Engaging and facilitating churches to discern and identify emerging mission issues to better develop an appropriate action and response is part of CWM’s Cutting Edge Mission Initiatives (CEMI). One such programme that has gained traction is the New International Financial and Economic Architecture (NIFEA).
For the past three years, CWM has been facilitating a series of colloquia in each region focusing on the Economy of Life in pursuit of alternative ways on achieving fullness of life in the midst of debilitating and death-dealing neoliberal economic globalisation. The colloquia enabled participants to understand the problems and consider solutions to areas identified in their home context; share what they identified as an area of action; and agree on ways to implement alternatives.
Although the NIFEA colloquia process has been enriching and productive, CWM continues to push for the ongoing theological education of church leaders, Christians and young theologians on the theology of the Economy of Life.
In 2013, CWM – together with the World Council of Churches (WCC), World Communion of Reformed Churches (WCRC) and the Lutheran World Federation (LWF) – led the Ecumenical Panel on a NIFEA. Composed of 13 experts from the finance, economics, sociology and theology sectors, the panel’s mandate was to develop an advocacy plan to “build a world that better resembles God’s true kingdom”. A second meeting was held in January 2014, followed by a report titled, “Economy of Life for All Now: An Ecumenical Action Plan for a New International Financial and Economic Architecture”.
The ecumenical collective met again in April 2018 and released a public statement which was presented at a side event around the 3rd United Nations Financing for Development Forum in New York.