At their first routine meeting of the year, the KAICIID Board of Directors gathered at the KAICIID headquarters in Vienna, Austria to review the planned work programme of the Dialogue Centre for the coming year.

At this session, the Board of Directors were updated on the launch of KAICIID’s programme to promote social cohesion in the Central African Republic, and on the implementation of KAICIID’s initiative with the UNDP on Iraq and Syria, which was launched with a major conference in November 2014.

The planning for the forthcoming conferences on social media and pluralism, religious leaders’ role in preventing the incitement to atrocity crimes, and Common Citizenship Education in the Arab States were also discussed.

The Board of Directors also received an update on the launch of KAICIID’s Peace Map, an interactive database of organisations and actors working in interreligious dialogue around the world, which will be launched in April 2015.

The KAICIID Secretariat also welcomed a new member of the Board of Directors, Reverend Mark Poulson, who succeeds Bishop Toby Howarth.

Bishop Toby Howarth said: 'I am delighted that the Revd Mark Poulson will be representing the Archbishop of Canterbury on the KAICIID Board of Directors. Mark brings to the Board years of experience working at the grassroots across religious and cultural difference in some of the most diverse neighbourhoods in Britain. He is a man of integrity and wisdom, and is exactly the kind of person the Centre needs in its crucial work of developing international dialogue.'

KAICIID’s multireligious Board of Directors, comprising representatives from Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, and Judaism, meet every quarter to review the ongoing work of the Centre.