Berkley Center

Water is a topic with particular resonance across most faith traditions, recognized as vital to life and health. Its links to agriculture, climate and environment, and industry give it added significance. Sanitation, often neglected, is intricately linked to water. Faith communities are crucial partners in the global effort to assure meet water and sanitation objectives, though their roles are too little understood. As part of its multi-year survey of critical issues at the intersection of religion and development, the Berkley Center has explored the links between global challenges for water and sanitation and the roles of faith communities. Together with the World Faiths Development Dialogue, the Berkley Center hosted a consultation in March 2011 with a group of leading practitioners to explore the different roles that faith actors (leaders, institutions, congregations and ideas) are playing in addressing global water and sanitation issues. Drawing on the insights generated there, a subsequent report reviews the roles that faith-inspired leaders, communities, and organizations play in worldwide efforts to assure universal access to clean water and sanitation.