The defense of the family was, along with the reception of refugees and the promotion of peace, one of the three challenges that emerged during the meeting of the Standing Committee of the ACEAC (Association of Episcopal Conferences of Central Africa, including the Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda and Burundi), which was held recently in Kigali, Rwanda. In the final message of this session, the bishops reiterated the necessity to "witness to the Gospel by living with faith in Christ and sharing the Christian values, so strongly needed in the Region."
 
Regarding specifically the challenge of the family, Msgr. Smaragde Mbonyintege, Bishop of Kabgayi (Rwanda), stressed that "it is at the center of ACEAC‘s pastoral concerns and specifically situated among the Bishops‘ priorities for the New Evangelization," with the intent to find "lasting solutions to the threats that families are currently facing." All this was discussed in view of the next Ordinary General Synod of Bishops on the theme of "The vocation and the mission of the family in the Church and in the contemporary world."