Faith Works Africa: Partnerships for Peace and Prosperity High Level Forum of Religious Leaders and Communities
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Faith Works Africa: Partnerships for Peace and Prosperity High Level Forum of Religious Leaders and Communities Abuja, Nigeria 17-21 October 2016 A Report Faith Works Africa: Partnerships for Peace and Prosperity High Level Forum of Religious Leaders and Communities Background Faith Works Africa: Partnerships for Peace and Prosperity, held in Abuja, Nigeria, from 17-21 October brought together almost 300 African religious leaders, governments and civil society from 40 countries to build peace, accelerate development and advance human dignity across the continent. This event addressed the necessity of inter-religious and non-traditional community partnerships to build communities that are able to work together to adapt to and recover from shocks and stresses, and the critical role that Women of Faith play in creating resiliency. Faith Works Africa was co-organized by U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), GHR Foundation, and Religions for Peace (RfP), including its affiliated African Council of Religious Leaders (ACRL-RfP) and women of faith and youth networks, and was co-hosted by His Eminence Amīr al-Mu'minīn Muhammadu Sa'ad Abubakar IV, Sultan of Sukoto and His Eminence, John Olorunfemi Onaiyekan, Archbishop of Abuja. Collaboration among Africa’s faith communities, in partnership with international donors and civil society, has unmatched potential to confront threats to peace, stability and development. Across the continent, inter-religious communities are already addressing pan-African challenges such as good governance, religious extremism that incites violence, instability, and vulnerability to humanitarian disasters and climatic shocks. Growing evidence demonstrates that inter-religious action is an effective means to foster peace, stability and development. Religious leaders, institutions and networks are uniquely equipped to build resilient communities from the ground up. Their capacity to reach people from across all corners of the continent enables them to mobilize their resources and assets to build resiliency that reduces chronic vulnerability and facilitates inclusive growth. Faith Works Africa offers new ways for African religious communities to partner with governments, donors and civil society. Governments working together with faith-based organizations and religious communities increase the impact of the work that they are already doing. It is expected that the actionable recommendations produced at this event will create avenues of cooperation with their governments, donors, and foster partnerships within and among communities to strengthen resilience. During the Faith Works Africa, several related meetings were held, including the Marrakesh Declaration Presentation and Implementation Process sponsored by the Forum for Promoting Peace in Muslim Societies, RfP and the Network for Religious and Traditional Peacemakers; the ACRL-RfP Third General Assembly that included the African women of Faith Network Pre-Assembly and African Interfaith Youth Network Pre-Assembly; RfP Panel Discussion on Violent Religious Extremism and the RfP International Exectuive Committee Meeting. The International Partnership on Religion and Sustainable Development (PaRD) also had their annual meeting on the sideline of Faith Works Africa. Forum Format A combination of plenaries and breakout group sessions, with opportunities for plenty of Q&A, were held to ensure and encourage active participation of all. 1 Thematic Areas Under the overarching theme of resilience and religion, the Forum focused on the four following areas: . Conflict Prevention and Mitigation, including Countering Violent Religious Extremism . Good Governance and Combatting Corruption . Food Security . Extreme Poverty and Health Launch Ceremony Faith Works Africa was launched on 18 October at a high-level Welcoming Dinner for over 300 people at the Transcorp Hilton in Abuja. The key note remarks was given by the Nigerian Vice President, Prof. Oluyemi Oluleke Osinbajo, who represented H.E. Muhammadu Buhari, President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. Vice President Osinbajo remarked that religion should build unity, foster togetherness and work to ensure progress of society. He urged religious leaders to denounce people who preach hatred and divisiveness. He stressed, “It is crucial that we de-legitimatize all apostles of hatred and bad creed’’. The Vice President noted that rather than be a source of strife, religion should be a means of bringing people together and promoting societal development and positive values. Vice President Osinbanjo vowed that the Nigerian government would do everything possible to protect all of its citizens, irrespective of creed, tribe and religion. Also, addressing the gathering were H.E. Muhammad Sa'ad Abubakar III, CFR, The Sultan of Sokoto, Nigeria; H.E. John Cardinal Onaiyekan, CON, Archbishop of Abuja, Nigeria; Mr. David J. Young, Chargé d' Affaires ad interim, U.S. Embassy, Nigeria; Mr. J. Andreas Hipple, Senior Program Advisor, GHR Foundation; Dr. William F. Vendley, Secretary General, Religions for Peace; Dr. Francis Kuria Kagema, Secretary General, African Council of Religious Leaders-RfP, Kenya and eminent religious leaders of Africa, including women and youth. Discussions Overview Based on experts’ presentations, discussions were held during a series of break-out sessions on the challenges and promising approaches to the four focus areas as well as to generate ideas for new partnerships and initiatives. In addition, the following issue-based caucuses were held to generate further inputs that are cross-cutting to the four focus areas - . Child Protection and Well-being . Women’s Empowerment . Small Arms and Light Weapons . Humanitarian Assistance Within the larger plenary sessions, deliberations on religion and resilience as well as measuring success, including identifying indicators and ensuring public accountability, helped to guide break-out group discussions on success as it relates to resilience and in identifying actions and measures of their success. The Forum ended with the participants sharing quick reflections and personal commitment to action. 2 Conflict Prevention, Mitigation and Countering Violent Extremism The breakout group identified a number of areas for conflict prevention, which included: reinforcing the family unity; increasing the capacity of religious leaders and strengthening religious institutional structures; promoting engagement between the state and religious institutions; and ending intolerance through enhanced intercultural and interreligious engagements. In addition to items mentioned above, the breakout group noted that in order to successfully counter violent extremism (CVE), there is a need to address the gap between the young and old, educate people on life skills and sensitize people on the consequences of violence, particularly violence caused by extremism. The breakout group identified priority actions to prevent and mitigate conflict and CVE. These include the development of a platform to engage governments on peacebuilding with civil society, religious leaders, women, youth and children. There should also be engagement between the religious leaders and governments on education and awareness raising. To CVE, the group recommended that extremists’ recruiting strategies should be investigated and measures should be put into place that will counter these. Good Governance and Combatting Corruption The breakout group identified two key dimensions to promote good governance and combat corruption: strengthening the legal system and institutional structures and institutionalizing anti- corruption curricula in the education system that includes a curriculum on morals and ethics. The participants created an 11-point action plan, subdivided by the two categories mentioned above: Education . Introduce civic and moral education to promote respect of public goods and hard work from elementary through university level. Implement a faith-based school curriculum with scientific and religious resources, including social science facts about corruption and ethics-based education. Ensure that anti-corruption topics are an integral part of the curriculum and are on par with core topics such as math and science. Include religious leaders in the anticorruption curriculum in all schools from age 3-11 and actively engage them in programming. Implement a Train the Trainer Program that hires experts to work in schools to promote the curriculum and trains teachers and religious leaders to implement anticorruption education. Institutional Reform . Create a government budget tracking mechanism or institution that will hold accountable government use of funds and regularly make public the findings of this mechanism. Cap budgetary over-expenditures by the executive as part of constitutional changes and review. Include at least 35% of women in government positions and as religious leaders within the inter-religious councils. 3 . Include at least 15 % of youth in all decision-making bodies of the religious council to ensure that their voices are heard at the decision-making level. Implement anticorruption awards and highlight models of integrity and anticorruption that can motivate other bodies, inclusive of both religious and political leaders. Develop an anti-corruption standard within religious institutions that includes an internal “sanitization program” to remove corruption from within the council. Faith-based institutions should shore up their own bodies and impose sanctions on proven cases of corruption