Bahá’í World/Volume 26/A Dialogue on Spirituality and Development
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T his article reports on the World Faiths and Development Dialogue, a gathering of religious leaders and World Bank officials
that tookplace 18—1 9 F ebruary 1998 to discuss the relationship between economic and spiritual development.
AD IALOGUE on SPIRITUALITY anaDEVELOPMENT
t was a diverse group that posed for a photograph on the final
day of the World Faiths and Development Dialogue. Bankers and consultants in dark suits stood shoulder to shoulder with a yellow-robed Hindu and a Christian bishop in purple Clerical robes. Muslim leaders mingled with J ewish rabbis and Bahá’í representatives. Sikhs in carefully wrapped turbans consorted with Taoists in high-collared gray jackets.
More remarkable, however, than the diversity of the gathering was its purpose: to explore how the World Bank, the world’s largest development finance agency, could work more Closely with the world’s major religions to tackle the problems of global underdevelopment and world poverty. From this meeting, held 18—1 9 February 1998 in London, came support for a startling idea: that economic development can be intimately linked with spiritual development. Indeed, both the meeting’s occurrence and its outcome were eVidence of a new consensus that successful social and economic development cannot be accomplished without an appreciation of the interconnectedness of spiritual and material progress.
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As World Bank President, Dr. James D. Wolfensohn, said in his final statement at the meeting, “What unites us is a deep concern for the poor of the world. It’s something which the faiths have been concerned with for generations, the Bank for fifty years. But what is clear is that what has come out of this meeting is that there is a unity between us. A unity of the concern for physical livelihood but also spiritual and cultural continuity and I think it is that which certainly I have found remarkable at this meeting. There has been a total meeting of minds in terms of this linkage. And what I think has been opened up is the opportunity now for us to work together in our various ways, from the faiths and from the development institutions, to bring together our experience, our beliefs and our sense of justice, our concerns, so that together we can make the world a better place and improve the lot of poor people everywhere.”
The Dialogue, which generated not only a number of headlines around the world but also a follow-up plan for cooperative action between the Bank and the religions, will be counted as a milestone event by future historians when they consider the trends of issues such as integration and cross—sectoral consensus building that have become the hallmark of policy development in regard to global problems during the 1990’s.
“For the first time in contemporary economics, the role of religion in development was not just publicly acknowledged or even acclaimed, but brought into a partnership with one of the largest and, some would argue, most vociferously secular organizations in the world,” said Martin Palmer, Director of the International Consultancy on Religion, Education and Culture (ICOREC), which played a key role in organizing the Dialogue. “The repercussions of this are that the economic world will have to take religion seriously——-and vice versa.”
For the Bahá’í International Community, which participated in lead-up activities to the Dialogue and in the meeting itself, the event represents a significant step towards the adoption of ideas and concepts about social and economic development on which Bahá’ís have based their work for decades. As the opening of the paper Valuing Spirituality in Development, a Bahá’í International Community
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contribution to the Dialogue, states: “Development, in the Bahá’í view, is an organic process in which “the spiritual is expressed and carried out in the material?”1
This View was affirmed at numerous points in the meeting, which took place in the eight hundred-year—old residence of the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. George C arey, who cosponsored the event with Dr. Wolfensohn. In the Dialogue’s final statement, for example, the gathering proclaimed: “We are strengthened in our conviction that the definition and practice of desirable development must have regard to spiritual, ethical, environmental, cultural, and social considerations, if it is to be sustainable and contribute to the well-being of all, especially the poorest and weakest members of society. All participants in the Dialogue agreed that ‘well-being’ must imply the elimination of the suffering caused by absolute material poverty whilst also recognizing the importance of spiritual and cultural life. Our understanding of poverty and development has been widened and enriched by the exchange between the World Bank experts and the different faiths with their diverse interpretations of what it means to lead a fully human life.”
