 Good morning. I am Amy Goldman, chair and CEO of GHR Foundation based in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and the United States. And I'm so pleased to moderate this conversation today on the promise of partnership with faith actors, particularly as our world faces the compounding crises brought on by COVID-19. At no other time in history has our interdependence and interconnected nature of global systems been more visible. At GHR Foundation, I've come to understand and I have personally witnessed the transformative role that faith and innovation play in communities during times like these. Indeed, faith actors are weavers of social fabric, a source of strength and solutions not only in crisis response, but also in prevention. Without the unmatched trust and reach of these community leaders, interventions cannot be truly integrated. That's why GHR invests in a new vision of global development where local leadership, human dignity, and the common good shape the agenda. And we're lucky to have several of our grantee partners as well as many like-minded friends taking part in today's discussion. The simple fact that each of you with us today shows that you also recognize the power of faith in both community identity and in sustainable development around the world. Smart business leaders know that full insight to context, assets, and challenges is needed for success. Without the insight and leadership of faith actors and those they serve, we are working with less that's required to fully succeed in saving lives and in changing the future today. I'm eager to learn both from our panelists and the breakout discussions and encourage each of us to consider a more authentic and integrated response to COVID-19. This is the only way to prepare a future that upholds human dignity, rests on global solidarity, and guarantees global well-being. So before we get started, I've been asked to go over a few housekeeping items and there'll be lots of messages in the chat as well. So this session will begin with a 30-minute panel discussion and that will be followed by the interactive breakout groups. The breakout groups are your opportunity to contribute to the conversation. Please keep yourself on mute until speaking in the breakout groups and we have four breakout groups today. The first is health literacy and promotion. The second is emergency healthcare delivery. The third is humanitarian response. And the fourth, multi-stakeholder partnerships. You can see the breakout groups there up on your screen. So right now, please rename yourself according to which breakout group you prefer to join and we'll try to get everyone into their breakout groups but we'll have to balance some of the numbers. Now you also all answered a poll while you were in the waiting room and if we're able to get that up on the screen, I'd like to take a look at the results of the poll. So interesting, 30% say that faith actors are integral to your work. 41% occasionally partner on specific initiatives. 15% never partner with them and 15% I am a faith actor. So about a third, a third, a third. Anyway, these polls reflect the audience and I'm glad to see there's diversity within the audience. Now I'm delighted to introduce today's panelists. I'm going to begin with Aza Karam, Secretary General of Religions for Peace. Nils Lund, Vice President for Health Advocacy at Novo Nordisk. Andrew Morley, CEO at World Vision. And Henrietta for Executive Director at UNICEF. Now Henrietta, I believe will be joining us shortly if she's not already on. So you are there. Great. I can't see you. I'm pleased, Henrietta. That's wonderful. So I'm going to start with the questions and then we're moving on to more of an open dialogue. But starting with Aza and Aza Religions for Peace is one of the largest multi-religious organizations. You have a 50-year history and truly a global reach. So help us set the scene here. What is the scale of the global faith community? What are the opportunities? What's the network? What exists for businesses and other organizations looking to partner with these communities? Aza, please. Thank you very much indeed, Amy, and a great hats off to the World Economic Forum colleagues for putting this session together and bringing us across our diverse arenas. Amy, first off, just to clarify that it's important to know what we mean when we speak about faith actors, because very often we have different understandings of what this category is. So just allow me to first say something about what we mean, what the forte of these respective faith actors are, and what some of the pitfalls actually and therefore opportunities also of working with them can be. So to start off in terms of what we mean by faith actors, we're talking about a massive, diverse range of people and communities. We're talking about religious institutions, churches, mosques, synagogues, temples, religious leaders, ordained and not ordained, who are very much active part of communities. We're talking about faith-based and faith- inspired, non-governmental, humanitarian development, advocacy, NGOs, non-governmental entities. We're talking about individual faith communities that often come together and work together because they're inspired by the service that each of their religious inclinations call for, but are not necessarily registered as not-for-profit or non-governmental organizations. So if you actually see this massive array of faith actors, we have to come to terms with the fact that they're the majority of most