Our approach
ICRD achieves its mission by meeting four core objectives:
- Decreasing religion’s role as a driver of conflict;
- Increasing the capacity and number of religious peacemakers;
- Increasing the role of religious clergy and laity in peacemaking;
- Increasing policy‐makers’ awareness of and receptivity to the potential contributions of religious actors.
ICRD applies the following strategies to achieve its four core objectives:
- Promoting spiritual values that delegitimize violence and intolerance;
- Advancing the field of peacemaking practice by integrating the contributions of religious actors;
- Facilitating resilient community networks for preventing and resolving conflicts;
- Expanding the capacity of civil society to support faith‐based peacemaking.
By combining innovative and traditional approaches, ICRD has developed a set of unique capabilities and methodologies for conducting faith‐based diplomacy to promote reconciliation and resolve differences. Included among these capabilities are:
- Identifying and applying faith doctrines that inspire empathy and reconciliation;
- Engaging excluded and ideologically-divided communities in constructive conversations;
- Facilitating relationships of trust and identifying new areas for collaboration;
- Conducting conflict analysis, particularly where religious considerations are salient;
- Reinforcing contemporary conflict resolution techniques with faith‐based practices.
ICRD develops the following program methodologies, orchestrates their application in the field, and analyzes their effectiveness:
Methodologies
- Strengthening the roles of both male and female religious adherents, across generations and traditions, in conflict resolution and countering violent religious extremism;
- Enhancing themes of tolerance in religious education curriculums and pedagogy;
- Identifying and leveraging shared spiritual values to support collaborative problem‐solving and faith‐based reconciliation;
- Facilitating the cooperative development of counter-‐narratives to violent religious extremism;
- Formulating faith‐based conflict resolution frameworks in concert with local partners;
- Training other prospective local trainers in applying faith-‐based methodologies.
Analysis
- Determining context‐specific roles for religious stakeholders in the resolution of conflict and prevention of violent religious extremism;
- Codifying best‐practices for engaging religious stakeholders in mitigating violent conflict;
- Mapping identity‐based conflicts and how they are contributing to particular cases of instability.