High-Level Representation The representatives of the world’s religions came from perhaps the highest level yet for such an interfaith conference. Included were leaders from the Bahá’í Faith, Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, J ainism, Judaism, Sikhism, and Taoism. Between them, they represented the religious traditions followed by an estimated three billion people.2
The World Bank’s main representative was Dr. Wolfensohn, along with Ismail Serageldin, Vice-President for Environmentally and Socially Sustainable Development, and Andrew Rogerson, the Bank’s representative for the United Kingdom and Ireland.
Also in attendance were Dr. Palmer of ICOREC; Wangari Maathai, a well—known environmentalist and women’s rights activist from Kenya; Dr. Vandana Shiva, Director of the Institute of Science, Technology and Ecology in Delhi; Andrew Purkis, Secretary for
1.See pp. 233—259 for the full text ofthis statement. 2.A list of the religious representatives who attended the Lambeth meeting appears at the end ofthis article.
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Some of‘the ~ “ ‘ ‘ diversepartiei— ~ ' ‘ pants in the World F al’thS and Development Dialogue, held 18—19 February 1998, which was cosponsored by ‘ the World Bank and the
A rchbishop Of 3; _ Canterbury. :3”; ‘
Public Affairs to the Archbishop of Canterbury; and Wendy Tyndale, a development specialist with Christian Aid.
The Dialogue itself consisted largely of an exchange of ideas. In the first session on Wednesday, 18 February, participants discussed “understandings of development.” During that session, the meanings of the terms “poverty,” “prosperity,” and “developed” were considered, with the aim of understanding “how the gap between the present situation and the kind of societies to which we aspire” might be addressed.
The afternoon session focused on “criteria for development,” in which themes relating to “participation,” “sustainability,” and “voice” were discussed, all in the context of how the faiths and development agencies like the Bank might cooperate to improve efforts in each area. Thursday, 19 February, was devoted largely to summarizing the Dialogue and producing a final statement.
Among those points which received wide agreement during the discussions were these: that development is a process that encompasses both the spiritual and the material aspects of life; that personal change goes hand in hand with social change, and both must be viewed as central to collective progress; that development must be guided by spiritual principles and values, and must seek to promote quality of life and human dignity; that successful development will promote family and community cohesion; that new measures of development, based on common criteria and shared principles, will be needed; that all must approach development in a spirit of
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true humility, love and compassion and must become active listeners/learners; and that development must be based on principles of sustainability, justice, consultation and participation.
Swami Teertha, one of the principal Hindu representatives, described the import of these ideas this way: “The significance of the meeting is not to be underestimated. This dialogue redefined poverty, prosperity, and progress. A new atmosphere was created for new development activities which take into account the social, the environmental, and the spiritual.”
The group also set forth several concrete proposals. It was decided, for example, that the religious communities will be invited to “influence the thinking of the World Bank by participating in the studies and discussions embodied in the Bank’s annual World Development Reports.” A special effort will be made to get this input for the report planned for the year 2000, which will focus on “understanding poverty.”
“Until now, the main criterion in judging the success of development work has been economic growth,” said Ms. Tyndale of Christian Aid, who served as an advisor to Archbishop Carey in the planning of the Dialogue. “The criteria that the faiths are suggesting focus more on the overall well-being of communities and people, of which a very important aspect is both spirituality and cultural identity. This came out of the meeting very strongly.”
Most importantly, perhaps, the Bank and the faiths agreed to continue to dialogue by setting up joint working groups to explore further areas of concem. Among the themes to be considered by working groups are community building; hunger and food security; environmental sustainability; the preservation of cultural heritage, including sacred sites; violence and post-conflict reconstruction; education and social service delivery.
Beyond such specifics, among the most significant aspects of the event were the mere gathering of representatives of nine major world religions and leaders from the Bank, and the boldness of the topic. Although the idea that religion and spirituality are intimately related to the processes of social and economic development has long been promoted by religious groups, the fact that the World Bank has now given it credence means that even the most straightforward
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programs of economic development will be more likely to consider spirituality as a component in their planning and execution. It is a concept that seems sure to affect the entire intemational development agenda.
