Building and Promoting Trust for Peaceful and Inclusive Societies A side-event organized before the launching of the Agenda 2030 in New York

22 September 2015, New York, USA – The UNITAR New York Office (NYO) in collaboration with Yale University, Yale Divinity School - Initiative for social cohesion and inclusive societies organized a side event on Building and Promoting Trust for Peaceful and Inclusive Societies. This innovative side event took place close to the launching of the 2030 Agenda, which calls inter alia for Peaceful and Inclusive Societies, Goal 16, and the US Leadership Summit to Counter ISIL and Violent Extremism. The side event aimed to look at promoting and building trust as a means for bringing about peaceful and inclusive societies. This almost two hour side event involved presentations from scholars and practitioners, and welcomed over 30 diplomats. Yvonne Lodico, Head of UNITAR New York Office, underscored that the premise of the side event is about building trust, which is integral to the UN’s goal of developing relations and building peace. Chair of the meeting, Dr. Gregory Sterling, Dean of Yale University, Divinity School, explained that the issue of trust is core to the current crisis.

H.E. Mr. Nassir Abdul-Aziz Al-Nasser, High Representative for the UN Alliance of Civilizations (UNAOC), emphasised that the theme of trust is a top priority of UNAOC, as well as the core of the UN agenda in addressing the challenge of violent extremism. He also mentioned the necessity to build trust among people and intercultural and interreligious dialogues. H.E. Mr. Sabri Boukadou, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary, Permanent Representative of the Permanent Mission of Algeria to the United Nations, then shared his insights into trust and respect, brought his experiences from an Algerian perspective, and explained that combined effort would bring a win-win outcome.

Dr. Miroslav Volf, Henry B. Wright, Professor of Systematic Theology, Founding Director Yale Center for Faith and Culture, opened his lecture by defining the “beauty of joy” and shared his understanding on peaceful and inclusive societies by calling for “democracy friendly religions”. Dr. Jehangir A. Khan, Director United Nations Counter Terrorism Implementation Task Force (CTITF), brought insight on the positive potential of religion and called for collaboration across all levels for not only national inclusion but an international inclusive community.

Delegates exchanged views about building trust and made distinctions between Islam and those who exploit the religion for their own gain.  It was agreed, however, while there is not a single approach to prevent and counter violent extremism, building a society on trust and the attributes that form trust, may provide a critical strategy for addressing extremism and for fostering peaceful and inclusive societies.