The European Commission organized the European Development Days (EDD), Europe’s leading forum on international cooperation and development, seeking to promote a new global strategy to address the most pressing development challenges by bringing together actors committed to tackling poverty.

A breakout session during the two-day forum addressed ‘The role of religion and beliefs in building sustainable communities,’ and explored the role of religion in contributing to areas such as peacebuilding and development at the grassroots.

Moderator Nazila Ghanea, a Professor at the University of Oxford, opened the debate by stating that “diversity calls on us to forge new types of communities”. This was a running sentiment throughout the session.

The panellists touched on how the conversation around religion, development and community building has been a challenge to advance within the European context.

Jan Figel, Special Envoy for the Promotion of Freedom of Religion or Belief outside the European Union, emphasized that they who do not understand religion, cannot understand what is going on in the current world. “And we need to understand,” he asserted. “We need to heal. We need to help.”

A fellow at the Centre for Religion, Conflict and Globalization at the University of Groningen, Ben Schewel, sought to share insights into this challenge. He spoke of the growing perplexity that has arisen because religion has not decreased in society as the forces of modernity have progressed.

Mr Schewel highlighted how both secular and religious groups are facing challenges: for those who are more secularist the challenge is to “go beyond their traditional habits of thought…to create space for thought and practice that is unapologetically based upon certain religious or spiritual convictions.” The challenge for the religious community, Mr Schewel shared, is to “go beyond sectarian or theological habits of thought, and to bring the insights of religion to bear upon the very pressing tasks of transforming society.”