Meeting Report - 27 March 2009
with Pat Phillips,  British Ambassador to Angola.

[Source: Sheenagh Burrell]

Pat Phillips, British Ambassador to Angola, meeting ALMA reps

A group of twenty ALMA Reps and Friends, our MU ALMA Rep Christina, and Jane Davidson, London Diocese MU President (London MU also has a partnership with Angola) met Pat Phillips at St Peter’s Eton Square on Friday. Pat was in London for the Foreign and Commonwealth Office annual leadership conference, which also involves meetings with 400 stakeholders around the country – of which ALMA is one!

Pat shared the Foreign and Commonwealth Office ‘Better World, Better Britain’ policy summary with us, and the four main areas of policy work in Angola:

• countering terrorism and weapons proliferation and their causes
• preventing and resolving conflict
• promoting a low carbon high growth global economy
• developing effective international institutions above all the United Nations and the European Union.

Pat Phillips, with Jane Davidson (MU President) and Pastor Muanga

We explored several topics together: agriculture, coffee production and the possibility of fairtrade Angolan coffee in the future; petroleum income and wealth distribution; the role of BP now and in the future; the impact of the civil war on education and the lost generation; the role of China in Angolan infrastructure development; the emergence of a middle class and the role of the church.

We had time for informal conversation too - see the photo above - and were all very appreciative of this unique opportunity to share insights and experience.

Earlier meetings:

The previous day there had been a Foreign and Commonwealth Office consultation with churches (from emerging to established) and NGOs with strong links to Africa which John Tasker, Mike Clark and I attended. The role of the church in Africa as the representative of civil society was emphasised and the Heineken effect was duly noted, along with vital work of the Mothers Union.

At the Ecumenical World Development Consultation earlier in March, one of the speakers quoted Barack Obama on this subject:

‘In poor communities, the strongest institutions with the deepest roots were faith-based; they provided vital resources to poor communities - a measure of dignity and a sense of meaning in lives scarred by poverty. Find a way to connect them and you have the power to bring about change’.

Jim Wallis has also reminded us that:

‘A groundswell of progressive believers could accomplish social transformation that mere politics cannot deliver’.