Weekly Prayers from CCOW

This marks the final installment in our first year of prayer emails. Thank you so much to all of you who have contributed comments and suggestions over the year. Please do keep them coming! If you haven't already taken our reader survey, you can click on this link and share with us any comments you may have. And if you have used the prayer email over the past year and would like to support us in this (and other) work, please do click here (we're charity 1008146) or send in this form. Thank you!

The first part of our email looks back to some of the major prayer items from 2011 which have now fallen out of the news, focuses on the people affected and asks for your continued prayers for them. The second part of the email looks at some prayer themes for 2012.

1. Looking back ...

• Our first email asked you to pray about the referendum on South Sudan. Give thanks again for the peaceful nature of the referendum and for the creation of South Sudan (a reflection by a local bishop is here). Please continue to pray for both countries and the challenges they face -- especially for peace with justice in Darfur, for freedom within Sudan and for. transparency, good governance, a rising to the many development challenges, and an end to ethnic tensions and fighting in South Sudan. Pray above all for the people affected in the continuing warfare (indeed, some would say, war) along the borders of the two nations, and for those who are attempting to administer humanitarian aid amidst the fighting. Finally, while giving thanks that South Sudan started life debt free and that the UK will forgive Sudan's debts, pray that the UK Government will reconsider counting the Sudanese debt forgiveness as part of its commitment to giving 0.7% in aid (historically, government hasn't considered debt relief as part of aid for purposes of meeting international commitments).
• Over the year, you've prayed for people affected by floods in Australia, South Africa, Brazil, Colombia, El Salvador, Guatemala, Sri Lanka, Orissa, Cambodia, Thailand, and Pakistan (among others). While the floods may no longer be in the news, many people will still be seeking to rebuild after  the loss of homes, loved ones and livelihoods. Please continue to keep in prayer all affected by the floods and all who are helping people to rebuild their lives.
  
  Please continue also to pray for those who were affected by droughts in China, the Horn of Africa, the Southern United States and Tuvalu (among others). Pray for those in the Horn of Africa who are still affected by the food crisis, and especially for the internally displaced, for whom famine conditions may well persist into 2012. The 2012 forecasts (see link above) suggest that while technical "famine" will be averted for others, there will be emergency situations in Ethiopia, Sudan and Somalia. Please pray for people in these areas: pray for political stability and political and economic justice to provide a framework for their efforts to avert crisis.
• Please continue to keep in prayer all who have suffered because of civil unrest in their countries -- and especially those who were affected by election-related violence in the Ivory Coast. Pray for the new government of that country. In recent weeks, its armed forces have been accused of incidences of violence and atrocities. Pray that the government may restore discipline in its armed forces, work to heal old wounds and bring justice, peace and stability. Pray for the trial of Laurent Gbagbo at the International Criminal Court, that it may be fair, that it may not provoke further instability in Ivory Coast, and that it may provide a deterrent to abuses by other leaders.
• Pray for all who are rebuilding after earthquakes. Pray especially for the people of Christchurch in Aotearoa/New Zealand, who recently suffered another tremor and remain anxious even as they rebuild ... and for all who face this year without loved ones, livelihoods or homes because of the earthquake, tsunami and nuclear accident in Japan.  Pray, too, for all who continue to work on rebuilding Haiti.
• Finally, please pray for all those affected by the crises we've mentioned that relate to larger issues -- the people who lose livelihoods because of unfair trade rules, those whose access to essential services has been affected by corporations' unwillingness to pay taxes to developing-country governments, those who struggle to produce food and maintain livelihoods in a changing climate where weather rules are turned upside down. Pray for us in the UK that we may be willing to look beyond individual emergencies to see the larger patterns and what we can do that might help to change them.  

2. Themes for 2012 ... the first of three installments. Many of the points are in the form of questions, the potential answers to which are subjects for prayer.

i. Fairer Global Economic Governance

Large-scale frameworks may not be everything (see point iv) but they matter. So on global economic governance, some questions and points for prayer ....

What role for the International Financial Institutions in 2012? The IMF seems in recent years to have been increasing its power and influence: how will it use them? Will the IMF and World Bank structures be reformed to give a better representation to developing countries, including (but not limited to) the emerging economies? What will the process be for the appointment of the next President of the World Bank?

In the absence of effective multilateral negotiations at the WTO, a huge number of bilateral and regional trade negotiations will occur. The risks to developing countries of such unequal negotiations are considerable: will there be any room for  trade justice?

The call for tax justice, and particularly to address the questions around tax havens, grows ever louder. Will the G20 and the international community more widely finally take effective action to prevent unjust systems of taxation draining money from poor countries?

Pray that 2012 may be a year of real progress on these and other global economic governance issues.

ii. Elections and Changes in Government

Some elections are scheduled for 2012: presidential elections for Russia in March, for example, and for the US in the Autumn. Some are less certain: what will the rules be for the Egyptian presidential elections (a draft has recently been circulated)? And will there be an election in Zimbabwe? Or not? 

Each election represents a different range of choices specific to the country involved.  Will Vladimir Putin be able to maintain an unchallenged grip on Russian politics? Or will the popular protests that followed from the parliamentary elections bring some sort of change? What will the election's impacts be for Putin's attempts to reunite former members of the Soviet Union?

In the US, will the pressures of an election year lead to a lack of policy choices at a crucial time internationally? What are its implications for multilateralism, and especially for multilateral action on climate change?

Who will field presidential candidates in Egypt? Will Zanu-PF's hopes for 2012 Zimbabwean elections materialise, despite opposition from the Movement For Democratic Change and the wider Southern African community? Will the decision either way cause further instability and violence in that fragile country ... or provide opportunities for justice and transformation?

2011 also saw in Europe two instances where elected governments were replaced, under pressure from financial markets, with technocratic governments. What are the implications of this for democracy? As the technocratic governments' short terms finish, what will replace them?

Finally, what are the implications of current changes in the North Korean government and forthcoming changes in the Chinese government? How will the new North Korean leader relate to the army? What impact will that relationship have on North Korea's nuclear ambitions and international relations?

Please pray for all countries that are undergoing elections or changes in government this year. Pray for fair electoral processes in each. Pray that elections may have a positive impact domestically, regionally and internationally. Pray that at a time of global crises, electoral politics may not hinder world leaders from making strong, just policy choices.

iii. Action by individuals and communities

One of the more intriguing aspects of the Durban negotiations was the number of high-level participants who opined that we shouldn't just focus on multilateral agreements, or the lack thereof, but also on the sheer number of people who, without waiting for the "perfect" agreement were quite simply taking action on mitigation and adaptation. (see this blog from the World Bank's Andrew Steer, for example).

Maybe this was partly about "managing expectations" or making the most of a poor prognosis. But it wasn't just that. To a huge degree 2011 was about the way in which individual and community action mattered. The Arab Spring was the most visible sign of this ... but the kind of pragmatic action that Andrew Steer mentions was another example, and there were many others.

So often, we put up with situations that we know don't conform to God's standards of love and justice because we don't really think that we can make any difference. What are the situations where we and our communities could pray and act to change unloving and unjust situations in 2012? How could we get more people in our churches really to believe that, if we are following where God leads, we can be agents of positive change?

Pray that we and our communities may listen for God's direction and be agents of positive change in 2012.