Religions for Peace Hosts Global Learning Exchange on the role of Interreligious Councils in Building Peaceful, Just, and Inclusive Societies
20211108When the COVID-19 pandemic forced a change in the essential convening nature of Religions for Peace’s work, we launched a series of Learning Exchanges for our unique platforms – the Interreligious Councils (IRCs) – to connect with and learn from each other. The Pandemic became an opportunity to convene, network, communicate, asses, and grow both the strategic partnerships, as well as improve areas and means of multi religious engagement.
The pandemic, and the simultaneous environmental, political, social and financial challenges faced by our interconnected world, require a determined and well-informed form of multireligious solidarity, geared towards building social cohesion in the midst of adversities. Religions for Peace recognises that building solidarity for social cohesion requires multiple skills, and capacities, of many individuals and institutions. We believe, firmly, that the Interreligious Councils between and among them contain the wealth of social and political capital – i.e., skills, knowledge, and management – for each other.
Learning exchanges between the Religions for Peace IRCs, and with broader strategic partners, therefore, are critical means of harvesting how religions work together for human dignity and building better together. These Learning Exchanges are mutual capacitation and knowledge management opportunities. They provide the Religions for Peace movement with opportunities to reflect critically on the work being done by and with Interreligious Councils, appreciating the lessons learned in their institutional and service development, identifying how to work together better, and celebrating ongoing achievements of multireligious collaborations.
On 20 October 2021, Religions for Peace held the fifth session of the 2021 Global Interreligious Council (IRC) Development Strategic Learning Exchange Webinar Series. This session, entitled Promoting Peaceful, Just, and Inclusive Societies, focused on how multi religious collaboration, undertaken by diverse faith communities, can and does transform violent conflicts, promote just and harmonious societies, and advance human development. The consultation engaged different IRCs as well as strategic (secular) global partners, to assess the movement’s track record and capacities to implement this strategic priority (as stipulated in the Strategic Plan 2020-2025).
SPEAKERS AND DISCUSSION HIGHLIGHTS
Dr. Kul Gautam, Ambassador for Religions for Peace, and the Moderator of the Learning Exchange, opened his remarks by reminding all that “IRCs make things happen at the country and community level. Without them, everything would remain on paper and no action would occur.” Dr. Gautam noted that IRCs have the capacity to transform conflict into peace building, examine how to create peace, just, and inclusive communities, provide effective response to the COVID crisis that is enveloping all our lives today, and develop further support for refugees and stateless people.
Al Haj U Aye Lwin presented a first-hand account of the coup in Myanmar, pointing out that the multi-ethnic nature of Myanmar is also the greatest challenge to developing a peaceful, just, and inclusive society. He pointed out that Religions for Peace-Myanmar has attempted to harmonize the diverse races, religions, and political beliefs in the country for years, and continues its efforts despite the current situation. Mr. Lwin also noted that the Religions for Peace World Council has called for the “cessation of violence, the release of elected leaders and other detainees and return to democratic government religion” and appreciated its efforts. In his concluding points, he urged the international community to continue to provide support to Myanmar – both morally and practically.
Ms. Sarah Hess, WHO Officer for COVID-19 Engagement and Partnerships, described WHO efforts to broaden and strengthen multireligious advocacy as part of their advocacy, programming, and partnerships over the last few years. She noted the value-added of religious engagement as part of the “critical importance of aligning around common messages, goals, and delivering a consistent and coherent message”. Ms. Hess noted the WHO’s readiness to co-develop further work with religious partners to engage faith communities in emergency responses, around principles of equity and solidarity. Religious communities are, she pointed out, seekers of information on COVID-19 vaccines, boosters, as well as prevention habits, and as such, she highlighted, they are valuable and strategic partners in attempts to build ongoing relationships between science and religion, which are important for WHO’s work globally.
Dr. Gautam emphasized that “it is our duty to share and convince the religious leaders to follow science… Science and religion are not incompatible, they are in fact quite compatible.”
