The president of the World Bank will co-host a meeting in Dublin next week which will discuss poverty, marginalisation and global security, as well as HIV/Aids and the lessons of the recent tsunami in south-east Asia.
The fourth meeting of the World Faith and Development Dialogue (WFDD) grouping, established in 1998, takes place in Dublin Castle on Monday and Tuesday next. It will be co-hosted and chaired by the president of the World Bank, Mr James Wolfensohn; Lord Carey of Clifton, the former archbishop of Canterbury; and the Catholic Archbishop of Dublin, Dr Diarmuid Martin.
The WFDD was set up by Mr Wolfensohn and Lord Carey to promote dialogue on poverty and development among the different faith traditions and between them and development agencies such as the World Bank.
It promotes the participation of religious communities, at national and international level, in tackling global poverty and promoting development.
The keynote speaker next week will be Prince Bartholomew I, Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople, who will give his address on Monday. He is leader of 300 million Orthodox Christians worldwide.
Also attending the meeting will be Prince Turki al-Faisal al Saud, Saudi Arabian ambassador to Britain and Ireland; Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, Archbishop of Washington; Mrs Mary Robinson, director of the Ethical Globalization Initiative; the Rev Canon Ted Karpf, currently with the World Health Organisation; the Rev Dr Samuel Kobia, general secretary of the World Council of Churches; and Prof Akbar Ahmed, the Ibn Khaldun Chair of Islamic Studies at the American University in Washington DC.
Next week's meeting will address links between poverty, social tensions, marginalisation and global security, within the context of global inequities.
