The RoA Global Secretariat officially announced the new Chairperson of the Reality of Aid Network, Rev. Malcolm Damon, in January 2013.
Rev. Damon is the Chair of RoA Africa and works with other civil society organisations on development effectiveness. He is the Executive Director of the Economic Justice Network (EJN) of the Fellowship of Christian Councils in Southern Africa (FOCCISA) based in Cape Town, South Africa.
EJN works with 12 National Councils of Churches in the Southern African region including Angola, Namibia, South Africa, Zambia, Malawi and Tanzania. It works on trade, debt and finance and food security issues. It organises conferences and workshops on these issues to build the capacity of the National Councils of Churches to engage on these issues. In addition, EJN does advocacy work on economic justice focusing on the Southern African Development Community (SADC).
Rev. Damon works closely with the All Africa Conference of Churches (AACC), the World Councils of Churches (WCC) and is a member of the Ecumenical Advocacy Alliance (EAA). He obtained a Masters in Theology from Princeton Theological Seminary in the USA. His studies focused on ethics and he completed subjects on Ethics and Economic Life, Medical Ethics and Ethics in the Workplace amongst others. In 1995 he completed a thesis Masters in Theology from the University of the Western Cape entitled “An Analysis of the Pastoral Letter of the Catholic Bishops (USA) – Economic Justice for All”.
In 1996 he started to work for the South African Council of Churches (SACC) and established the Parliamentary Office of the SACC. This office worked on public policy issues of concern to the churches and engaged with the legislators and members of parliament through advocacy.
Rev. Damon was formally introduced as the new RoA Chair during the international launch of the RoA 2012 Report, Aid and the Private Sector: Catalysing Poverty Reduction and Development?, held in Nairobi, Kenya on 7 December 2012 in cooperation with RoA Africa.
The Secretariat also thanked Mr. Jorge Balbis of Asociación Latinoamericana de Organizaciones de Promoción al Desarollo (ALOP) for his contributions to RoA as Chair for the past two years.