The strong, effective, and prophetic public voice of the EUNO promotes just peace and produces focused advocacy actions in response to emerging societal, church, and ecumenical trends through the accompaniment of member churches and ecumenical partners by advocating on behalf of and with them at international and national levels, most specifically towards the United Nations and member states.
Housed at the Church Center for the United Nations, the EUNO plays a key role in convening and facilitating advocacy at different levels and building joint ecumenical strategies on priority issues. Through WCC’s Pilgrimage of Justice and Peace framework, the EUNO serves as a key instrument to creating a platform for the most marginalized among us, particularly those from the Global South, to bear witness to their experiences and truth in order to influence policy and decision making at the UN in New York, among member states, and within other intergovernmental and multilateral institutions.
By engaging in continuous dialogue and programmatic cooperation with agencies such as the United Nations Inter-Agency Task Force on Religion and Sustainable Development, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), and UN Women, we aim to strengthen and enhance UN discourse and practice on issues of peace and security, sustainable development and human rights. Through these dynamic partnerships, the EUNO serves to echo the call to action of the ecumenical fellowship, promoting peace building, reconciliation, human rights, peaceful resistance to violence, and sustainable development.
The EUNO ensures that the WCC is actively represented and highly influential on its priority activities:
1) peace and security
2) sustainable development and monitoring of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)
3) religion, violence, and extremism
4) gender justice
5) rights of indigenous peoples.
As such, the EUNO participates with and in UN bodies such as the UN Security Council, the Commission on the Status of Women, the Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, the High Level Political Forum on Sustainable Development, and the Commission on Population and Development, as well as the UN General Assembly.
Key aspects of the EUNO’s advocacy strategy is to encourage and expand the capacity of church leaders and community representatives to engage in national level advocacy as well as to have access to decision makers in the UN. Through cooperative relationships with UN member states, the EUNO ensures open channels of communication. We also work to identity strategic synergies within the ecumenical movement to link actors and facilitate collective advocacy.
Additionally, EUNO’s work also fosters inter-religious cooperation and dialogues with a variety of faith-based groups, particularly on advocacy for peace in the Middle East, multi-faith coalitions on sexual and reproductive rights, advocacy on climate justice, and dialogues on religion and development.
Video: "Introducing the Ecumenical UN Office"