societies, communities and nations around the world. Because if you just put together all the religious institutions and the religious leaders and the community inspired and the NGOs were faith-inspired, that's a massive group of people. The diversity within them is intense, not just religious diversity or multi-religious inclination, but just the format, their institutional formats are extraordinarily diverse. So when we speak about faith actors, we're actually talking about all of this, all at once, not to mention, and of course we're never going to mention this today, but we're also talking about non-state actors who are not exactly inclined to do the good thing. I'm being very diplomatic. So, typologies, we have a massive array of people. Now, what kind of strengths does these communities bring together? First of all, we know that there's a tremendous focus of all of these on service, on service delivery, on being committed to serving communities in different ways, shape, and form, because in most cases it is seen as part of being believers. You have to serve to be believers in your own community, or if you're an NGO, obviously service is part of you. So we know, even though we have remarkable discussions about this precise statistics, but we know that even just in the field of healthcare, a minimum of 30% of basic healthcare is being provided, primary healthcare is being provided, on average, everywhere in the world by faith-based or faith-inspired actors. We know, according to an economist study in 2012, that in fact, 70% of hospitals in the United States of America are run by, through, via the Catholic Church. Now, that's a rich country, supposedly, or was. And if we can see the incredible role played by just one religious institution, it begins to give you an example. I come from the Muslim Middle East. I am a Muslim, but I went to a Christian school. So clearly their educational role is also massive, and we're only beginning to tally that statistically today. So service is a big part, and their service delivery is a very big part of these faith actors and institutions. As a result, there's also a legacy of trust-building. They're the original development providers, so they're the ones originally doing health nutrition, they're the original development service providers. These are the basic in most countries. That also means that when we're facing a humanitarian crisis as we are today under COVID, they're the first responders, because they're already there. They don't have to come in from abroad and get and ship in their supplies, they're there already in country. So they're the first responders in humanitarian crisis. They are of the community, by the community, about the community. So when we talk about community-based organizations and the international development lexicon, these are the original actors. And of course, there's a tremendous impact on behavior, on what we believe, but also how we behave. So they're remarkable protagonists in the space of behavior and social change. They're also cultural gatekeepers. In most countries around the world, they're cultural gatekeepers. They're the ones determining what is good, what is bad, what is religious, what is ordained, etc. And they have generally, you don't notice that there's a Catholic school that's not going to deal or serve in community X, they tend to be very much about integrated approaches. They don't just see that here is about the health and here's about education and here's about sanitation, they serve all. So it's actually an inbuilt, integrated approach to all kinds of development humanitarian work. And last but by no means least, something that we don't like to think about, but it is unfortunately a truth today or fortunately, depending on where you are on the political spectrum, religious actors are political actors, but excellence. And in today's global geopolitical map, they play a remarkably important influential role in politics, as we know it. I don't need to go too much into that, you might not want me to continue. So pitfalls and opportunities. Unfortunately, for a long time, in spite of the all pervasiveness of these different kinds of actors, they have not either they've not been seen by the by the secular international development and humanitarian community, or they're seen but not really factored in as faith actors, which is a pity, because then you don't understand or don't appreciate their strengths. We therefore, when we see them tend to see the big guys, the big actors, the Catholic, the evangelical, the Protestant, some Muslim, but we don't actually realize that this is a very critical sector in and of itself. And it's an incredibly diverse and heterogeneous sector. So very often, as we see today, many of the partnerships that are existing tend to be largely with Christian dominated communities. And only relatively recently have we started hearing about Islamic finance, Islamic philanthropy that still leaves the world of Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, Sikhism, Baha'i, etc. We tend to be very narrow minded in our focus on which religious communities and organizations because the Christian communities alone tend to dominate the sea. But the Catholics on their own are massive partners. If you then start looking at the various Protestant, they're big. So there's an overemphasis on the Christian component. When we think religious, we think Christian. And unfortunately, that's not very smart because the world is composed of a lot of religious actors, as I've just