How the Anglican Alliance supported the Communion in responding to the pandemic
The Anglican Alliance geared up its Covid-19 response in February 2020, when it became clear that Covid-19 was going to have a significant impact across the Anglican Communion.
Throughout the pandemic, the Alliance has sought to maximise the use of its structures, networks and assets to the greatest effect in tackling
the Covid-19 pandemic and reducing its social and economic impact, especially in the poorest communities.
During 2020, our key activities focused on building capacity, walking together, and sharing information, learning and experiences across the Communion, at regional and global levels. These activities included:
Convening an on-going Global Covid -19 Task Force to guide the Alliance’s response, identifying emerging issues around the Communion and updating a strategic framework to guide the work.
Regular regional and global consultations to share learning. In 2020, we held over 25 regional and global consultations to build and exchange learning on church responses to Covid-19.
Thematic consultations on key issues – for example Covid-19 and migration, and Covid-19 and domestic abuse.
Building an online resource hub in four languages to provide technical, spiritual and pastoral resources. This has been a major and ongoing contribution which has been highly valued. The resource hub has two parts: the facts of Covid-19 and practical information on how churches can respond.
Producing a set of Bible studies – “Faith in the Time of Covid-19” – to help Christians reflect on their faith and scriptures in the midst of the pandemic. The Anglican Alliance worked with a small group of biblical scholars, theologians and church leaders from around the Communion to produce the series of Bible studies, which proved extremely popular. The Bible studies are also available in Arabic, French, Spanish and Portuguese.
Online courses. We developed and rolled out the Resilience Course, an online training course on church and community resilience, to address a priority issue highlighted by the pandemic.
Mapping appeals from provinces and potential partners. This on-going work charts the appeals from different dioceses and provinces around the Communion, mapping this against the various support grants.
Launching a reflective & theological conversation on ‘Re-imagining our World’, involving churches, networks, agencies and others across the Communion. recommendations for different faiths in real time to limit transmission and save lives.
Into 2021…
As the pandemic progressed into 2021, some richer nations, with access to vaccines, were beginning to look to life beyond Covid. However, at the Anglican Alliance we were acutely aware that the pandemic situation was still worsening in many places.
We were also painfully aware of the inequalities that the pandemic had both exposed and exacerbated. This was seen most scandalously in the inequitable access to Covid-19 vaccines globally. By mid-2021, people in wealthy countries had a 1 in 4 chance of being vaccinated, while in the poorest countries it was 1 in 500.
In 2021, the Anglican Alliance worked intensively on two dimensions of the Covid-19 vaccine roll- out: sharing information to help overcome vaccine hesitancy and advocacy on equitable global access to vaccines.
Overcoming vaccine hesitancy
Through the global Covid-19 task force convened by the Anglican Alliance, we monitored the rollout of the vaccines and attitudes towards them. From these consultations, and a survey, it was clear that people were hesitant about the vaccine for two principal reasons. The first was having reasonable questions and concerns they wanted addressed. The second was powerfully the influence of fake news. The Anglican Alliance worked with the World Health Organization and contributed to its global understanding of the dynamics of vaccine hesitancy, through the research we were conducting on the ground across the Communion. Learning from this, to help overcome vaccine hesitancy, the Anglican Alliance published two major web stories:
Overcoming vaccine hesitancy, part 1: addressing reasonable concerns and questions
Overcoming vaccine hesitancy, part 2: countering fake news
The articles also reviewed what church leaders could do to support vaccine roll out.
From late 2021, the Anglican Alliance also convened country level online conversations to help empower bishops and Mothers’ Union leaders to build vaccine confidence, both for themselves and their communities. These calls were modelled on an initiative of the Uganda-Bristol companionship link, which brought together clergy and vaccine experts, some of whom were also Christians.
These online conversations enabled the clergy to have all their questions and concerns addressed. This model proved extremely successful and impactful.
Equity of access to Covid-19 vaccines
In May 2021, the Anglican Alliance jointly published a position paper on global vaccine equity with the Anglican Health & Community Network (available in three languages). The paper discussed why vaccine equity matters and outlined factors necessary for achieving it. The Anglican Alliance also advised Lambeth Palace when the Archbishop of Canterbury led a call for a global response to Covid-19 to ensure equitable vaccine distribution across the world, alongside other global faith leaders and the leaders of global humanitarian and health bodies.
The Anglican Alliance’s position paper and key advocacy points were developed in consultation with Anglican leadership and government relations offices in G7 countries to support their national advocacy ahead of the G7 summit in mid-2021.
It was also sent, at Archbishop Thabo’s request, to all Primates across the Communion. The G7 summit was held in the UK in June, where access to Covid-19 vaccines was a key discussion point.
The communiqué issued at the end of the G7 summit included some promising commitments,
but the overall lack of urgency, ambition and action suggested that at that time the G7 leaders did not truly understand or believe that “no one is safe until everyone is safe”. The advocacy work continued.
The Anglican Alliance worked with others around the Communion to urge the Church to speak out about the inequitable situation and to advocate for urgent change, so that everyone everywhere had fair and timely access to the vaccines. In September 2021 the Anglican Alliance with the Anglican Health & Community Network issued a second statement advocating that wealthy nations not stockpile their excess Covid vaccines, but release them for distribution to vulnerable countries before they expired.
Supporting fundraising for vaccine distribution
Early in 2021 the Anglican Alliance played a key role in the launch of the VaccinAid “Give the World a Shot” campaign by UNICEF UK. The initiative called on people to donate money to provide Covid-19 vaccines to others around the world, as a way of giving thanks for their own Covid-19 vaccination, provided free by the National Health Service.
The model has also been used in other parts of the Communion, with participation by the Anglican Church, including in Canada and Aotearoa New Zealand.
Addressing emerging issues
Throughout 2021 the Anglican Alliance continued to monitor the wider impacts of the pandemic on individuals and communities through bi-weekly meetings of our Global Covid-19 Task Force and quarterly meetings with our regional fora. Three key issues emerged which were affecting people in every part of the Communion. We then convened global and regional consultations to learn more about these issues, how the churches were responding, and what the models of good practice looked like:
On mental health of young people – we worked with our regional networks and the new Anglican Health and Community Network to reach professionals and church leaders through webinars. Our learning here led to a request for a seminar at the Lambeth Conference.
On promoting girls’ return to school, including tackling early marriage and teenage pregnancy – working with a new coalition in the Communion on gender and child safeguarding. This remains a very deep challenge. Many young people have not returned to school once lock-down was over and girls in particular remain highly vulnerable to exploitation.
On micro-enterprise and livelihood skills for youth – we held an Africa-wide webinar on this topic, collaborating with Anglican micro-finance organisation, Five Talents, and the Council of Anglican Provinces in Africa. We have also invested heavily with staff time to nurture the re-launch of the Anglican Youth Network, with global coverage.
The Alliance also continued to convene regional and thematic calls on Covid-19 and initiated national level calls to offer support and solidarity to church leaders in countries facing particularly traumatic situations. In 2021, such calls included India, Brazil, Madagascar, South Sudan, DRC and Central Africa, with other countries under extreme duress also sharing in regular regional calls.