Concluding Thoughts on Religion and the United Nations: Redesigning the Culture of Development

Abstract

Concluding Thoughts on Religion and the United Nations: Redesigning the Culture of Development Azza Karam Given the wealth of knowledge and experiential insights shared in this special issue by a distinguished group of authors, an attempt at summarizing can only fail to do justice. Hence, this concluding section will instead draw on the key points that this array of perspectives inspires. The first section will briefly highlight the areas of general agreement between the different authors and what this points to more broadly in terms of development dynamics. The next section will tackle some of the most tenacious challenges and questions with request to partnerships between the United Nations and the world of religion. The third and last section will highlight some broader implications from a human development perspective, which rather than be conclusive, underline the need for further analysis and reflection as the relationship evolves. A mutual need With faith‐based actors providing on average, anywhere between 30 and 60 percent of many countries’ basic survival needs (especially in the humanitarian, educational and health fields) around the world, and given a serious global financial and economic crisis, pragmatism demands that international development re‐evaluate the role of religion across the board. The United Nations remains the only multilateral service‐oriented body with a comprehensive remit and a mandate signed on to by all the governments of the world. As such, it is an inescapable feature of modern day development, governance, and humanitarian service. And while it has obviously been able to exist—and grow—the last sixty plus years, with relatively little systematic notice to religion and religious bodies, the arguments presented in this journal edition show that times have significantly changed. The United Nations is historically a secular institution representing governments, and as such, there are some legitimate concerns to reaching out to “religion.” Some argue that religion is simply too divisive and too complex. Others recall alliances formed between certain religious bodies and governments during critical UN conferences on reproductive health care, and children’s and women’s rights, and shudder at the “anti‐rights” language and discourse employed. Others point to the targeting of the United Nations and subsequent loss of lives in Baghdad, Algiers and elsewhere, and the ongoing threats to the institution articulated by terrorists claiming a religious agenda. The three sections of this journal, tackling the relationship between “religion” and the United Nations (UN) through academic and ideological prisms, as well as via perspectives from religious non‐governmental, or faith‐based organizations (FBOs), and the varied UN bodies, while remarkably varied in tone, themes and results, nevertheless illustrate the same argument: whatever the concern, religion is here to stay. And today’s political, economic, social, and legal landscapes are engaging with religion in its multivaried forms. These multiple forms of partnership, each form a different bridge in which two‐way traffic flows. Thus, in the same way that FBOs are adapting to the outreach to the UN, the UN, in turn, is adapting its own partnerships and language to “religions.” The mere fact that this “conversation” about the relationship between faith(s), or religion, and an avowedly secular entity is taking place, points to a feature of the “ripple effect” these emerging partnerships are having. As several contributors have pointed out, the last ten years or so have seen a boost in the amount of partnerships between the United Nations and religions, specifically FBOs, in different countries, as well as at the global level. Moreover, there is a relative “normalization” of this interaction, which is taking place within the religions institutions themselves—as the scholars lay out clearly—in spite of the tangible sense of disappointment with the speed of this by some, urge for caution by others, as well as some skepticism about these, by yet others. The range of articles showcased here in fact prove that the tide began to change, within the United Nations itself, as well as in the NGO world, over thirty years ago, when the first arguments for why and how religion is a feature of human development can be traced. In fact, religion, as social service and thus social actor, predates the existence of every modern...