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Agents of transformation? donors, faith-based organisations and international development

2007; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 28; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/01436590601081880

1360-2241

Gerard Clarke,

International Development and Aid

Abstract Recent donor discourse points to the potential of faith-based organisations (fbos) as ‘agents of transformation’, mobilising the moral energy of faith communities in support of the Millennium Developments Goals (mdgs). This new donor-driven agenda, however, invites scrutiny of complementary processes of organisational change within donor institutions. This article therefore examines donor policy and practice concerned with engagement with fbos. While considering the work of a number of donors, it focuses on the UK Department for International Development (dfid) and traces the reasons for dfid's growing interest in fbos from 1997. It examines the challenges which dfid faces in further developing this engagement and considers whether it and others donors can themselves become ‘agents of transformation’, embracing a less material and less secular vision of well-being and a more culturally inclusive approach to partnership. In contrast to recent scholarship, which presents a benign view of the emerging ‘faith and development’ interface, this article considers it as a controversial new Zeitgeist in development policy and discourse. Notes I am grateful to all the members of the Swansea-Lampeter team involved in the dfid research in 2004 – 05, especially Alan Rew, Sarah James, Mike Jennings, Maya Warrier and Dawoud El-Alami. I am also grateful to Mohammed Kroessin and Mike Battcock for valuable assistance. I remain responsible, however, for any mistakes or omissions here. 1 In 1980, for instance, a special issue of World Development explored the interface between religion and development and proposed a significant research agenda which went largely unnoticed in the development studies community. 2 B Wilson, Religion in Sociological Perspective, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992, p 49. See also D Herbert, Religion and Civil Society: Rethinking Public Religion in the Contemporary World, Aldershot: Ashgate, 2003. 3 Terms used with reference to international relations theory by E Luttwak, ‘The missing dimension’, in D Johnston & C Sampson (eds), Religion: The Mission Dimension in Statecraft, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994. 4 J Casanova, Public Religions in the Modern World, Chicago, IL: Chicago University Press, 1994. 5 M Jurgensmeyer, The New Cold War? Religious Nationalism Confronts the Secular State, Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1993. 6 M Juergensmeyer, Terror in the Mind of God: The Global Rise of Religious Violence, Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2003. 7 See, for instance, D Belshaw, R Calderisi & C Sugden (eds), Faith in Development: Partnership between the World Bank and the Churches in Africa, Washington, DC: World Bank and Oxford: Regnum Books, 2001; K Marshall & R Marsh (eds), Millennium Challenges for Development and Faith Institutions, Washington, DC: World Bank, 2003; and K Marshall & L Keough (eds), Mind, Heart and Soul in the Fight Against Poverty, Washington, DC: World Bank, 2004. 8 See, for instance, D Narayan, R Chambers, MK Shah & P Petesch, Voices of the Poor: Crying out for Change, Washington, DC: World Bank and New York: Oxford University Press, 2000. 9 See, for instance, Journal of Religion in Africa, 32 (1), 2002 (special issue on Christian and Islamic ngos in contemporary Africa); Development, 46 (4), 2003 (special issue on Religion and Development); W Tyndale, ‘Faith and economics in “development”: a bridge across the chasm?’, Development in Practice, 10 (1), 2000, pp 9 – 18; and KA Ver Beek, ‘Spirituality: a development taboo’, Development in Practice, 10 (1), 2000, pp 31 – 43. 10 The research was carried out by a team from the Centre for Development Studies, University of Wales Swansea, and the Department of Theology and Religion Studies, University of Wales Lampeter. Interviews were carried out by Gerard Clarke, Alan Rew and Sarah James. 11 dfid's budget in 2003/04 was £3965 million. National Statistics, Statistics on International Development 99/00 – 03/04, London: National Statistics, 2004. Staff figure from www.dfid.gov.uk, accessed February 2005. 12 For further discussion of some of the themes from the dfid study, see G Clarke, ‘Faith matters: faith-based organisations, civil society and international development’, Journal of International Development, 18 (6), 2006, pp 835 – 848. 