said. So we need to be much more focused on the multi-religious engagement, especially in times of COVID, thanks to GHR and the wisdom and learning that you bring to the table, Amy. We've been able as religions for peace to set up a multi-religious humanitarian fund. Why did we feel we have to set up a multi-religious humanitarian fund? There are so many humanitarian actors from the faith-inspired communities who are doing so much. Like I said, they're the first responders. We had to set it up because the religious actors don't necessarily always work together. They don't. They may serve everybody, but they don't collaborate regularly. And that's a big if. Why is it a big if? It's a big if because we talk about social cohesion as one of the things that our pandemic world is facing and is problematic. And even before the pandemic hit, we were already looking at fissures, religious intra-religious and inter-religious. So if a pandemic doesn't force us to be very deliberate about combining our resources, financial, human and otherwise, I'm not quite sure what's going to force us. I'm not talking about serving everyone. I'm talking about collaborating to serve everyone. So therefore, what's the opportunities? The opportunities are for the various sectors, business and otherwise, including the religious, to understand that multi-multi is the keyword. Multi-religious collaboration, not just service. Multi-religious collaboration, ownership, coordination, etc. Multi-stakeholders. This is not the time for religious actors to work alone with one another. It is the time for them to work deliberately with state and non-state organs and actors, including our private sector and civic. Multi-religious, multi-stakeholder civic, because we were already complaining about a diminished civic space. If we now try to start prioritizing only the religious in that space, I'm sorry, we're still ripping our societies apart. We have to understand that the religious is part of the civic. The civic is what keeps our governments and governance true. So if we're not paying attention to strengthening the civic infrastructure of our societies, we are weakening our governance mechanisms nationally, regionally and internationally. Multi-religious, multi-stakeholder civic. Thank you. Thank you. I couldn't think of a better way to kick off this panel with that framing, particularly the need for integration and collaboration. Henrietta, I'd really like to turn to you on that point as UNICEF has just recently signed a partnership with Religions for Peace, launching the global multi-religious faith and action COVID-19 initiative. So Henrietta, keying off of what AZA was was setting the stage for, please talk about UNICEF's experience as a multilateral organization. What approach does UNICEF take to working in faith partnerships and how do you unleash this authentic collaboration, which AZA has already pointed to you, it's just critical in this time of crisis. Henrietta to you. Amy, thank you very much. So one area that immediately leaps to mind to answer your question, Amy, is that we share values. I was just listening to the opening of the United Nations General Assembly debate with the Secretary General, and he is calling once again for a global ceasefire. And that is a mission that all of us share. And that makes a very big difference, Amy, when you're trying to work with partners is that you can see that there is something that would make the world better and a global ceasefire would do so for all of us. So UNICEF has had a proud and long history of 75 years in which we have been either a nascent organization or a full-fledged UNICEF, where we've been working with faith-based organizations and actors, and to AZA's very good points, multi-religious. So for us, there are so many organizations that look after children and children's rights. So whether it's in health, in nutrition, in education, in water, in sanitation and protection, now in mental health, our faith-based partners are the ones that are the most important to us. So maybe I could mention a couple of the programs because Amy, you brought up Religions for Peace. So one of the things that comes to us with COVID is that all of us have to think a bit differently about our relationships. And for UNICEF, 60% of our partners are the local nonprofits and many, many, if not most of them are faith-based. So it is to our way of thinking really a children's crisis this pandemic because of schools being closed, many not getting to the health clinics, nutrition being low in so many places, a protection always an issue and the number of conflicts. So for us, children crises, pandemic is really making this in stark reality. So we've been working closely with a number of faith-based groups like Religions for Peace and gathering the strength of each network so that we can try to use our unique strengths and our joined strengths in a way that's stronger. We've had a global emergency appeal for COVID and as we speak, the Global Faith and Action Initiative is now rolling out across all regions. We've been partnering with congregational religious leaders and faith-based organizations. And I think that's very important on distance learning, which is not something that we have always done, but it's radio, it's television, it's on your cell phone, but it's something that's desperately needed by children and families now. We're also partnering on keeping immunization programs going. We cannot drop the ball on this. Our immunization rates for just routine immunizations