RELIGION will be vital to helping humanity meet the "tremendous challenges" of the coming century, former South African president Nelson Mandela told spiritual and religious leaders in Cape Town on Sunday.

"We will have to reach deep into the wells of human faith," 81-year-old Mandela, who stepped down as president in June, told more than 3 000 delegates to the eight-day Parliament of the World's Religions.

Mandela paid a special tribute to the role of the religious institutions of his country in the fight against apartheid.

"It was the religious institutions-Christians, Muslims, Hindu and Jewish who bought land, built and equiped schools, found teachers and paid them."

"I appreciate the importance of religion. You have to have been in a South African jail under the apartheid, where you could see the cruelty of human beings to each other in its naked form. Again, religious institutions and their leaders gave us hope that one days we would return." He added: "Many left jail with a higher education because of religious institutions."

"Religion will have a crucial role to play in guiding humanity to meet the tremendous challenges we face," Mandela, who received numerous standing ovations, told the devotees of virtually every religious and spiritual strand on earth.

"We need to be able to draw on the resources of our spirituality," he said. "Religion can be instrumental in helping rid society of such problems as alienation, the abuse of women and children, and the spread of HIV/Aids. He warned that poverty was the "single most dangerous threat to society."

Mandela, who at the start of proceedings received awards from two religious organisations -- the Temple of Understanding and the World Movement for Non-Violence -- dedicated them to "the millions of unsung men and women who courageously refuse to bow to humanity's baser instincts."

The gathering, which organisers estimate will have drawn some 10,000 people in all, will be formally closed on Wednesday by the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama.

Part of this report was taken from the Electronic Mail and Guardian