“Thirty years ago, in development, nobody cared about ecology,” said Dr. Thomas Lachs, a representative of the Jewish community. “Today, the environmental impact of a project is a major issue. If we can do the same thing in the spiritual/cultural values field, the impact on the non-eeonomic lives of people will be tremendously important.”
Another emergent idea was that greater involvement of religious groups in official development efforts could become an antidote to the corruption that all too often accompanies the processes of development funding. “The moral authority of religious leaders is key in the campaign to promote good governance and transparencywhich Wolfensohn passionately Champions in View of the high price that corruption and waste exact on poor countries,” said World Bank News, a Bank publication aimed at journalists.
Rabbi Arthur Hertzberg, Vice President Emeritus of the World Jewish Congress, who attended both the Lambeth Palace meeting and a previous gathering at Windsor Palace, said the interfaith nature of the meeting was especially important. Wherever possible, he suggested, joint projects with the Bank should also be undertaken as interfaith ventures. “Projects should be managed not by one religious group but by a consortium of faiths,” said Rabbi Hertzberg.
Participants also committed themselves to “explore further opportunities for partnership” at the country level. Pilot projects are to be established between the Bank and the faiths, and religious representatives will be invited to speak at special staff training sessions to help Bank personnel learn more about religious beliefs and cultures as they pertain to development processes.
A former investment banker, Dr. Wolfensohn took office in J une 1995 and began working almost immediately to widen the Bank’s contacts with non-governmental organizations and other elements of civil society. “This has involved the Bank reaching out to various groups and dialoguing with them,” said John Mitchell, a Bank official who was involved in planning the Dialogue. “This event is in some ways an explicit recognition that Dr. Wolfensohn
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feels religions are a major part ofcivil seciety. While the Bank has dialogued with them in piecemeal fashion, this event is also trying to systematically push the dialogue to a higher level—and t0 validate it.”
Bahá’í Participation
Through its Office of the Environment, the Bahá’í International Community played an active role both in the lead-up to the Dialogue and during the sessions at Lambeth. The Community’s involvement began, in a sense, with the participation of Bahá’ís in a previous interfaith meeting held at Windsor Palace in AprilMay 1995. That meeting, which was cosponsored by the World Wide F und for Nature and others, was known as the Summit on Religions and Conservation, and it sought to strengthen the then burgeoning collaboration between religions and the environmental movement by creating a new entity: the Alliance of Religions and Conservation (ARC). The lead Bahá’í representative to that meeting was Amatu’l-Bahá Ri'ihiyyih Khánum.
From the 1995 Windsor Palace meeting, which was attended by a representative of the World Bank, grew the idea of a special meeting to bring the Bank more directly into contact and collaboration with religious leaders. This led to a preliminary meeting in May 1997 in Washington, DC, at the Bank’s headquarters, when a smaller group of religious leaders gathered to discuss ways the Bank could be more sensitive to local communities and alternative values.
F ram left to right, Kiser Barnes, lead representative Oflhe Bahá’í' International Commzmitv, A re] 2 b 13/1 0 p Dr. Geerge C arey, and World Bank President Dr. James Wolfensohn.
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Lawrence Arturo of the Community’s Office of the Environment and Mona Grieser, a development specialist who is a Bahá’í, participated in that meeting and made several important contributions to these preliminary discussions, including the suggestion that the group could widen the agenda of the discussions from a focus on poverty reduction to a broader understanding of human development in a global context. In this regard, the Bahá’ís introduced the term “global prosperity,” a concept Bahá’ís use to describe a whole range of links and interrelationships between the spiritual and the material, across all sectors of society, that humanity must understand and act upon if it is to create a global society where all can achieve both spiritual and material well-being. The Bahá’í representatives also suggested that the group might work to develop new “indicators of prosperity”—measures that would assess development progress through the perspective of spiritual principles. This idea became a major focus of the consultations and led to the call for papers from each religion that would propose a methodology for creating such indicators and what they would seek to measure.
