Established in 1998 by James D. Wolfensohn, then President of the World Bank, and Lord George Carey, then Archbishop of Canterbury, The World Faiths Development Dialogue(WFDD) bridges between the worlds of faith and secular development. Based in Washington, DC, WFDD supports dialogue and conferences, fosters communities of practice, collects case-studies on faith-based organizations, and promotes understanding on religion and development, with formal relationships to the World Bank and Georgetown University’s Berkley Center for Peace, Religion, and World Affairs.

What is the World Faiths Development Dialogue?

WFDD is a not-for-profit organization working at the intersection of religion and global development. It also refers to a process of exchange involving leaders of the major world religions, and international development organizations. The organization’s creation was led by the World Bank and the office of the Archbishop of Canterbury and it is now an independent entity housed at Georgetown University in Washington DC. The process was inspired by an ambitious objective: bettering the quality of development work both through enhanced mutual understanding and specific insights into poverty and equity challenges.

WFDD has two central objectives: to reinforce, underscore, and publicize the synergies and common purpose of religions and development institutions addressing poverty; and to explore issues on which there is little consensus and where common ground is unclear among different faith traditions, within faiths, and between faiths and development institutions.