AMECEA: Decision Making in Project Funding, A Shared Responsibility With Partners: Missio Aachen to Partners
Andrew Kaufa smm
As Missio Aachen adopts a new approach to projects funding of pastoral projects for the Church in Africa and Asia, a one -month training has kicked off in Aachen where the German Catholic Church funding partner organization Missio Aachen is drilling officers from the Association of Member Episcopal Conferences of Eastern Africa (AMECEA) and the Federation of Asian Bishops Conferences (FABC).
Fr Dirk Bingener who is the President of Missio Aachen, underscored the importance of sharing the responsibility, arguing that it is in the spirit of pastoral subsidiarity that the Board has come up with this new policy.
“You are here on behalf of the conferences because of the important role you play in your conference. We want to work with the bishops’ conferences. More importantly, to share responsibilities on projects with you,” said the President as he addressed the participants.
On his part, the Head of Missio Aachen’s Foreign Department Mr Frank Kraus explained to the participants that this approach is in line with the United Nations approach of encouraging the participation and involvement of the people with whom an organization is working.
“The Board of Missio Aachen has decided that the power and responsibility regarding decision making on who should be funded and who should not, be shared with the partners and the local level,” he said, adding that this also serves as a strategy to improve cooperation between the local Church and Missio Aachen.
This, according to Missio Aachen office, means that while Missio Aachen as funding partner representing individual donors as well as the Church in Germany and the German government have a final say on the conditions for funding and guidelines for projects application, the local partners too have an important role to play.
“It is up to the partners to decide how. In the Democratic Republic Congo and for Congo only, an office is already set up to do the coordination,” said the Director of Foreign Department as he explained why this training is important.
“In fact, ACWECA (The Association of Consecrated Women in Eastern and Central Africa) has also already opted to do the same for Religious women’s projects,” he added.
Following a meeting between AMECEA and Missio Aachen that was held in February 2024 in Nairobi, it was agreed that each member conference of AMECEA identify and send a representative of the local Church for an induction.
The regional representatives in attendance are, from Kenya Catholic Bishops Conference, Fr Jacob Nyaga; Episcopal Conference of Malawi, Fr Ephraim Madeya; Tanzania Episcopal Conference, Fr Benjamin Mfaume; Uganda Episcopal Conference, Fr Pontian Kaweesa; and AMECEA Secretariat, Fr Andrew Kaufa.
The Catholic Bishops Conferences of Ethiopia, Sudan/ South Sudan and Zambia also forwarded names of their identified officers. However, have been unable to attend the training to visa restraints.
The training runs from 3 June to 4 July, 2024. During the first week, Ms. Lea Mickenberg who is the coordinator of the training has introduced the participants to the history of Missio Aachen, the organization’s strategies for improving international Church cooperation and Missio Aachen criteria for funding. This was followed by a brainstorming on how national and regional projects officers can share the responsibility during the processes of project funding and what type of participatory structure is feasible for the partners in their local context.