At the Lambeth meeting, Kiser Barnes, the chief Bahá’í representative, opened the session on “participation” by offering some thoughts on the spiritual values that must undergird efforts to include the active participation of all in any development endeavor. “Only development programs that are perceived as just and equitable can hope to engage the commitment of the people upon whom successful implementation ultimately depends,” said Mr. Barnes. “When people trust that all are protected by standards and assured of benefits, such Virtues as honesty, the willingness to work and sacrifice, moderation, and a spirit of cooperation can flourish and combine to make possible the attainment of demanding collective goals.”
Such ideas about prosperity, participation, and spiritual indicators, and the View that spiritual and material development are inseparably interlinked, ultimately became the key themes of the Dialogue. Bahá’ís expect to be actively involved with the Bank in the ongoing dialogue it has established with the religions and to contribute to the initiatives that were agreed upon at Lambeth Palace.
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Religious Representation in the Dialogue
Bahá’í community
Kiser Barnes, International Counsellor Lawrence Arturo, Director of the Bahá’í International Community’s Office of the Environment
Buddhist community
Nambaryn Enkhbayar, Leader of the Minority in the Parliament of Mongolia and Chairman of the Mongolian People’s Revolutionary Party
Sulak Sivaraksa, a social activist and founder of small economy model developments in Thailand
Orthodox Christian community
Metropolitan John of Pergamon, representing the Ecumenical Patriarchate Archimandrite Feofan, Deputy Chairman of the Department for External Church Relations of the Moscow Patriarchate
Protestant Christian community
Dr. George Carey, Archbishop of Canterbury The Right Reverend Thomas Olmorijoi Laiser, Bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Tanzania, the Arusha Diocese
Roman Catholic community His Eminence Cardinal Roger Etchegaray, President of the Pontifical Council
for J ustice and Peace, the Vatican
Monsignor Diarmuid Martin, Secretary for the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace
Father Sergio Bernal, S. J., Dean Ofthe Faculty OfSOCial Science at the Gregorian University, Rome
Hindu community
Swami Vibudhesha Teertha, Head of the Sri Admar Mutt, Udipi, Kamataka, South India
Acharya Srivatsa Goswami, Head of the Sri Caitanya Prema Samsthana, in Vrindavan
Jain commmunity
His Excellency Dr. L. M. Singhvi, Patron Of the Institute of Jainology Professor Padmanabh S. Jaini, a Trustee of the Institute of J ainology and Professor of Buddhist Studies at the University of California at Berkeley
Jewish community
Professor Rabbi Arthur Hertzberg (Conservative tradition), Vice President Emeritus of the World Jewish Congress
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Professor Rabbi René Sirat (Orthodox tradition), former Grand Rabbi of France, current Grand Rabbi Ofthe Consistoire Central, Professor Emeritus and former Director of the Department ofNear and Far Eastern Studies, University of Paris
Dr. Thomas Lachs (Reform tradition), former Board Member Ofthe Bank of Austria and Head of the Foreign Affairs Department of the Bank and, in this capacity, a past Alternate Governor for Austria at the International Monetary Fund
Muslim community
His Royal Highness Crown Prince El-Hassan Bin Talal ofJordan His Highness, the Aga Khan
Sikh community
Sri Singh Sahib Manjit Singh, Jathedar Of Anandpur, Punjab, India
Dr. Rajwant Singh, founding member of the Guru Gobind Singh F oundation
Taoist community
Zhang Ji Yu, Vice President, Vice Secretary-General of the China Taoist Association at Bai Yun Guan, Beijing
Zhang Xun Mu, an academic researching Taoism at the Religious Research Center
Tjalling Halbertsam, a Dutch national who has been working with Taoist groups in China to preserve seven major Taoist sacred mountains
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