Faith-Inspired Development Work: Lessons Learned and Next Steps

The Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs and the World Faiths Development Dialogue (WFDD) convened a one day event to reflect on their five year program on Religion and Global Development, a joint initiative of the Henry Luce Foundation and the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service. The capstone consultation took stock of the project’s results, explored their significance in the light of the United Nations Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), and looked towards next steps. The project has worked to increase knowledge and understanding about the effective but poorly documented, development work of faith-inspired organizations, which are important actors in global development often missing from policy tables. Learning from their experience and engaging them more systematically offers the promise of improving the quality and reach of international development programs.

The Luce/SFS project has focused on two principle components. A regional “mapping” project assessed the roles of faith-inspired actors on issues of global equity and development through a series of six regional workshops focused on the United States and Canada; the Muslim World; Europe and Africa; Latin America; Southeast Asia; and South and Central Asia. A second component focused on eight development issues surveys, consisting of expert consultations and issue reports on critical topics at the intersection of religion and economic and social development, including HIV/AIDS; gender; governance; shelter; malaria; tuberculosis; water; and maternal health.

The consultation agenda focused on accomplishments and results; key challenges and lessons learned; evaluation of successes (and shortfalls) in faith-inspired development programming; faith-inspired actors and the Millennium Development Goals; and next steps. Participants included key partners in the five year project, as well as organizations and experts looking towards next steps.

A draft background report summarizing project consultations and identifying key themes and issues is available here. A finalized version incorporating participant comments will be available shortly.

A meeting report summarizing the main themes and discussion points of the conference is available here.

Conference Panels and Agenda

9:00 Welcome and Introductions

Tom Banchoff, Director of the Berkley Center
Katherine Marshall, Senior Fellow, Executive Director of WFDD

Session One 9:30-11:00: "Mapping Faith-Inspired Organizations by Region: Experience, knowledge gaps, and issues arising"

Moderator: Andrew Natsios
Katherine Marshall - Global key findings from Regional Mapping Project
Mark Juergensmeyer - Challenges of definition, knowledge, and controversy
Patrice Brodeur - Charity and Philanthropy in the Muslim World
Elias Szczytnicki - Perspectives from Latin America

Session Two 11:15-12:45: "Mapping the work issue by issue: Responding to opportunities and challenges"

Moderator: Katherine Marshall
R. Scott Appleby - Peacebuilding, faith and secular approaches
Samia Huq - Gender challenges: secular faith tensions and synergies
Quentin Wodon - To mainstream or not mainstream?
Lynn Aylward - Faith-inspired actors and health, policy and practice

Working Lunch 12:45-2:00

Keynote Speaker: The Rt. Rev. John Bryson Chane, D.D. (Bishop of The Episcopal Diocese of Washington)

Session Three 2:15-3:45: "Faith-Inspired Development Work and the Millennium Development Goals: Past Progress and Future Opportunities"

Moderator: Sir Timothy Lankester
Jeff Haynes - Faith-inspired actors, policy engagement, and political constraints
Azza Karam - Engaging faith-inspired actors in the UN, opportunities and challenges from UNFPA
Midori Miyazaki – An example of religious philanthropy in Cambodia
Tom Jones - Perspectives on Implementation - challenges and opportunities