RIASSUNTO

The level of protection of religious freedom is a benchmark for evaluating the actions of the players involved in different ways in the international cooperation and peace-building system, such as NGOs and religious bodies. In fact, religion is often considered as a limitation to human development or as a factor of conflict. In reality, the great religions share the same principles of solidarity and equality and promote unity and peace in the human family. In today’s geopolitics, moreover, they have assumed a central role in peace-building processes, as evidenced by the signing of many Declarations aimed at promoting the application and dissemination of humanitarian norms and the reduction of armed conflicts. Such documents, though not legally binding, have immediate preceptiveness in religious law systems and are comprehensible by political and legal institutions, as well  as capable of being translated into concrete tools for the management of socio-economic conflicts. For this reason, the paper aims to analyse the role of NGOs and religious bodies in peace-building processes, as well as the legal framework of the current Italian system of international development cooperation.