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By Pasquale Annicchino

Soon after Pope Francis was elected, a TEDx conference at the Vatican documented the rising tide of religious hostilities in the world. Since that time, religious hostilities have only risen.

At the Vatican yesterday, ANSA reports that former Israeli President Shimon Peres proposed the formation of a “United Religions” organization to combat terrorism. “The UN has had its time,” Peres was quoted as saying by Catholic weekly Famiglia Cristiana. “What we need is an organization of United Religions, the UN of religions.”

“It would be the best way to combat these terrorists who kill in the name of their faith, because most people are not like them, they practise their religions without killing anyone, without even thinking about it. I think that there should be a charter of the United Religions, just like there is the UN Charter. The new charter would serve to establish in the name of all the faiths that slitting people’s throats or conducting mass slaughters, like the ones we have seen in recent weeks, has nothing to do with religion. This is what I proposed to the pope,” said Peres.

In a period a growing restrictions on religious freedom, the call from President Peres is an important reminder of the role and contribution that religious and belief groups can make to public life. They can not only inform our daily policy making, but also contribute to a commom higher call to the respect of human dignity against the instrumentalization of religion to justify terrorist acts.

If President Peres moves forward with his proposal, he deservers the greatest attention from the international community, including the business community. Indeed, religious restrictions and hostilities not only affect peace and security, they also jeopardize the socio-economic future of societies around the globe, according to the latest research.

Also, a recent publication documents several ways the business community is involved in fostering interfaith understanding and peace.

IMMEDIATE RELEASE – Bali, Indonesia: United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon received today “BUSINESS: A Powerful Force for Supporting Interfaith Understanding and Peace,” a new joint publication by the Religious Freedom & Business Foundation and the UN Global Compact Business for Peace platform.

The following are RFB Foundation President Brian Grim’s remarks made during today’s UN Alliance of Civilizations (UNAOC) side event organized by the Indonesia Global Compact Network (IGCN) where the publication was launched.

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Your Excellency, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, and distinguished guests, we are thrilled for your participation in this UNAOC side event organized by the Indonesia Global Compact Network (IGCN), “The Role of Business in Promoting Inter-cultural and Interreligious Peace and Harmony.”

It’s my honor to give a brief summary of three themes we have explored today: Research, Action and Partnership.

RESEARCH

Our discussion today is informed by Pew Research data presented at the past two UNAOC meetings in Doha and Vienna showing that the world has been swept by a rising tide of global restrictions on religious freedom or belief, which come from governments and perhaps, even more powerfully, from groups in societies. These data show that three-in-four people today live with high religious restrictions or hostilities.

Of course, the pressing question is: What can be done to roll back the tide? As a social scientist and NGO leader, it is clear to me that the answer lies in engaging the creativity and power of the global business community, because business is the crossroads of culture, commerce and creativity.

Indeed, recent research shows that freedom of religion or belief is not only a powerful instrument of peace, but also one of only a handful of factors that predicts economic growth. Data show that freedom of religion or belief is strongly associated with global competitiveness, including education, innovation, health and better lives for women and children.

ACTION

So, how are businesses approaching interfaith understanding and peace? To answer this, the Religious Freedom & Business Foundation and the Business for Peace platform are pleased to announce a new training resource: “BUSINESS: A Powerful Force for Supporting Interfaith Understanding and Peace.” I’ll highlight several of the approaches from the publication:

• Business can Use Marketing Expertise to Bridge Borders: The Coca-Cola Small World campaign, including vending machines linking people in Pakistan and India by video, shows that getting along is good for society and good for business.
• Business can Incentivize Innovation: The BMW Group’s intercultural innovation award in partnership with the UNAOC is an excellent example of incentivization as well as of a successful public-corporate partnership.
• Business can Incubate and Catalyze Social Entrepreneurship: For instance, Petrobras in Brazil supports business incubation for Afro-Brazilians, helping members of marginalized communities engage in empowering entrepreneurship.
• Business can Support Workforce Diversity: For instance, businesses in Indonesia are known for accommodating faith in the workplace. They are also known for addressing difficult unmet social needs, such as organizing a mass wedding for interfaith couples who had lived without legal status and with no ready means to become legitimately wed.

PARTNERSHIPS

It is important to recognize that joint action – like that occurring in this side event – plants seeds that grow into fruit-bearing trees in the years to follow. For instance, the 3rd UNAOC meeting was held in Rio de Janeiro in 2010. I’m pleased to announce that together with partners in Brazil and Rio, we will hold the first global awards for business, interfaith understanding & peace during the 2016 Olympics. This is especially significant because Brazil is a country with an unprecedented story of peaceful religious change that can serve as a model for many conflict situations today. Indeed, in peacemaking, it is critical that countries with success stories like Brazil and Indonesia exercise global leadership in this area.

