Regional Episcopal Conference of Francophone West Africa

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The Regional Episcopal Conference of Francophone West Africa (French: Episcopal Conférence Régionale de l'Afrique de l'Ouest Francophone, CERAO) is an agency of the Catholic Church which includes the bishops of Western Africa.

French language Romance language

French is a Romance language of the Indo-European family. It descended from the Vulgar Latin of the Roman Empire, as did all Romance languages. French evolved from Gallo-Romance, the spoken Latin in Gaul, and more specifically in Northern Gaul. Its closest relatives are the other langues d'oïl—languages historically spoken in northern France and in southern Belgium, which French (Francien) has largely supplanted. French was also influenced by native Celtic languages of Northern Roman Gaul like Gallia Belgica and by the (Germanic) Frankish language of the post-Roman Frankish invaders. Today, owing to France's past overseas expansion, there are numerous French-based creole languages, most notably Haitian Creole. A French-speaking person or nation may be referred to as Francophone in both English and French.

Catholic Church Christian church led by the Bishop of Rome

The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with approximately 1.3 billion baptised Catholics worldwide as of 2017. As the world's "oldest continuously functioning international institution", it has played a prominent role in the history and development of Western civilisation. The church is headed by the Bishop of Rome, known as the pope. Its central administration, the Holy See, is in the Vatican City, an enclave within the city of Rome in Italy.

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History

The CERAO was created in 1963. Its first meeting was held in Anyama, near Abidjan in Ivory Coast, between 11 and 14 June. A second meeting was held the following year in Dakar, Senegal, from 3 to 6 June. It was created to facilitate the coordination of all activities involving the Catholic churches of the member countries and promote, as far as possible, a common pastoral plan. Its headquarters is in Abidjan, and statutes were approved during the meeting in Lomé, Togo, in February 1985.

Anyama Place in Abidjan, Ivory Coast

Anyama is a city in south-eastern Ivory Coast. It is a suburb of Abidjan and is one of four sub-prefectures of Abidjan Autonomous District. Anyama is also a commune. The city is about 20 kilometres north of Abidjan.

Abidjan City and autonomous district in Côte dIvoire

Abidjan is the economic capital of Ivory Coast and one of the most populous French-speaking cities in Africa. According to the 2014 census, Abidjan's population was 4.7 million, which is 20 percent of the overall population of the country, and this also makes it the sixth most populous city proper in Africa, after Lagos, Cairo, Kinshasa, Dar es Salaam, and Johannesburg. A cultural crossroads of West Africa, Abidjan is characterised by a high level of industrialisation and urbanisation.

Ivory Coast State in West Africa

Ivory Coast or Côte d'Ivoire, officially the Republic of Côte d'Ivoire, is a country located on the south coast of West Africa. Ivory Coast's political capital is Yamoussoukro in the centre of the country, while its economic capital and largest city is the port city of Abidjan. It borders Guinea and Liberia to the west, Burkina Faso and Mali to the north, Ghana to the east, and the Gulf of Guinea to the south.

Organization

The CERAO consists of four main bodies: the Plenary Assembly, the Permanent Council, the General Secretariat, the Council of Presidents. The general assembly, which is the organ that takes all major decisions, meets every three years, otherwise the permanent council meets annually except in years that the general assembly meets. To better serve its objectives, the CERAO it has 13 committees and two secretariats. The committees are:

Bible Collection of religious texts in Judaism and Christianity

The Bible is a collection of sacred texts or scriptures. Varying parts of the Bible are considered to be a product of divine inspiration and a record of the relationship between God and humans by Christians, Jews, Samaritans, and Rastafarians.

The group's president, Cardinal CERAO of Dakar, Théodore-Adrien Sarr, has held that office since 2003.

Dakar Capital city in Senegal

Dakar is the capital and largest city of Senegal. It is located on the Cap-Vert peninsula on the Atlantic coast and is the westernmost city on the African mainland. The city of Dakar proper has a population of 1,030,594, whereas the population of the Dakar metropolitan area is estimated at 2.45 million.

Théodore-Adrien Sarr Catholic cardinal

Théodore-Adrien Sarr is a Senegalese cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church. He is currently the Archbishop Emeritus of Dakar, having previously served as Archbishop of Dakar from 2000 to 2014, and before that as Bishop of Kaolack from 1974 to 2000. He was elevated to the cardinalate in 2007 by Pope Benedict XVI. Pope Francis accepted his resignation as Archbishop of Dakar, in accordance with Canon 401.1 of the Latin-rite Code of Canon Law, on Monday, 22 December 2014.

