The United Nations can never be the same again." Thus Bawa Jain, Secretary-General of the Millennium World Peace Summit of Religious and Spiritual Leaders, described last year's Summit at the UN. "Just the mere presence of all these religious leaders will in itself have a transformative process in the future work of the United Nations," Jain added. The Park Ridge Center, through our Religion Counts project, is tracking the hope of such a transformation. The Center's connection with the UN goes back to the UN's International Conference on Population and Development convened in Cairo in 1994. The charged atmosphere that emerged there as religious and secular voices debated hot-button issues spurred thoughts about religion's role in public dialogue. "Should religions and religious people be represented at local, national, or international forums where there are certain to be controversial issues of public import?" asked Martin Marty and others in the subsequent Center report Religion and Public Discourse: Principles and Guidelines for Religious Participants. Are the risks of religious obstinacy or incivility about volatile social issues worth an invitation to discuss? In that report we supported taking such risks so that religion might count in arenas like the UN, although we advised that discourse be both informed and civil. We expect that Religion Counts will help us learn how religious perspectives and groups operate at the UN, and enable us to describe the role religion plays in the interrelationships of UN agencies, government missions, and related religious and secular actors. Our findings may also advance the UN conversation on the role of religion and help non-governmental organizations assess their effectiveness at the UN. Religion Counts features a major research component at the UN, including informant interviews, on-site observations at UN headquarters, NGO case studies, commissioned scholarship, and other research strategies. Three Center associates are gathering and analyzing data. To date, we have conducted over fifty formal interviews. These include representatives from twenty religious NGOs, eighteen secular NGOs, eleven UN officials as high as the under-secretary-general level, and three high-level informants on governmental or intergovernmental bodies. One question on our interview protocol has elicited fascinating personal vignettes from these individuals who give their lives to international service: "What formative experiences or perspectives have brought you to where you are now?" We have also observed three major UN events: the Beijing Plus 5 Conference on Women in May?June 2000, the Millennium World Peace Summit in August 2000, and the January?February 2001 preparatory meeting for the General Assembly's follow-up to the World Summit for Children. One outcome promised by Peace Summit organizers was the establishment of a permanent UN council of religious and spiritual advisors, with details to come. The likelihood of such a permanent advisory council depends on the cooperation of the world's religious and spiritual leaders and the value that the UN would give to the contributions of such a body. While the UN already works with many religious NGOs, they must be deemed compatible with UN ideals, amenable to UN procedures, and valuable in attaining UN goals. A group's attitudes and actions can deprive it of the opportunity to participate. Our two case studies of religious NGOs active in the UN include a Christian humanitarian organization that focuses on disaster relief, development, and conflict resolution work in over eighty countries. It is one of the "big eight" NGOs in the world for the market share of monies it handles. The other NGO has distinguished itself in peace building and conflict resolution. After numerous interviewees identified this group as a model of religious participation in the UN system, we felt compelled to look at it further. We expect to publish analytical "maps" explaining religion's role in the UN system, followed by a book-length expansion of these maps. These publications will appeal to readers interested in the intersection of religion and international politics and will be especially useful to those inside or outside the UN system who wish to understand religion there. | 
