From 17–19 October 2023, around 100 participants from politics, governments, academia, religious and other civil society organizations gathered at the International Partnership on Religion and Sustainable Development’s (PaRD) Annual Forum on Religion and Sustainable Development 2023 in Berlin, Germany and online. Attendees exchanged ideas and successful approaches to contributing to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), with a particular focus on sustaining peace, promoting gender equality and tackling the climate crisis.

Speakers included Frank Schwabe, the German Government’s Commissioner for Freedom of Religion or Belief and a member of parliament; Jochen Steinhilber, Department Head of the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ); Ingrid-Gabriela Hoven, Managing Director of the German Agency for International Cooperation (GIZ); Nazila Ghanea, UN Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Religion or Belief; and Professor Dr. Kamaruddin Amin, Director General of Islamic Community Guidance at the Indonesian Ministry of Religious Affairs. They stressed the importance of multi-stakeholder partnerships and the necessity of a vibrant civil society and shared their positive experiences with religious actors.

The participants collaboratively formulated policy recommendations, such as making better use of existing resources and networks of local actors who are actively contributing to the SDGs. The five workstreams within the network were introduced, and participants were encouraged to join them to continue this process of developing policy recommendations.

Freedom of Religion and Belief was one of the key issues under discussion, particularly the sensitivity of this issue in relation to development aid in some countries. The participants confirmed again that such freedom is one of the most fundamental human rights and agreed to do more to spread this concept.

On 18 October, Dr. Iyad Abumoghli, Director of the Faith for Earth Coalition of the United Nations Environment Programme and Mohamed Bahr of the Muslim Council of Elders provided insights into the preparations for the Faith Pavilion at COP28. PaRD was also part of the planning group for the pavilion.

SGI is one of the few Buddhist member organizations of PaRD. During the forum, Nobuyuki Asai of SGI was invited to share a prayer at the morning interfaith service together with other participants and chaired a group session titled “How can we promote dialogue with a government not open to religion.”