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UN Environment Programme is co-organizing the Kofi Annan Faith Briefing for 2019 that will be held in New York on 15 July 2019 as an effort to strengthen the contributions of Faith-Based Organizations to the discussions at the High Level Political Forum. The Climate Action session of the briefing will bring together CEOs of Interfaith organizations and initiatives with long standing experience on tackling environmental issues at the global level.  The Faith for Earth Initiative and the Interfaith Rainforest Initiative of UN Environment Programme will be presented as key interventions in brining together faith-based organizations and mobilizing action. The programme of the Faith Briefing can be accessed here.

The UN Interagency Task Force involves 20 UN system entities. Since 2010, the UN Interagency Task Force Members have been convening policy roundtables, workshops, seminars, and joint initiatives around key UN intergovernmental fora (CSW, CPD, HLPF, and UNGA), around religion and religious engagement, and several reports, policy outcomes and initiatives are produced as a result of these consultations (See 2018 Report) . In 2018, the UN Interagency Task Force convened the first ever United Nations Multi-Faith Advisory Council (AC) . The Council is composed of the CEOs of the UN’s top global faith-based partners. The AC is committed to “uphold multilateralism and international human rights through multi-faith collaboration around/for Agenda 2030”. The CEOs of the FBOs were selected according to nominations from across the UN system entities members of the UN Interagency Task Force. To date, each major faith tradition is represented on the Council.

The Kofi Annan Faith Briefing comes as a celebration of the late and former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan who was the first to host a Millennium Peace Summit, in September 2000, in which 1,000 religious leaders were invited to stand with the United Nations. This was the largest gathering of religious leaders inside the United Nations since its founding. This seminal gathering was a show of this important constituencies’ commitment to the first global Development goals agreed by the UN Member States: the Millennium Development Goals, or MDGs. Mr. Annan’s legacy is therefore worth ‘celebrating’ in the context of UN-hosted faith-related Briefings on Sustainable Development, organized by the unique Multi-Faith Advisory Council.