A Discussion with Peter David Grant, International Director, Tearfund
With: Peter Grant Berkley Center Profile
June 13, 2008
How did you come to your current position? How has your own career linked faith and international development work and issues?
I was trained as an economist, at Cambridge and the London School of Economics, then worked for the Malawi government in the 1980s. I took a different path for a time, working for a telecommunications company. In 1990, I joined DFID (British Government’s international development agency). I worked there for 15 years, on Asia first, then on the multilateral side. I spent some time in Bangladesh, but in the final period covered relationships with the European Union, the World Bank, IDA negotiations, etc.
Through this period, I had had some relations with Tearfund. I was brought up in a Catholic household, but became an evangelical Christian when I was around 18, finding a personal faith largely through friends. I became a Baptist, and that is what I am today. I had supported Tearfund, serving also as an external member of some board committees, and got to know their work. So, although I had not planned it, when someone suggested in 2005 that I consider applying for the international director post, it seemed a good way to bring together my faith and my work. I was also drawn, after years of working in environments where we tended to stay in five star hotels, by the possibility of getting closer to the grass roots. So I joined Tearfund and have worked there now for three years.
Can you give a bit more background on Tearfund?
Tearfund was founded in 1968, so it is now 40 years old. It was founded by the Evangelical Alliance in the UK; the name originally stood for The Evangelical Alliance Relief fund. It had a charismatic founder and grew rapidly, from very small beginnings, so that today it is either the sixth or seventh largest UK NGO, just below the level of Oxfam and Christian Aid. Tearfund's turnover is around 60 million pounds a year. Its closest U.S. counterpart is probably World Relief. It is one of the strongest mainstream development agencies. We work in two main areas, disaster management and development. There are some 300 staff at headquarters, and 1,000 working overseas, most of them on disaster management.
On disaster management, we work primarily in five conflict and post-conflict areas: Afghanistan, Darfur, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Liberia, and South Sudan. We have also responded to natural disasters including the tsunami and 2005 earthquake in Kashmir.
Tearfund's development activities involve working with partners and churches in some 50 countries. This takes the form of grants, but we also aim to journey with these partners and build their capacity. Some of them have grown significantly and that has been central to our work. Our 10-year vision is to see 50 million people released from material and spiritual poverty through a worldwide network of 100,000 local churches. This vision was developed under the leadership of our current CEO (Matthew Frost).
Tearfund's strong ethos and goal is to combine professional excellence with spiritual passion. In many respects, we are quite unique in that articulation, especially in the UK.
My recent book about Tearfund, Poor No More, published by Monarch, sets out Tearfund's vision. It is aimed largely at Tearfund supporters, addressing the question of what they can do to end poverty.
What are your criteria for staff recruitment? How does that link to the spiritual character of the organization?
Tearfund only employs Christians at headquarters, and all our staff are asked to sign on to our basis of faith. In practice, the reality of our work does revolve around a cycle of prayer and worship together, and we use biblical teachings integrally in our work. It would be impossible to unpick this spiritual focus from our corporate culture. The central point is that we are strongly committed to integral mission.
Tearfund is also a member of the Micah network, and fighting poverty is central to our vision of both Christianity and development.
Can you give an example of how this works out in practice?
HIV and AIDS reflects a fantastic picture of what our role can be. We provide community level support but beyond that we are able to stand between churches and the development community. We see what the church can do, and what it is doing. There is so much HIV/AIDS work done through churches, and we highlight this to development agencies. But we also talk to the church, noting where their stance is compounding the problem, for example in stigma. We thus have an ability to speak to both sides. We can do this especially for evangelical churches, which will really only respect an organization that is committed to same biblical principles that inspire their work.
This kind of approach was highlighted in Tearfund's new strategy which came out of its 2006 strategy review. Our aim is to assist 50 million people out of physical and spiritual poverty, and in doing this local churches are at the center of the network. We have powerful relationships with churches around the world.
Among others, this brings us into close relationships with parallel efforts like the Saddleback Church, and Willow Creek. We also work closely with the Anglican community around the world.
How do you work with official development agencies? Are these relationships effective?
We work with funding from a wide range of donors, private and public, and are generally very happy with the support and balance. Our support from the UK DFID is mostly in areas of their and our priority, at present water and sanitation and disaster relief.
DFID is currently rethinking its position on approaches to faith-based organizations. I was myself involved in a prior effort to redefine its stance, around 2005, led by Masood Ahmed, when he was there. The process was never formally approved, but it is now being resurrected, with another consultation process taking place. The key person involved is Peter Kerby. However, I would note that, comparing different agencies, the DFID approach to faith feels cautious compared, for example, to the approach of Irish Aid and the United States agencies.There, it is much more open and more a two way process.
What about the EU?
These issues have never really come up in the EU context, at least as far as I have been aware. What I have encountered has been a combination of British reticence, French secularism, and a post Christendom attitude with consciousness of Christian heritage. It creates a rather mixed picture. I have never encountered a constructive dialogue around faith and development in that context.
You have mentioned partnership. How does that work and how do you conceive it?
We work with a wide range and different kinds of churches. While we provide assistance to any beneficiaries, our main partners tend to be evangelical Christian partners around the world. The majority are Christian NGO entities, but we are working increasingly with church denominations. It is not always easy to work directly with local churches but we are developing ways to do so, working on church mobilization, and we have lots of materials that deal with this. We prepare, for example, biblically based materials about development issues. We take churches through bible based courses, that might, for example, highlight messages about service to your neighbor. They are an encouragement to practical reflection and to community mobilization. Quite often the development work we fund comes out of those processes—for example projects for education or water supply. We are very much committed to processes of community engagement in planning and shaping programs.
How do you define or frame the term evangelical, which can have quite different significance in different places?