are off 40 to 60% in some countries. It's our faith-based partners that will make the difference in convincing congregations that they need to come in and that this is important for children. We also have faith-based actors who are helping us with the shipping of supplies and the movement of supplies across borders, across lines of conflict and into communities. And that includes medicines, nutrition, and soap. Amy, this is one of those times when soap becomes more important and running water and health and sanitation for the future. We're also working with faith-based partners about combating misinformation. There's a lot of misinformation that either moves as rumors through communities and villages or sometimes it's on the internet, whether it's a video or another. Polio is an example for that, but our faith-based partners have really been helpful in this. And there are on this call partners who have not yet partnered with faith-based organizations. So my call to you all is jump right in. They are the best partners you will ever have. So come join all of us and come join us. And for the businesses, I think this is a growing area of synergy and of help. So businesses, please come to help the faith-based organizations. They are a massive asset for the world. And we've done it for 70 years. It took great effect. So come join us all. So thank you, Amy. Great. Oh, Henry, thank you so much. And thanks for the historical perspective from UNICEF, but in addition, the immediate response that's needed now, the doubling down that you and UNICEF have been doing for children around the world, we're grateful. Thank you. The mention of businesses come and join us makes me want to turn to Nides from Novo Nordisk and talk about the specific more tangible example that you have had in combating diabetes and obesity and the value you have found in partnering with faith-based actors in the community. Neil. Thanks, Amy. Let me take everyone into the helicopter and then we'll land in Houston more specifically and share some experience about how we work in the field of faith actors in the field of diabetes. But let me start by saying that, you know, for many years, if not forever, there's been a dichotomy between infectious diseases and chronic diseases. And I, you know, I think the learnings over the last six months has shown us that this is a false dichotomy because the mix of obesity, diabetes and COVID-19 is a really, really, really bad cocktail. You know, mortality is significantly increased by a factor of two or three if you have those underlying conditions. So slightly more than half the world's population live in cities, but already two thirds of the people living with diabetes live in cities. So there's an overrepresentation of people with diabetes in cities and that development is fueled by the way we live, our sedentary lifestyles, but also by the growing inequality that we're seeing in our societies. We need to bend this curve. Diabetes prevalence has doubled since the year 2000 and in by 2045, one in eight will have diabetes. So this is a crisis, although in slow motion, but the major societal crisis nonetheless. Six years ago, we initiated with a number of partners, Cities, Things, Diabetes, which is now a network of 27 cities with more than 100 local partners from municipalities, private sectors, civil society, academia and so on. And here we drive research and action in urban diabetes, vulnerability and community engagement. We found that a key finding, maybe it's, you know, bleeding obvious, but health is largely created outside the health sector, namely in settings such as the communities, the schools, sports clubs, families, houses of faith, workplaces where people live their everyday lives. So let's land in Houston and let me give you the example of what we did there. So based on a novel approach on the assessment of risk, the researchers from University of Texas and University College London identified a number of factors, including or in addition to the classic social determinants of health that were risk factors for obesity and diabetes, and they included isolation and mistrust, mistrust in institutions and health systems. And what we did to address that, you know, if you work with basic mistrust in institutions, then how can you address that? I mean, if people don't feel like the local health center is a place for them, how do you then reach out to them? And that's where we turn to the faith community, which is quite strong and influential in Houston. So and they had some of the keys to the solutions, because houses of faith are typically places where trust levels are high. And there are also places where people are brought out of isolation. It is actually community in many ways around the faith that they're practicing. So under the leadership of this Institute of Spirituality and Health at the Texas Medical Center, faith groups came together and developed the Faith and Diabetes Program, a series of models for training of trainers that looked at diabetes self-management, you know, classic six-week program for diabetes self-management education and support. But then also discussions about religion and health, what beliefs, practices, traditions within your faith might be relevant to the chronic disease management and prevention. And then there was also an aspect of diabetes prevention. So I think actually it's, you know, taking, you know, scientific learning from an understanding of what drives risk and then seeing how, you know, local communities and in this