Members of CERAO

Part of CERAO Episcopal bishops of the following conferences:

Presidents

Archbishop bishop of higher rank in many Christian denominations

In Christianity, an archbishop is a bishop of higher rank or office. In some cases, such as the Lutheran Church of Sweden and the Church of England, the title is borne by the leader of the denomination. Like popes, patriarchs, metropolitans, cardinal bishops, diocesan bishops, and suffragan bishops, archbishops are in the highest of the three traditional orders of bishops, priests, and deacons. An archbishop may be granted the title or ordained as chief pastor of a metropolitan see or another episcopal see to which the title of archbishop is attached.

Paul Zoungrana Burkinabe Cardinal

Paul Zoungrana, MAfr was a Burkinabé Cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church. He served as Archbishop of Ouagadougou from 1960 to 1995, and was elevated to the cardinalate in 1965.

A bishop is an ordained, consecrated, or appointed member of the Christian clergy who is generally entrusted with a position of authority and oversight.

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The individual member states of the African Union (AU) coordinate foreign policy through this agency, in addition to conducting their own international relations on a state-by-state basis. The AU represents the interests of African peoples at large in intergovernmental organizations (IGO's); for instance, it is a permanent observer at the United Nations' General Assembly.

Central Bank of West African States central bank serving the West African Economic and Monetary Union

The Central Bank of West African States is a central bank serving the eight west African countries which share the common West African CFA franc currency and comprise the West African Economic and Monetary Union (UEMOA):

White-bellied yellow bat species of mammal

The white-bellied yellow bat is a species of vesper bat. It can be found in Angola, Benin, Botswana, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, Ivory Coast, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Kenya, Mali, Mauritania, Namibia, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Sudan, Togo, Uganda, and Zambia. It is found in dry and moist savanna.

AfricaRail is a project to link the railway systems of Ivory Coast, Burkina Faso, Niger, Benin and Togo. These are all 1,000 mm gauge.

The French West African Cup or Coupe d'Afrique Occidentale Française was a football (soccer) tournament between clubs of the former French Western African territories.

Red-pate cisticola species of bird

The red-pate cisticola is a species of bird in the Cisticolidae family. It is found in Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, Ivory Coast, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea-Bissau, Kenya, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Sudan, Togo, and Uganda. Its natural habitats are dry savanna and swamps.

UEMOA Tournament

The UEMOA Tournament is a football (soccer) tournament held between nations who are a member of the West African Economic and Monetary Union (UEMOA). The tournament was first played in 2007. It is also called Coupe de l'intégration ouest africaine.

West-Central Africa Division of Seventh-day Adventists organization

The West-Central Africa Division of Seventh-day Adventists is a sub-entity of the General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists, which coordinates the Church's operations in 22 African countries, which include Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Cape Verde, Central African Republic, Chad, Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Ivory Coast, Liberia, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone, and Togo. Its headquarters is in Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire.

Africable is a free-to-air, French-language, pan-african TV-channel headquartered in Bamako, Mali. The channel launched on June 26th 2004, born from the desire of young cable operators in Francophone-Africa.

Atlantic Bank Group, commonly known by its French name Groupe Banque Atlantique, is a West African financial services conglomerate, headquartered in Lome, Togo. The Group consisting of banks and other financial services companies in Cote d'Ivoire, Benin, Niger, Burkina Faso, Mali, Togo, Senegal and Cameroon.

The Symposium of Episcopal Conferences of Africa and Madagascar is an agency of the Catholic Church which includes the bishops of Africa and Madagascar.

The Senegal has not an episcopal conference of their own, but Senegal is part of the episcopate of the Conference of Bishops of Senegal, Mauritania, Cape Verde, and Guinea Bissau . It is a member of the Episcopal Conférence Régionale de l'Afrique de l'Ouest Francophone (CERAO) Symposium of Episcopal Conferences and of Africa and Madagascar (SECAM).

The local assembly of bishops is the Episcopal Conference of Burkina Faso and of Niger. Its purposes are to coordinate and make dynamic pastoral activities of the Catholic Church in the nations of Burkina Faso and Niger for the good of the faithful, and encourage the sharing of resources and people for a common assumption evangelizing mission of the church in the two countries.

The 2013 UEMOA Tournament will be the sixth edition of the UEMOA Tournament. It is set to be held in Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire during 27 October–2 November 2013. The competition is used as a way of developing players in the West African region.

Sidiki Kaba, is the keeper of the seals and the Minister of Justice of Senegal since 2013. On 8 December 2014, he was elected as President of the Assembly of States Parties to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court as consensus candidate from the African States Parties and endorsed by the Bureau of the Assembly. He will serve as President of the Assembly, which operates from New York and The Hague, while also continuing his functions as Minister of Justice from Dakar.

The 2016 UEMOA Tournament was a football tournament, that took place from 26 November to 3 December 2016.

References

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