I wish we could find another word! The meaning of evangelical is very much a live debate in the UK. It is understood sometimes as suggesting approaches that are right wing, and associated with the war in Iraq, and thus rather negative. But indeed, the heart of our commitment is to the scripture, and evangelical is an apt word for that.
Tearfund has been working on a new basis of faith statement. A theological panel has been working on this, expanding our integral mission basis of faith—for example to highlight our commitment to justice and the environment.
Would you describe your tent as large or small?
Probably medium! In practice, we want to reach out to a wide range of people and Christians. We do considerable work with Pentecostals, but not so much with African Independent Churches (AICs), though probably most because of lack of knowledge about them. Nonetheless, there might be concerns about their theological stance in some cases.
As far as the Catholic Church is concerned, we do have quite a few Catholic supporters. In the UK, with CAFOD, Christian Aid and Tearfund, there does tend to be a considerable degree of market segmentation by denomination and theological stance, but it is not rigid or absolute. We generally do not work in explicit partnerships with other international NGOs. But we find ourselves often working in the same areas as the ACT and CARITAS networks; we tend to move in a more evangelical direction, though we are not dogmatic. After the tsunami, we found some interesting responses, for example among very Catholic populations in southern India, where the Salvation Army emerged as an important Tearfund-funded partner working with Catholic parishes.
What are Tearfund's main areas of emphasis? For example, are you much involved in work on malaria?
We are involved with malaria, but not very actively; it tends to be part of broader health and nutrition programs. We have two central priorities: HIV and AIDS, and environmental sustainability. We work actively on primary health care, in that context.
Our work on the environment tends to be organized around advocacy, and we have a large advocacy directorate. Tearfund was a leading development organization on climate change in the early period, speaking above all to its likely impact on poor communities. We have been and remain a leading advocate for adaptation and continue to position the organization in that area. We support project work that is directed to livelihood development, food security, and small forestry schemes, for example. We anticipate that there will be considerably more funding in these areas.
How far and how have you encountered the development corruption issue?
We have defined four global advocacy themes, which include economic justice and trade, especially involving European partnerships. We are currently launching a new theme on corruption and governance, because it is an issue that is raised by partners at all levels.
What are major issues that are of concern to you? What would you suggest that the upcoming consultation focus on?
The issue that is most on our minds, is the role of churches in development work, especially local churches. We are very much invested in these issues. And for us the bottom line is delivery, and the quality of assistance.
This presents issues like the capacity of local churches, the priority they should give to poverty issues, and the dilemmas that arise around resources that come in for development work. There are many practical questions that arise in looking at the balance between working with NGOs, or a more grass roots, church-focused approach. What are respective roles in the implementation of development programs?
The church is indeed civil society in remote villages, and we are pushing the discussion of what that implies. We are looking for good examples, but also examples of where it has gone wrong. We have seen churches do extraordinary things.
I remember a church in northern Rwanda, where I met a woman who had been on a course that Tearfund offered and was determined afterwards to go back to her community and get her hands dirty. She organized a water scheme run by the women, and then the men were galvanized, and started a home building program for the poorest members of the community. I was part of an amazing worship service, with a wonderful spiritual vitality, and it was evident that the community life was being improved. It was a picture of what an empowered church could do. And the community was thinking of another village nearby, and what they might do to help there.
What are policy issues that arise in this context?
The question of how international institutions are relating to faith and faith institutions is a fascinating one. When I was at DFID, I had a relationship with UNAIDS, at a time when DFID had doubled its subscription. After joining Tearfund, I suggested to Peter Piot that we do some joint research to learn more about faith-based institutions work in the area. Our conversation led to joint research in eastern and southern Africa, the results of which are about to appear. Looking at three countries, Kenya, DRC, and Malawi, the question is how churches were relating to donors, governments, and national HIV/AIDS strategies.
In policy terms there is a tendency for evangelicals to be somewhat isolated. Tearfund is trying to be out there in mainstream debates, but still does tend to be somewhat removed.
We tend to encounter policy issues of concern to the development community particularly in the context of big disaster programs. We are committed to honoring the terms under which we receive their resources, which include explicit restrictions on religious activity. It is sometimes hard to be a Christian agency, working, for example, in Afghanistan and Darfur. It is a challenge to our staff, and there will be quite different responses to a question about how it affects them. And, in fact, in some countries, like Afghanistan or North Sudan, most of our staff on the ground are Muslim. Our core objective is to be a model of an institution with integrity. We discuss and work through the implications of our values with our staff. And there are many issues that have values implications, including how we can deliver, when we should pull out, what degree of risk we should accept, and so on. For us, the bottom line is delivery of support to poor communities.
How does Tearfund engage in debates about human rights? How might Tearfund compare, for example, to the rights-based approach of an agency like CARE International?
We do, but often with different language, and not in classic human rights terms. We tend to become involved particularly in issues around children and child rights. We tend to be less involved in the rights of Christian communities, and we do not see ourselves as a human rights agency, like Amnesty. We do, though, find ourselves in environments where relations among communities are at issue.
DFID would have a rights based approach rather similar to that of CARE but ours is rather different. We tend to focus most on an accountability framework, and our concern is that individuals have a stronger say in programs that serve them and in how they are run. We are trying to be accountable to them in a more effective way.
Tearfund has recently been accredited—the first NGO in Britain to be so—by the Humanitarian Accountability Partnership, and we take pride in that.
There are some sensitivities that discussions of rights can bring out. In some respects, Tearfund takes what we consider to be biblical positions but which challenge the church, say on gender and condom issues. Every organization has a different mix.
Coming back to children, rights have many practical dimensions, for example how to deal with child soldiers, abuse, child brides, providing education to working children. Do we want to address these issues? We answer yes. We also have to be sure our own child protection system is in order.
