When Prof. Azza Karam was trying to create the Interagency Task Force on Religion and Sustainable Development (IATF) during her time at the UN, she often ran into a challenge that seemed embedded in the organization’s DNA.

“The UN is supposed to be the quintessential universal culture, you’re supposed to step through the doors and have no country, no religion, and serve all,” she said.

Respecting this altruism and admiring the broad human rights principles that make the UN what it is, Karam still felt something was missing — the heart. She wondered, “how can you serve all if you don’t understand what touches people’s hearts, their faith?”

Driven by a desire to see faith-based actors more involved with the UN, she worked with like-minded individuals to create the UN IATF in 2010. Today, it includes more than 20 UN agencies and works toward shared objectives with key partners in the faith-based world.

In 2018, the UN IATF established the MFAC to advise on key areas of the UN’s mandate, such as gender justice, environmental protection, and peacebuilding. KAICIID serves as the only intergovernmental organization that holds membership in the MFAC and co-chaired the council from 2018-2019.

Rabbi Burton Visotzky, Appleman Professor of Midrash and Interreligious Studies at Jewish Theological Seminary in New York City, was already involved with the UN Under-Secretary General for Genocide Prevention and was often consulted along with other faith leaders by the IATF, so much so that he thought of himself as “the UN’s ‘go-to Jew.’”

Along with other “religious friends of the UN” he came to serve on the MFAC when it was founded.

Although still in its infancy, Visotzky said the MFAC has already made an impact around the UN. “Having discovered religion, the UN has acted on that knowledge and is keen to partner with us in a variety of ways.”