13 According to the former Archbishop of Canterbury, for instance, faith leaders have ‘to admit that sometimes we encourage [material] poverty by focusing on spiritual poverty and maybe confusing the two’. Dr George Carey, Opening Remarks, Leaders' Meeting on Faith and Development, Canterbury, October 2002, World Bank transcript. See also Marshall & Marsh, Millennium Challenges for Development and Faith Institutions, p 29. 14 Marshall & Keough, Mind, Heart and Soul in the Fight against Poverty, p 1. 15 See, for instance, Belshaw et al, Faith in Development; Marshall & Marsh, Millennium Challenges for Development and Faith Institutions; Marshall & Keough, Mind, Heart and Soul in the Fight against Poverty; and M Palmer & V Findlay, Faith in Conservation: New Approaches to Religion and Conservation, Washington, DC: World Bank, 2003. 16 For the full text of the Millennium Declaration, see www.un.org/millennium/summit.htm. For details of the mdgs, see www.un.org/millenniumgoals/index.html. 17 Cf Marshall & Keough, Mind, Heart and Soul in the Fight against Poverty, p 4. 18 Ibid, p 7. 19 Published as a three-volume series, including Narayan et al, Voices of the Poor. 20 Ibid, p 222. 21 Ibid. 22 D Narayan, ‘Voices of the poor’ in Belshaw et al, Faith in Development, p 47. 23 C Short, ‘After September 11: what global challenges lie ahead’, in Marshall & Marsh, Millennium Challenges for Development and Faith Institutions, pp 8 – 9. 24 Ibid. 25 Anonymous interviews. 26 Remarks by James Wolfensohn, Leaders' Meeting on Faith and Development, Canterbury, October 2002, World Bank transcript. 27 Or the ‘Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act’, to give it its proper title. 28 22 CFR Parts 202, 205, 211 and 226, at http://www.usaid.gov/our_work/global_partnerships/fbci/fbocomments_101304.doc, accessed March 2006. 29 The ruling contains a usaid summary of objections received during a consultation stage and the usaid response. 30 Cf D Dedayan, ‘Faith-based initiatives: more than politics’, Washington, DC: Institute for Global Engagement, 2004, at www.globalengagement.org, accessed July 2005; and JP Bartkowski & HA Regis, Charitable Choices: Religion, Race and Poverty in the Post-Welfare Era, New York: New York University Press, 2003, pp 1 – 9. 31 See p 11, footnote 2, of the ruling. 32 Under the ‘Mexico City Policy’ (66 FR 17303). 33 J Hearn, ‘The “invisible”ngo: US evangelical missions in Kenya’, Journal of Religion in Africa, 32 (1), 2002, pp 32 – 60. 34 E Bornstein, ‘Developing faith: theologies of economic development in Zimbabwe’, Journal of Religion in Africa, 32 (1), 2002, pp 4 – 31. 35 P Waldman, ‘Evangelicals give US foreign policy an activist tinge’, Wall Street Journal, 26 May 2004. See also S Moreau, ‘Putting the survey in context’, in JA Siewert & D Welliver (eds), Mission Handbook: US and Canadian Ministries Overseas 2001 – 2003, Wheaton, IL: Evangelism and Mission Information Services, 2000; and AS Moreau, GR Corwin & GB McGee (eds), Introducing World Missions: A Biblical, Historical and Practical Survey, Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2004, pp 283, 285, for equivalent figures for 1996 – 99. Moreau, ‘Putting the survey in context’, for instance, reports income of $2.93 billion over this period. 36 J Millard Burr & Robert O Collins, Alms for Jihad, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006. In particular, see Table 2.1, ‘The Saudi Royal Family and its charitable interests’, p 28. 37 J Burke, Al Qaeda: The True Story of Radical Islam, London: Penguin Books, 2004, p 60. 38 Rachel Ehrenfeld, ‘Saudi dollars and jihad’, Frontpagemag.com, 24 October 2005, citing testimony by former Central Intelligence Agency Director James Woolsey before the US House of Representatives’ Committee on Government Reform in April 2005. 39 See, for instance, ‘Saudi Arabia to fold Al-Haramain and other charities in national commission’, Press Release, Royal Embassy of Saudi Arabia, Washington, DC, 2 June 2004, at www.saudiembassy.net. The government announced that a number of prominent organisations, including the Al-Haramain Islamic Foundation, would be closed and their activities absorbed by the new commission. Until its assets were frozen by the Saudi authorities in 2002 Al-Haramain was the largest Saudi charity working overseas. According to one source, it had offices in 50 countries and, before its closure, ‘printed nearly 15 m copies of Islamic books, established more than 1100 mosques, schools and centers and…dispatched more than 3000 “missionaries”…abroad’. Burr & Collins, Alms for Jihad, pp 38 – 39. 40 A report by the US Government Accounting Office in September 2005, for instance, reported delays in the Saudi National Commission for Relief and Charity Work Abroad becoming fully operational. Ehrenfeld, ‘Saudi dollars and jihad’. 