Religions for Peace Advances 10th World Assembly Commitments to Protect the Earth and Promote SDGs

(New York, USA) In one of the largest youth-led demonstrations in history, millions of people internationally participated in the Global Climate Strike on 20 September 2019, directly ahead of the United Nations General Assembly annual meetings. The Religions for Peace (RfP) International Secretariat, including Rev. Kyoichi Sugino [Acting Secretary General, RfP] and Prof. Azza Karam [Secretary General Elect, RfP] participated in the Climate Strike in downtown New York City.

On 22 September 2019, the Interfaith Rainforest Initiative, of which RfP is a proud implementing partner, officially launched the global Faiths For Forests Campaign at the United Nations Climate Action Summit.

In light of the urgent need for action, RfP invites our network, faith-based organizations and people of good will internationally to:

• – Endorse the Faiths for Forests Declaration
• – Download a series of issue primers, fact sheets and toolkits for religious leaders on forest protection prepared by the Interfaith Rainforest Initiative
• – Share the campaign on social media, using the hashtags #Religions4Peace and #FaithsForForests

RfP is uniquely and strategically positioned to mobilize religious leaders and communities at all levels, from high-level global initiatives to the grassroots, across multiple themes to advance Shared Well-Being.

In addition to advancing action to protect the earth on multiple levels, RfP has been simultaneously collaborating with religious communities and multi-lateral organizations to promote other Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). As part of the ongoing RfP-UNICEF Global Partnership, UNICEF and RfP strengthened collaboration, meeting to discuss future steps in their joint initiative “Faith for Social and Behavior Change.” The purpose of the global Initiative is to support more focused, systematic and at-scale engagement between UNICEF and faith-based communities and actors to influence positive social and behavior change towards improving the wellbeing of children, youth, women and families, particularly the most marginalized.

Throughout 2019, resources have been field tested, validated and applied in six focal countries in Africa, with the active participation and local expertise of RfP Inter-religious Councils (IRCs). Country level workshops are underway. The African Council of Religious Leaders-RfP is supporting the implementation and planning of these initiatives in October 2019 in South Sudan, Kenya, Malawi, Liberia, Cameroon and Niger. The collaboration will be multi-stakeholder, including UNICEF Country Offices, RfP IRCs, local faith actors, local NGOs and government representatives.

RfP looks forward to continuing its advancement of the “Calls to Common Action” endorsed by the RfP coalition in the Declaration of the 10th World Assembly and encourages partners and religious communities to collaborate and take concrete action towards achieving these goals.