case, the faith community could actually help address some of those factors that are underlying and also contribute to the risk of getting obesity and diabetes in addition to the classical biomedical ones. And what we are seeing in, and that's the benefit of having a network, is that this inspires other cities to look at where they can apply these solutions here. And I think the findings are also generalizable to community responses to COVID-19. So it's, you know, I think it's about having an open mind and, you know, putting your prejudice aside and then see, you know, have a good scanning and an asset mapping of the the access on the ground that actually will find you away and in this case, really good solutions with the with the faith and diabetes program. Thank you. Thank you, Nils. It's excellent to hear you speak about this also in the frame of risk mitigation as well. So with that, I would like to turn to Andrew from World Vision, which Andrew, you run an organization where the roots are in the faith community. And I would really love you to address with these faith partnerships, how do we really aim to elevate faith leaders into a position of leadership and integrate the community? As Nils just mentioned, there's asset mapping, there's other pieces to this as well. But we'd love to have you wrap up this first part of the panel with your observations from World Vision's vantage point. Andrew? Yeah, thank you, Ermey. And it's great to be able to join you. And I, so I represent World Vision. We are present in 100 countries. We are the largest Christian NGO, and we're particularly focused on on children and the most vulnerable children. So we do start from a position of faith. I myself am a, I'm an ordained pastor in a church, which is my Sunday morning job. But I think it's important when we talk about how we engage with faith and faith-based communities. First of all, to remember that they're often agents of change. They're often very much trusted in the communities that they serve. And I, when I was reading the document beforehand, I did smile when I saw the title, Leveraging Faith Actors, because I think more of partnering or empowering than I do, than I do leveraging. But I was in, I was in the Democratic Republic of Congo in February, and there was a great example for me of how this works in practice. And there we had a group of faith leaders, primarily Imams in that, in that region, in Eastern DRC. And so representing a number of different masks. And they came together to talk about how they'd beaten Ebola and how they were preparing for COVID. And one of the biggest challenges that they had was that in Eastern DRC, where they're used to violence, violence is an everyday part of their lives, having a gun pointed at your head is not a good thing. And that's how in those communities, that's how they tested people's temperatures, that they had, that they had plastic temperature guns that they point to your head, which read the temperature that then said, were you, were you showing a high temperature? And no one would allow people in the community to use these temperature guns because they were fearful of anything pointed at their head given their history. And it wasn't until particularly Imams stood at the front of their mask and said, look, I'm going to have my temperature taken with this guy or girl, with a gun, a temperature gun. And this is a good thing. Don't fear this. This is for all our good. But then role modelling, what it was to be a responsible citizen and how they could show how having your temperature taken is a good thing and having this kind of gun pointed at your head can save people in communities and in mosques and churches. It was, it wasn't until their role model there that they had the, that they were the cultural gatekeepers that the Aziz spoke about. They were able to change behaviour and overnight. And so then it was, it became normal and it also, it almost became accepted and expected that you would have your temperature taken before you entered an environment where other people were there and you were going to mix. So just seeing face to face how they changed behaviour was incredible. And we always, we're always very clear about our faith. That gives us, it opens doors into conversations with people across different faiths because they respect our position and we absolutely respect theirs. Thank you, Andrew. Those examples are I'm sure illustrative of what we've all experienced in the field and so dramatic with the temperature taking. We are having such a rich discussion. We're close to time, but I would like to do a quick dialogue piece to leave our live stream participants with one bit of advice from each of the panelists. And Henrietta, I'll start with you. What would you suggest is the, the internal change that's most important to really work effectively across a multi-religious, multi-stakeholder collaboration? And then I'll ask each of you to jump in as you feel would like to participate. Henrietta? So, Amy, it's a really good question. And I had thought that I was going to say that you treat each other with equal respect, that you are partners and that you give each other that credit and advocacy. But in listening to Andrew, I think one of our biggest challenges is why does a temperature gadget have to be shaped like a gun? It doesn't. So couldn't we be working with businesses to reshape that into a really fun and nice shape that isn't like that so that we never start off with that difficulty? The Democratic Republic of Congo is