WFDD Programs & Projects
World Faiths Development Dialogue (WFDD) is a not-for-profit organization working at the intersection of religion and global development. With many mutual interests, WFDD is housed at the Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs and collaborates with them in their Religion and Global Development program. Katherine Marshall serves as the executive director of WFDD and is also a senior fellow at the Berkley Center. WFDD's programs investigate the engagement of religious actors and the role of religion in various development areas such as gender, health, education, and conflict and peacebuilding.
The Berkley Center's Religion and Global Development program, in close collaboration with the
World Faiths Development Dialogue (WFDD), tracks the engagement of religious communities and faith-inspired organizations around global policy challenges and brings together stakeholders to examine best practices and advance collaboration.
AHA! (Awareness with Human Action) is a European Union funded consortium project, with WFDD and seven other international and national partner organizations, led by the Network of Religious and Traditional Peacemakers. The project focuses on COVID-19 and peace-building in South Asia. The aim is to adopt an integrated, holistic, and multi-stakeholder approach to address the pandemic, disinformation, and hate speech, primarily through strategic involvement of community influencers. The project’s overall objective is to contribute to the response efforts of the COVID-19 pandemic by preventing conflict and building social cohesion in Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, and broader South Asia.
WFDD leads the continuing learning and development efforts by producing country case reviews, key person interviews, country and regional level policy briefs and situation reports, and training personnel. WFDD assisted in the selection of 45 community leaders and influencers from Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka and 5 community leaders and influencers from the region who have received financial and logistic support. The fellows engaged at the community level through processes like confidence-building, dialogue, capacity-building and initiatives aiming to increase awareness on COVID-19 including factual information and countering the spread of misinformation.
The World Faiths Development Dialogue in collaboration with Georgetown University’s Berkley Center for Religion, Peace and World Affairs and the Centre for Peace and Justice at BRAC University are engaged in a three-year research project entitled “Bangladesh: Religious Dimensions of Development and Social Cohesion.” This project explores the faith dimensions of development and social cohesion and supports coalitions that work in practical ways to foster peace and interfaith understanding. The corresponding development topics for each project year are education, gender, and climate change/youth.
WFDD’s central goal is to create research materials that support national-level advocacy and inspire collaborative dialogue among secular and faith actors, policymakers, and development institutions that often operate separately, but have important shared objectives and values.
This page spotlights interviews conducted in conjunction with WFDD's investigation into the links between faith and development in Cambodia as part of an effort aimed at increasing understanding of faith-inspired development work, and of identifying issues and challenges that could be addressed in order to further progress towards development goals.
The birth of a baby can be life’s most exciting miracle; the death of a mother or child, a chilling tragedy. Ensuring that families have access to reproductive health information and services and can achieve the healthy timing and spacing of pregnancy is an important goal in international health and development. Many faith traditions and denominations, as well as their religious leaders and adherents, support family planning, and essentially all faith traditions support the concept of healthy timing and spacing of pregnancy. While areas of lively debate remain, particularly regarding different approaches toward youth, FIOs and faith leaders serve as essential providers and promoters of family planning services. WFDD explores the complexity of this issue across the globe, as well as at the country level, to fill gaps of knowledge regarding permissibly of family planning methods and the involvement of faith actors.
In both the past and present, and in virtually every world region, widely varied religious actors play crucial roles in health care. Faith institutions and groups run clinics, hospitals, and facilities that support families, orphans, handicapped people, the mentally ill, and older people. In communities, leaders and individuals communicate vital messages about health and provide sustained, hands-on care for the sick. Yet many international health institutions and some governments have paid scant attention to faith-inspired organizations (FIOs), and their potential impact has not been tapped in any systematic fashion. This program highlights the work of faith-inspired health actors to better understand their motivation, strengths, areas for growth, and collaboration with larger health systems.
"How does faith or religion affect your work?" This series of almost 400 interviews addresses this question with a wide range of development actors across the world. The assembled in-depth conversations with activists, religious leaders, and policy specialists examine best practices and collaborative strategies across a range of contemporary challenges. Interviews focus on country and regional issues and on leading development topics, including women and peacebuilding, health, education, housing, governance, and gender. View our most recent interviews below.
Although much of the world's population participates in religious communities, faith organizations and interfaith networks have historically had quite modest impact on contemporary global agendas. Faith communities often play vital roles at local and national levels, but at the global level their influence across a range of transnational issues – from climate change and public health to war and peace–are less prominent. This project works with strategic partners to explore how interfaith networks can engage more effectively with international organizations, NGOs, and governments, with a focus on achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
Sports captures energies and imaginations; it also highlights core values that are often universal. Sports is thus a powerful tool for the critical global goals of peace and development. The World Sports Values Program has organized international symposia aimed at highlighting the positive roles that sport can play in furthering the cause of peace and human development. The goal of these gatherings is to facilitate a visionary and rigorous conversation among young athletes, leaders, academics, and experts about the values that the world of sport can advance. The program is sponsored by the International Sports Promotion Society and Worldwide Support for Development.
