanzania in January this year.
The Bishops saw that there is also need to build the capacity of Development Officers, Treasurers, Project Coordinators and Finance Managers who are the main actors of development in the dioceses so that they gain knowledge and skills to devise various sustainable economic strategies for their respective dioceses and Catholic Institutions in order to make the Church self-reliant.
He further stated that the first phase that involved bishops was conducted in all AMECEA countries with exception of Eritrea, Sudan and South Sudan due to the socio-political challenges affecting those countries.
“In this second phase we have started with Tanzania and within this year we shall conduct the same training in Malawi and then proceed with other countries the next year,” explained Fr Makunde.
He said the Church in the AMECEA region needs to streamline resource management activities for sustainable development so there is a need to provide education to the management staff.
He also said that the Church needs to ensure that the task of spreading the Gospel moves forward to future generations, and the only way to do so is to know how to use and manage our resources.
The Deputy Secretary General of Tanzania Episcopal Conference TEC Rev. Daniel Dulle thanked AMECEA for conducting such a training.
“This training is very important and I believe the participants will bring changes in resources management and mobilization for self-sustainability of their dioceses and the Church at national level,” he said.
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By Sarah Pelaji -Dar es Salaam
