Reflecting on impact evaluations of interreligious dialogue initiatives

At a time when religious difference is often used to fan the flames of violence and promote divisions all around the world, Interreligious Dialogue(IRD) has helped prevent and mitigate conflict and promoted reconciliation and peaceful coexistence. By playing a significant role in building compassion and solidarity between religious communities, IRD has laid the foundation for shared action in the pursuit of peace and justice. While IRD interventions have played a positive role in the advancement of peace and justice, the IRD field has struggled from a lack of knowledge about effective IRD approaches and has lacked the tools, experience, and evidence to understand what approaches are most effective and impactful. As an example, a systematic evidence study found that only 8 studies met the inclusion criteria for experimental evaluations (that controlled for confounding variables). Furthermore, these 8 studies were highly heterogeneous in their intervention which made it difficult to reach conclusions on the effectiveness of the interventions. In 2020 6 IRD organization began a quasi-experimental evaluation to not only try and understand the effectiveness and impact of their IRD initiatives but to also address these gaps in evidence. Given the dearth of evidence in the IRD field, findings and conclusions from these evaluations could be highly consequential to the entire field of Interreligious Dialogue.