Anglican-Episcopal representatives have signed a joint statement after the conclusion of the United Nations Global Refugee Forum Progress Review, expressing their grief at the conflict, climate disasters and apathy that force people to flee their homes. 

The Most Revd Dr Maimbo Mndolwa, (Archbishop and Primate of the Anglican Church of Tanzania) and the Rt Revd Mark D. W. Edington (Bishop in Charge of the Convocation of Episcopal Churches in Europe, TEC) recently addressed meetings in Geneva where they affirmed the Anglican Communion’s commitment to advocate for refugees at the international level while engaging in practical collaboration to provide support at the local level. Both Archbishop Maimbo and Bishop Mark represent the Anglican Communion to the Multi-Religious Council of Leaders of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.

Archbishop Maimbo’s province, Tanzania, has been one of the Anglican provinces instrumental in assisting displaced people in its context, including refugees from the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Burundi who are escaping conflict. Speaking about the role of the Church in supporting displaced people, Archbishop Maimbo remarked, ‘At Christmas we recall that Jesus was a refugee: in these divisive political times, let’s come together as Anglicans around work that is really important, enabling refugees and displaced people to have lives of dignity and hope.’

Anglican-Episcopal pledges at the Global Refugee Forum include supporting hands-on work with refugees in Brussels, Calais, Budapest, Egypt, Tanzania, Canada, the USA and many other parts of the world. This includes practical responses such as food and shelter, pastoral and psychosocial care, support to asylum seekers, protection, and addressing human trafficking.

Bishop Mark also highlighted renewed pledges working with churches in the Czech Republic, the Philippines, Cyprus and the Gulf, Portugal and the Diocese in Europe, among others, in his address to the Forum Progress Review.

Archbishop Maimbo and Bishop Mark together signed a statement encouraging the Church to ‘work together… to set forth into the world a powerful, Gospel-centred witness to the dignity of all human beings as equal and precious children of God.’

About the Global Refugee Forum and the Progress Review meeting

The Global Refugee Forum (GRF) Progress Review is the mid-term stocktaking meeting between Global Refugee Forums, which occur every four years. As a United Nations Forum, it gathers Member States and stakeholders to assess progress against the implementation of the pledges made in 2023, in the hopes of gaining momentum ahead of the next Forum in 2027. The Progress Review is the mid-term meeting between the Forums, which checks in with member states and organisations on progress so far. 

The joint statement on the growing emergency of the growing number of refugees:

We have spent these past days together at the 2025 Global Refugee Forum Progress Review meeting, organised by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. Our gathering began a day after UNHCR’s seventy-fifth anniversary.

Among the hundreds of national delegations, non-governmental organisations, and philanthropic foundations represented at the gathering, we were among leaders of faith communities who both advocate for and work to serve the needs of the most vulnerable people in the world—the nearly 120 million forcibly displaced people around the world.

We recognise in the faces of these refugees the neighbours Christ called us to welcome and to love. We grieve at the deepening conflicts around the world that cause people to flee the homes they love for the safety they deserve. We lament the ravages to the climate humans have wrought that have forced millions to move from uninhabitable and threatened lands. And we watch uncomprehendingly as the world’s wealthiest nations turn their backs on the survival needs of the world’s poorest people—their siblings, no less God’s children.

In the growing emergency of human migration, Christ is calling us to join together in his mission of caring for the least, the last, and the lost. Every one of our churches confronts the desperation of refugees; many of our churches face at home the sources of climate change and internal conflict that give rise to migration flows, and are working to be sources of conflict resolution and mutual understanding that alone can address the root causes of human suffering through God’s grace.

In our prayer and conversations together in the midst of this meeting, we have sensed God calling the whole Anglican Communion to respond with common purpose to God’s invitation in mission. Whether it is serving the refugee among us, supporting the crucial work of climate-sensitive development or advocating for more just and compassionate policies, we have among us, if we work together, the potential to set forth into the world a powerful, Gospel-centred witness to the dignity of all human beings as equal and precious children of God.

We ask that all churches of the Communion take up the question of how they might work in partnership with others to address this growing need, remembering that in but a few days we will welcome with joy the coming of God among us as a child who became, with his parents, a refugee.

Signed:

The Most Revd Maimbo Mndolwa, Archbishop and Primate, The Anglican Church of Tanzania and member of the Multi-Religious Council of Leaders, UNHCR.

The Rt Revd Mark D. W. Edington, Bishop in Charge, The Convocation of Episcopal Churches in Europe (TEC) and member of the Multi-Religious Council of Leaders, UNHCR.