Dr. Michael Collins, the Executive Director of the International Institute for Economic Development (IEP) explained that IEP’s partnership with Religions for Peace extends through all its six Strategic Goals. He further noted how these overlap with the 8 Pillars of Positive Peace (a well-functioning government; an equitable distribution of resources; a free flow of information; good relations with neighbors; high levels of human capital; acceptance of the rights of others; low levels of corruption; and a sound business environment). Dr. Collins noted that “Religions for Peace is a key contributor to positive peace globally,” presenting IEP and Religions for Peace’s co-development of the Religions and Peace Academy, having enabled regional and national follow up capacity building workshops in Latin America, which helped IRCs identify key actors, advocate and leverage multi-religious strengths, create spaces for dialogue, strengthen leadership skills for women, and improve governance – as means towards building the ground for positive peace.
Breakout group discussions enabled further input from more participants. From the Religions for Peace regional and national IRC, Ms. Linn Ng’ayu (Religions for Peace-African Council of Religious Leaders-ACRL) and Ms. Laura Vargas (Religions for Peace Peru and Latin America) shared their respective advocacy work on disarmament, and diverse relief efforts for and with refugees, and stateless persons, respectively. Ms. Ng’ayu highlighted ACRL’s humanitarian efforts to confront the fallout from natural disasters, as well as its’ involvement in The Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. Ms. Vargas elaborated the campaigns and governmental as well as non-governmental partnerships by the IRC of Peru undertaken with a view to serve the Venezuelan refugees, and host societies, in particular.
In another breakout discussion around the Multi-Religious Responses to COVID-19, Mr. Joshua Kitakule, Secretary General of the IRC of Uganda and Ms. Isabela Cunha, Civil Society Advocacy Specialist and Division of Global Communication and Advocacy of UNICEF, guided conversations, which were reported on by Ms. Audrey Kitagawa (a Religions for Peace Ambassador). In her report, Ms. Kitagawa stressed how the various experiences shared in the discussion underlined how necessary partnerships based on common goals and principles continue to be between diverse religious institutions themselves, as well as between multi-religious and secular counterparts.
OUTCOMES & RECOMMENDATIONS
Stronger partnerships are a sine qua non of building resilience in any given society. While this is now almost a cliché, the discussions between the religious leaders, executives of IRCs and secular multilaterals pointed to 3 critical recommendations:
Multi-Religious and multi-lateral Partnerships
Assuming that religions work together all the time, that these processes are immediate and work well, and that secular organisations see added value to partnerships with religions, is unrealistic. Instead, what remains required is a more determined focus on facilitating and ensuring secular-multi-religious institutional partnerships, and simultaneously strengthening existing multi-religious platforms to enable them to serve common needs better. While Religions for Peace IRCs are recognised as having long standing experience in these fields, there was a clear call for increased capacitation of these platforms, including through better collaboration with secular development and humanitarian actors. The latter are now also more interested and have increased their partnerships with diverse faith actors. Mutual learning and self-reflexive assessments of these processes of partnerships on all sides remains needed.
Focus on Families and Local Communities – the locus of resilience
One of the key outcomes of the varied discussions was a call for religious leaders, inside and outside of IRCs, to work with governmental, nongovernmental, and intergovernmental actors, to specifically focus on supporting families and local communities. The cases presented by the diverse actors pointed to the fact that the Covid pandemic has further underscored how crucial these circles had become as spaces for building resilience and serving as social security nets, underscoring how traditional government support is insufficient.
Languages & Communication Efforts – Missing Imperatives
“Without language, one cannot talk to people and understand them. One cannot share their hopes and aspirations, grasp their history, appreciate their poetry, and savor their songs” – Nelson Mandela [quote shared in the discussion]
The need to reevaluate and lift up efforts to diversify use of local languages in all forms of communication, was another lesson stressed based on ongoing Covid-19 related efforts. Even beyond official UN languages, much of the learning in and about religious engagement in international development, remains in English (and based on English-language resources). Religions for Peace Secretary General has previously spoken and written to the imperative to expand the sources of learning. In addition to underlining this point during the concluding discussions, Professor Karam called for a Network of Faith-Inspired Interpreters, who can serve what the existing Interpreters on the webinars were already doing but do so more systematically – i.e.. facilitate the communications required between and among religious collaborators, volunteering their knowledge and time to translate and interpret.
Ms. Cunha agreed that eradicating language barriers is a crucial step but stressed that this alone is not sufficient. “If we are making a social media activation, how many people that we serve and that you serve so well, are on Twitter or are looking at an Instagram Live?” she challenged. Communications efforts must firstly be reconceptualised on the most basic and general levels, in terms of language, accessibility, modalities and relevance to changing contexts.