difficult. So are many other countries and villages, and people need things that just connect with them, that are not just the way we've seen them in our developed world, but are, will connect with them in a multi-faith, multi-sectoral, multi-dimensional way. So I'm going to put that in because of Andrew. Thank you. Great. Thank you. I think that leads to Niels responding. Yes. Well, the internal challenge, I think, looking at myself and my own organization is, no, turn the prejudice down just a notch. And as a science-driven organization, I think it's important to realize that faith-based does not mean unscientific. And I say that, you know, with the deepest respect of all faiths and only addressing my own prejudice in this regard. And I think you can, when you realize that that, you know, faith-based does not mean unscientific, then you can, you know, really take giant beliefs forward. And particularly in realizing the strength in the community, you can really get great results. That's my experience. Excellent. As I believe you would like to build on that as well. I would love to commend the previous speakers, and I agree with them all heartedly. I also think quite honestly that even if the faith, this incredible array of faith actors that I was sharing in the beginning, even if they're not all scientific, I think we have to appreciate that there is the element of how people think, believe, and behave, which, you know, we're still struggling to define and understand scientifically. But there is this what makes the heartbeat kind of thing. And we need to appreciate, as Niels was saying, that there are, that people believe, and there are many believers out there, 84% of the world's population is committed to or affiliated with a particular faith tradition. That's a huge group. So I think we need to keep in mind that even if it's not a scientific sort of space, necessarily all of it, some of it is, some of it isn't, the issue here is what is it that makes people move? And the issue is also quite frankly, and this was argued by the way, some of us may recall the women's movement in the 70s, 80s and 90s, trying to make a case for why working with women is actually productive. It actually is cost effective. Integrating women into the economies is not just cost effective, it's absolutely necessary. And I think what the pandemic is letting us see is that integrating engagement across the multi religious space is cost effective and now absolutely necessary. Because how can you not integrate the first responders in this crisis? How can you possibly not think as a government or as a private sector or as an NGO, a secular civic space? How can you not think of working with these actors who are the first responders, the heartbeat of so many? So honestly, economically, financially, politically, because so many of these actors influence our politicians, whether we like it or not, which is why we have to work multi, because we don't want to make these actors into big political actors, not at all. Actually, that's one of the things religious is very committed to work with religious actors, work across the sectors, but do not try to prioritize the religious as a political voice. So in order to not do all of that, which is politically cost effective and strategic, you need to make sure that you're working in an integrated manner with all types of partners, the multi and at the end of the day, that's what our whole world is lacking right now. It's the multi multinational multi-stakeholder world. We've gone, we've gone as crabs. Many of us, many of us are working like crabs. We've gone inside our shells working on our own spaces. And even if our own spaces are half the world, it's still only half the world. And never will our own spaces be half the world. We need to get out of the shells work together across our differences precisely because we have differences. Thank you so much. I think we're all aware again of the multitude of crises under this umbrella of a pandemic that our world faces. And to the point made earlier that faith and religious leaders and people of faith, 84% of the world's population, the value that's held is service. And what we do need right now is to come out of those shells for service. And as we know, the World Economic Forum is thinking about the great reset. It would not be possible without this multi-stakeholder, multi-religious engagement, because that brings in the value of service. And that's, there's no other way. We're going to have a great reset. And Andrew, I think you're well poised to come in on that. And I'll turn it over to you for, I think, our parting comment with our time. Yeah. And I think that the one thing that we have in common, and we partner very closely with UNICEF and secular agencies, the one thing that we have in common is values, but particularly this value of service. And that we are, we see ourselves as being their priority to serve those that need it most. And when you talk to local faith actors, they would say the same thing. So when you start talking about this call to serve, you have a very common, you have a common language very quickly, and you can build a trust and rapport in any language very quickly, because they understand that, and they understand that, that you want to do what's best for those that need it most. And so I love this language of service. And I think that that might be, that might actually be the secret ingredient that helps with the war partner so much better going forward too. Wonderful. Thank you, Andrew.