The Hidden Peacebuilders Network meeting in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in June 2024 brought together faith actors, practitioners, academics, and policymakers working in the fields of peacebuilding and development. It was a valuable opportunity to discuss and explore one another’s work, as well as perspectives and approaches, across diverse contexts. It also allowed us to examine how we can continue to collaborate together, and what this collaboration looks like going forward. To this end, engaging local faith actors is pivotal.

At the meeting, colleagues presented some of the themes and achievements arising from their work in Sri Lanka, the Philippines, and Burundi, providing insight into the commonalities of local faith actors in providing mediating roles despite different contextual dynamics. We also heard from NGO and religious leaders serving their communities in Brazil. This included Christian and Muslim groups in Porto Allegre, working not only to support their communities in the aftermath of the devastating floods of April/May 2024, but who also work to address complex social issues and inter- and intra- community conflict. It included Christian NGOs in Rio, who work with black communities to help young people regain a sense of their shared identity, culture and heritage, and to provide education and opportunity where it was previously lacking. And it included learning from religious and community leaders in the Umbanda faith, who provide food and essentials for the poorest in their community whilst facilitating economic and educational opportunities, all in a wider context of social and religious discrimination.

Hearing these stories and experiences was a profound learning opportunity on a broad array of themes, from the significance of the humanitarian-development-peacebuilding nexus (the ‘triple nexus’) and the strikingly different forms this can take at the most local level, to the range of pressures impacting organisations as they strive to operate to their furthermost ability, to the complex religious and socio-political contexts that effective organisations must navigate in order to deliver impact. Indeed, in relation to this latter point, the range of shared experiences underscored one fundamental point: that real impact – whether in the humanitarian, development, or peacebuilding spheres – is facilitated and amplified, time and again, by the engagement and commitment of local faith actors, and the trust and confidence placed in them by their communities. The diversity of accounts and perspectives punctuating the meeting in Brazil is testament to just how universal this point is.

This meeting – and the emphasis of this central message – came at an important time for Islamic Relief. Building on forty years of humanitarian and development work, and with peacebuilding outcomes intertwined where possible, we are currently at a point where we are reflecting on our own peacebuilding impact. This impact, across our programming, is intrinsically linked to engaging local faith actors. They are often the key to effective social mobilisation in projects, to community structures that own and manage projects, and also to structures that further cohesion within the community, address tensions and mediate disputes. Incorporating faith leaders as key components in Community Hope Action Teams (CHATs) in Mali and Niger, for example, allows these structures to achieve such significant outcomes, often within difficult contexts and involving sensitive religious or cultural issues.

We are now looking at how we can take a more strategic and systematic approach to social cohesion across our programming, with local faith actors as a pivotal component. The conversations that were had in Rio have already informed this process, and I hope that the relationships facilitated by the Hidden Peacebuilders Network will play an influential role in strategic developments concerning Islamic Relief’s approach to peacebuilding going forward.