Keeping Faith in 2030: Birmingham Workshop

FBO Workshop on Religions and the Sustainable Development Goals

Workshop convenors

• Professor Emma Tomalin
• Dr Jörg Haustein
• Shabaana Kidy

Workshop Report

Background and rationale

We are convening a new network – funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council in the UK – which involves academics and faith-based development actors. The network aims to enhance international exchange about the role of religions in defining, implementing, and safeguarding  ‘sustainable development’, as codified in the UN ‘Sustainable Development Goals’ (SDGs) (please see the accompanying information sheet about this project).

This workshop is the first event of the network, and aims to bring together faith-based organisations and other actors in the UK involved in religions &  development practice to examine the new SDGs. We aim to use this workshop for identifying key themes and issues for future network activities and are especially interested to find out from participants

• Your engagement in the consultation process to define the SDGs
• Whether you feel that religious voices were enabled to be heard in the process and with what effect
• To what extent and in what ways you are now beginning to interpret and implement the SDGs in your work
• Whether you feel the SDGs provide a useful framework to tackle ‘sustainable development’ globally

This event will provide a forum to bring people together to discuss a topic which is likely to increase in importance in their work over the coming years, up to 2030. We also envisage that it will provide an opportunity to bring more people into the network from its outset so that academics and development actors can build a platform to work collaboratively towards realising these important goals.

Programme

11-11.30: Tea/coffee and welcome

11.30-12: Background to the project and outline of aims for the day

12-1: Introductions from participants: Did your organisation have a role in the consultation process to define the SDGs? What were some of the strengths and challenges of the process?

1-2: Lunch

2-3.30: Interactive/moderated discussion on religions and the SDGs

• To what extent do you feel that religious voices were enabled to be heard in the consultation process and with what effect?
• To what extent and in what ways are you now beginning to interpret and implement the SDGs in your work?
• Which SDGs have you been most engaged with and why? Which SDGs have you not engaged with, or to a lesser extent, and why?
• Do you feel the SDGs provide a useful framework to tackle ‘sustainable development’ globally? What are the opportunities and limitations of the SDGs?

3.30-3.45 Coffee/tea break

3.45-4.30 0 Interactive/moderated discussion of specific country challenges (Ethiopia, India, UK) around these questions:

• What, in your opinion, are the gaps and priorities in research around religion and the sustainable
• How engaged are religious groups/FBOs in policy discourses around religion and sustainable development – how could it be done better – and how might this network facilitate that?
• Who are the key stakeholders to engage at the country level around the SDGs? What networks are you connecting with to talk about the SDGs?
• How best might the network integrate academic and non-academic partners?

4.30–5: Summary and next steps