All of us look forward to working together to addresses these issues, and turning potential into practice. For instance, why don’t we put to practice a suggestion hinted at this morning by Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and build a network of diaspora business leaders committed to the vision of a global future of innovative and sustainable economies where religious freedom and diversity are respected.

And finally, an episode in the life of the prophet Isaiah captures what I believe is the spirit of many, many business people willing to help realize this vision: “Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, ‘Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?’ And I said, ‘Here am I. Send me!’”

Thank you.

Melissa E. Grim, Case Study*

In Nigeria, businesses and economic development NGOs are working to stop widespread religious violence between Christians and Muslims, which has already taken hundreds of lives and threatens to thrust parts of the country into civil war.

For instance, in Adamawa State in northeast Nigeria, groups like the Yola Innovation Machine are helping a new generation of entrepreneurs create businesses. The need is great. Young adults in many of Adamawa’s poor rural and marginalized communities lack the necessary entrepreneurial skills they need to break out of the poverty trap that often feeds violent extremism. The majority of youth in the area have no employment. In Adamawa, and throughout Nigeria, the population doubles every 30-35 years, so assisting people to create their own jobs is perhaps the most immediate solution to unemployment.

The Yola Innovation Machine and others are working in this direction. For instance, they helped create and nurture a new business called Yola EcoSentials (YES), which recycles discarded materials into sellable goods such as purses, mats, handbags and wristlets. The goods are made from “plarn,” a yarn spun from recycled plastic grocery bags. The venture results in multiple social goods because every item sold by Yola EcoSentials generates much needed income and employment, and at the same time helps protect the deteriorating ecological environment.

In the Plateau State in the country’s center, Muslim and Christian business people are cooperating to work around religious violence. In Jos, Plateau’s capital, there is an unwritten rule that when religious tensions flare up, Christians and Muslims should not cross certain city boundaries. But this can be devastating for the fresh produce vendors and other businesses, which serve people on both sides of the divide.

In response, Muslim and Christian business people have taken it upon themselves to work around these limitations, risking their lives and not just their livelihoods to keep business moving across the religious divide. For example, Madam Ngozi, a vegetable seller and widow raising seven children on her own, often cannot go to the market to restock her supply of vegetables due to religious violence or warnings of possible violence. However, a cell phone call to her Muslim supplier, Mallam Yahaya, can solve the problem. They find a discrete place to meet, agree on a price, and make the transaction.

Still, many are skeptical that businesses can ultimately make much of a real difference in Nigeria. “On what basis could it work?” asks Clement Nwankwo, a political analyst who heads the Policy and Legal Advocacy Centre in Abuja. “There is no peace in the northeast. Can any construction company go in there to work?”

But U.S.-trained Nigerian economist Soji Adelaja argues that business can be an important part of the long-term solution to violent religious extremism currently exploding in northeast Nigeria today. Mr. Adelaja, born in Lagos, recently returned to his homeland after 34 years in the United States to help put together what the government calls a “Marshall Plan” to counter the extremist violence and bring prosperity. The concept being put forward is that an improved economy and more opportunity could be an effective tool in countering the advances of groups like Boko Haram, the radical Islamic organization that recently made headlines around the world when it kidnapped 200 girls.
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* This is the third in a series of case studies highlighting how companies – in their core business activities – can help reduce religious and cultural tensions, increase social understanding, and promote peace. This case study does not imply an endorsement of any company profiled. The Religious Freedom & Business Foundation has no tie to any of the companies profiled.

PRESS RELEASE: June 16Klaus Schwab, Founder and Executive Chairman of the World Economic Forum, has invited Religious Freedom & Business Foundation President Brian Grim to become a Member of the World Economic Forum’s Global Agenda Council on the Role of Faith for 2014-2016. (See Grim’s articles at the Global Agenda Council.)

The focus of the Global Agenda Council on the Role of Faith in the upcoming term will be to raise awareness of the unique added value of faith by identifying and developing the main pillars of an informational program on how to leverage socio-cultural, cross-faith and religious engagement for conflict prevention and conflict transformation.

This effort will be targeted to two sets of stakeholders:

(1) Countries/public authority (e.g., countries experiencing recent phenomena of immigration; countries with internal conflicts and/or restrictions on freedom of beliefs/religion); and

(2) International companies and professionals, particularly those working in emerging markets and conflict affected regions.

Established in 2008, the Network of Global Agenda Councils is an invitation-only knowledge network that serves as an international brain trust to the World Economic Forum and the world at large.The Network gives its Members a unique platform to support the Forum’s vision to better understand and catalyze global, regional and industry transformation.

Grim & Seiple