The Standing Committee of the Inter-Regional Meeting of the Bishops of Southern Africa, “IMBISA”, gathered at the CEAST offices in Luanda, Angola from 21 to 24 March 2023. The purpose for this meeting was firstly to make the existence of IMBISA known in Angola, which is one of the resolution of the Standing Committee to be going round all the countries in the IMBISA Region for their meetings and secondly to deliberate on the Imbisa business. The President of the Standing Committee Archbishop Liborius Ndumbukuti Nashenda OMI in his opening address welcomed all the members to the meeting and thanked everyone for taking time to attend this important meeting. In attendance were the ten Bishops of the Standing Committee and three members from the secretariat.
The meeting began by having two presentations, the first from Dr Zeca O.P. based in Angola titled “The Social Situation of IMBISA: Region analysis.” The second topic was on “The Political situation of the Region analysis,” by Dr Albert Dhafana from Zimbabwe. The Standing Committee took advantage of this meeting to give reports on what is going on in different conferences. Well-detailed reports were given on the social, political, economic and ecclesial situations from our six Episcopal Conferences. This was followed by reports from the Secretariat on projects, the social department, the pastoral department, Finances and a presentation on the Imbisa Safeguarding Policy.
Resolutions
1. There was a swap on the allocation of Departments Bishop Raymond Mupandasekwa CSsR (ZCBC), joing the Finance Depatment to assisting Bishop Siphiwo Vanqa (SABC) while Bishop Willem Christiaans OSFS (NCBC) will now assist Bishop Antonio Juliasse Ferreira Sandramo (CEM) in the Social Department.
2. The IMBISA Safeguarding Policy was approved with minor corrections’
3. The next Standing Committee Meeting will be in Lesotho.