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.

Since 2006 the Berkley Center and World Faiths Development Dialogue have conducted a multi-year survey of critical issues at the intersection of religion and development. Project publications and associated events track the engagement of faith-inspired organizations around a set of core policy challenges, with an emphasis on common problems, ethical commitments, and best practices. To date the project has addressed Ebola, gender, governance, HIV/AIDS, malaria, maternal mortality, shelter, tuberculosis, and water and sanitation. Project research has also resulted in a series of policy briefs that examine the role of faith-based organizations and topics including: corruption, the WASH agenda, human trafficking in Cambodia, aid effectiveness, immunization, malaria, and reducing maternal mortality. Ongoing work continues, following recommendations to develop teaching case studies, further in-depth country level studies, focused exploration of crossing cutting issues, and wider, better, and sharper communication and outreach strategies. This project was originally launched through the Luce/SFS Program on Religion and International Affairs.

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.

As part of a multi-year survey the Berkley Center and the World Faiths Development Dialogue are mapping the activities of faith-inspired organizations across world regions and countries. Through a series of reports, in-depth interviews with practitioners, international workshops, and web resources, the mapping project charts organizations anchored in particular faith traditions or with ecumenical or interfaith approaches that are engaged in global development agendas, including poverty relief, education, and the struggle against HIV/AIDS and malaria. This project was originally launched through the Luce/SFS Program on Religion and International Affairs.

Various institutions have pursued decidedly stop-start patterns as they engage with religious actors, leaving wide gaps between a theoretical appreciation that strategic religious engagement (SRE) is vital and meaningful action, where it counts. Obstacles to SRE include fractious interreligious relationships, but also studied ignorance, indifference, and preconceptions that block full partnership. Bridging divides between religious and development actors needs to contend with misinformation, prejudice, and knowledge gaps.

A three-year project (July 2023-June 2026) supported by the Templeton Religion Trust focuses on four different, distinctively plural countries: Ghana, Philippines, Senegal, and Sri Lanka. Working with the four countries will allow a comparative approach and offer examples of religious pluralism at play. The aim is to strengthen strategic religious engagement and practical operational models, focusing on the thematic areas of education and support for society’s most vulnerable. 

• Education: Parallel systems and disagreements around religious education stymie efforts to address underlying aspects of living in plural societies. Our approach to education ranges from advancing religious and intercultural literacy to engaging with pluralism within both religiously run and secular education systems. 
• Support for the vulnerable: Religious organizations have historically focused sharply on what is termed social protection: supporting orphans, the hungry, the sick, and others who suffer. These religious approaches are, however, notably absent in much contemporary analysis of this dynamic development sector. Pandemic emergencies have sparked intensive reflections on the social safety nets that protect vulnerable people.

The four countries face both challenges and openings for active religious engagement in their future development. Work will center on analysis of past and present trends, intensive dialogue, and pilot activities. Action programs with different actors, religious and non-religious, aim to secure clear “seats at the policy tables” for diverse religious actors. The project can pave the way towards better collaboration on the often-difficult questions, practical and ethical, surrounding religion and development.

The World Faiths Development Dialogue is the project lead, with support from the Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs at Georgetown University and the Joint Learning Initiative for Faith and Local Communities.

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.