UN Library Talk in Geneve: " A Dialogue on Faith, Peacebuliding & development"

On February 5^th IIMA attended a UN Library event called “A Dialogue on Faith, Peacebuilding & Development”, in commemoration of The World Interfaith Harmony Week.

The conference was introduced by Francesco Pisano, the director of the UN library; he explained the importance of remembering the United Nations General Assembly resolution A65/5 that enacted the World Interfaith Harmony Week, when we can emphasize the importance between all faiths and beliefs and the need to eliminate all terrorist extremism and violence all over the world.

The event was divided into two panels: the first panel talked about the different perspectives on faith and peacebulding while the other concentrated on the link between faith and development.
    

In the first panel there were three panelists: the first, Ms.Saja Majali, Permanent Representative of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan to UNOG, stressed the King of Jordan’s vision regarding religion, his initiatives to create tolerance and respect of diversity and his engagement against terrorism.

The catholic Archbishop Silvano          Tomasi, Apostolic Nuncio and Permanent Observer of the Holy See in Geneva, praised the Christian perspectives in promoting peace, emphasizing values such as justice, fraternity, and interreligious dialogue as the main condition to attain peace.

Finally Mr. Silmane Chick, Permanent Observer of the Islamic Cooperation in Geneva, emphasized two important topics, set out in the 7^th Islamic Summit in Casablanca in 1994: First, the role of the school in educating citizens of the future in a continual struggle against ignorance that is the basis of all acts of violence and terrorism; and the second one, referring to the urgent humanitarian question in which we have to concentrate on respecting values such as human life and human dignity in order to create dialogue between all people.

The second panel presents the relationship between faith and development, especially referring to the 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda.

The first panelist Mr. Alex Mejia, Officer in Charge at the United Nations Institute for training and research, suggested concentrating our attention on the implementation of the Millennium Development Goals both nationally and internationally in order to ameliorate the lack of economic and social development of certain countries, which may sometimes lead to violence and terrorism.

The second panelist Ms Beris Gwynne, former director of World Vision International, focused on the power of school to train young people that live in a time where social media plays a major role in influencing them and where there are a lot of  dangerous threats; in this way, it is important to protect human life.

The last panelist, Mrs. Marie-Therese Pictet-Althann, Permanent Observer of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta to UNOG, showed the humanitarian and diplomatic activities and projects that the Order of Malta carries out in the world to enhance social and economic development and to create dialogue for peace.

The conference ended with the closing remarks of Mr. Luis Gallegos, Chairman at the global UN Partnership for Inclusiveness and former Permanent Representative of Ecuador to UNOG, who underlined the importance of creating this interreligious dialogue among different faiths and religions in order to ameliorate mutual understanding, cooperation and form a culture of peace that is imperative in fighting threats of terrorism against other religions.