Ethical Development Pathways

The existing interfaith coalition consists of religious institutions that are already inline with the narrative of multilateralism and coexistence in the interest of creating a more sustainable future. The new approach is to engage faith groups that are against these notions and to create a greater mutual understanding of the gaps and needs of these communities and create inclusive and transformative strategies that allow for a shift in narrative.

*This is the only proposal to the UNFSS for a Coalition of Faith Based Leaders as a Game Changing Solution for more resilient and ethical food systems.

Faith communities work in the most marginalized communities around the world. By coalescing faith leaders’ wisdom and insights, while sharing frameworks for ethical consumption and production of food, local faith leaders can gain insights into sustainable interventions that ensure vulnerable communities’ food security and resilience to economic instability. These solutions are meant for faith communities around the world to integrate into their unique contexts.

Providing interfaith leaders with common ethical frameworks that blend religious wisdom with scientific data, we can shift the narrative on our consumption and production patterns, through religious influence, to emphasize gender equality, our intrinsic human rights, and the rights of all sentient beings, and empower local communities to reexamine their relationship with food, creating space for faith and ethical inspired actions to emerge that strengthen resilience, food security, and food sovereignty.

Solutions related to Ethical Development Pathways include:

1. Change of Narratives around food, as a human right, a common good, as a medicine or a sacred good (e.g. Indigenous Groups).
2. Reflecting on how to shift away from the extractive and exploitative models we currently have with both people and planet, applying a moral and ethical dimension to the act of consumption and production of food, waste reduction and resilient development (e.g. investing on innovative recycling initiatives such as the transformation of food packaging/plastic into items to support humanitarian aid, medical use or disaster recovery).
3. Highlighting religious teachings from major faith traditions that align with the universal human right to food and sustainable relationships with food and how this is applied in practice in hospitals, schools, Humanitarian assistance, disaster recovery.
4. Spotlighting key innovative faith based actions that can be adopted widely in diverse communities of faith that build Pandemic Resilient Food Systems (e.g. the Buddist compassionate quarantine) or Climate resilient food systems.