ETHIOPIA: Comprehensive 10-year Strategic Plan for Ethiopian Catholic Church
By Bezawit Asefa
The Catholic Bishops of Ethiopia have reviewed the basic apostolic issues of the Church, the opportunities and challenges in their 53rd ordinary assembly from July 20-22, 2022 and formed a national steering committee that will work on the preparation of a 10-year strategic plan so that the challenges raised during the assembly could be appropriately addressed.
The national steering committee shall be led by the Secretary General Rev. Abba Teshome Fikre and will have 10 members consisting of the deputy Secretary Generals, officers, and heads of CMRS and an internal Consultant.
The national committee has already started its work in discussing the process of the strategic plan, preparing implementation strategies and an initial awareness platform. Based on this, in the past few weeks, the committee has drawn up a work plan for the next six months.
Starting from August 10 to 13, the first round of work has been visits to various dioceses and the preparation of a comprehensive plan have been conducted in six dioceses which include the Archdiocese of Addis Ababa, the Vicariate of Meki, the Apostolic Prefecture of Robe, the Vicariates of Hawasa, Sodo and Hossana and Jimma-Bonga, and the Eparchy of Emdibir.
In the process, various discussions were held with the Bishops and the relevant officials on the Strategic Plan. Some of the agenda pointed out in the discussion include the nature of the Church’s comprehensive strategic plan; the importance of a 10-year strategic plan; the Current Diocesan Service Process and Challenges; Members of the dioceses steering committee working together with the national committee.
In addition, a short training on communication protocols and a virtual platform was given so the communication for upcoming tasks become effective. In the coming weeks, discussions will be held at the Eparchy of Bahirdar-Dessie, Vicariate of Nekemet, and Gambella dioceses, and priest representatives of the Eparchy of Adigrat will hold a meeting in Addis Ababa.
The Church-Wide Strategic Plan is one of the next work directions decided by the Conference of Bishops, the comprehensive 10-year strategic plan of the church will be prepared based on the common vision of the church, focusing on the pastoral ministry, social development and administrative directions of the church.
The ten-year plan evaluates the previous plans made by church institutions as well as those that have been established and are being implemented. The short duration of strategic plans, challenges in implementation and lack of timely evaluation were stated to be the main factors for the lack of execution.
The steering committee divided the strategic plan into four implementation phases and set a time limit for each. Finally, the strategic plan aims for the church bodies to work together for a common vision that upholds the mission and values of the Catholic Church.
