Imagine the grace that can happen when you genuinely challenge what you hold to be dear and true. And it’s particularly in times of crisis that we li… - Azza Karam

My role as coordinator is to convene the 20 UN system focal points working on, with, or about religion and religious engagement for the sake of realising the UN system’s three pillars of sustainable development, peace and security, and human rights.

Cooperation, collaboration, are not options. They are necessities for us to survive. Unfortunately, there are still many people who feel or believe that their nations or communities could survive at expense of everyone else. The truth, however, is we are growing, even with globalization, even with technology, even with wealth, we are growing dependent, not less dependent, more dependent on one another, economically, socially, politically, culturally.

To date, we, development practitioners, researchers and policy-makers, have focused the responsibility for development action rightly mostly on governments. More recently, we began to pay attention to the private sector and to assess corporate social responsibility. When we finally woke up to the role of civil society, we focused almost entirely on secular members of civil society.