41 In Identity and Violence: The Illusion of Destiny, London: Allen Lane, 2006, Sen rails against ‘religious partitioning’, the analysis of the social world, even implicitly, as a federation of religions or civilisations ‘thereby ignoring all the other ways in which people see themselves’ (p xii). ‘A major source of conflict in the contemporary world’, Sen argues, ‘is the presumption that people can be uniquely categorised based on religion or culture’ (p xv). 42 Indeed, according to Casanova, the USA is unique among advanced Western industrial societies in its experience of ‘a religious fundamentalist movement of societal importance’ in the form of the ‘new Christian right’. Casanova, Public Religions in the Modern World, p 135. 43 Mainly Christian Aid, the Catholic Fund for Overseas Development (cafod) and the Catholic Institute for International Relations (ciir). 44 Anonymous interview. 45 See PL Bergen (ed), The Desecularization of the World: Resurgent Religion and World Politics, Grand Rapids, MI: William B Eerdmans, 1999. 46 Block grants to the main development ngos and the Joint Funding Scheme (jfs), open to a wider range of development ngos, were replaced in 2000 with new funding schemes, including Programme Partnerships Agreements (ppas), the Civil Society Challenge Fund (cscf) and Strategic Grant Agreements (sgas). 47 ‘This fiftieth year you shall make sacred by proclaiming liberty in the land for all its inhabitants. It shall be a jubilee for you’. Book of Leviticus, Chapter 25. 48 For more on the faith-based character of Jubilee 2000, see Marshall & Keough, Mind, Heart and Soul in the Fight against Poverty, pp 35 – 48; and J Wallis, God's Politics: Why the American Right Gets it Wrong and the Left Doesn't Get It, San Fransciso, CA: Harper, 2005, pp 272 – 278. 49 Cf Wallis, God's Politics, pp 271 – 272. 50 The dialogue was accompanied by a government guide, spelling out the steps that government departments were expected to take in developing links to UK faith communities. Working Together: Cooperation Between Government and the Faith Communities, London: Home Office Faith Communities Unit, 2004. 51 For further details of the programme, see http://www.dfid.gov.uk/research/contractsawardedfaithsindev.asp. 52 Since the research was undertaken, dfid has also concluded ppas with World Vision, (a prominent development ngo associated with evangelical and Pentecostal Christianity), and with the Aga Khan Foundation, the official development agency of the Ismaili Muslim diaspora, and its leader, the Aga Khan. 53 Since the research was undertaken, dfid has begun to work more closely with Islamic Relief, especially since Islamic Relief joined the Disasters and Emergencies Committee (dec), the main network of British ngos involved in emergency relief and humanitarian intervention. 54 A tentative conclusion, based on our review of six Strategic Conflict Assessments commissioned by dfid. 55 In 1999/2000, for instance, dfid channelled £195 million through UK csos, equivalent to 7.65% of programme expenditure. In 2003/04 it channelled £220 million, equivalent to 5.54% of programme expenditure, a 28% fall in relative support. Departmental Report 2001, London: Department for International Development, 2001, pp 17, 87; and National Statistics, Statistics on International Development, p 168. The relative fall may be less when funding of csos through dfid country programmes is included. 56 Of the 15 case-studies in Marshall & Marsh, Millennium Challenges for Development and Faith Institutions, and of the 20 in Marshall & Keough, Mind, Heart and Soul in the Fight against Poverty (with significant overlap between the two case-study sets), none is based on experience in South Asia (India, Pakistan and Bangladesh). 57 In sub-Saharan Africa as a whole, the World Bank estimates, faith groups account for 50% of education and health service provision. J Wolfensohn, ‘Millennium challenges for faith and development: new partnerships to reduce poverty and strengthen conservation’, speech to the Interfaith Conference of Metropolitan Washington, 30 March 2004. 58 Over 450 million people survive on less than US$1 a day in four countries in South Asia (India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka). In comparison, 282 million people live on less than a dollar a day in 25 countries in sub-Saharan Africa for which figures are available. Human Development Report 2003: Millennium Development Goals—A Compact among Nations to End Human Poverty, New York: United Nations Development Program and Oxford University Press, pp 199 – 200. 59 According to Mercer, for instance, an internet search on ‘madrassas and terrorism’ in January 2006 revealed 16 347 items. M. Mercer, ‘Madrasas in Bangladesh and Pakistan: bogeyman or blessing?’, paper presented at the third annual colloquium of the Welsh Network of Development Researchers, Gregynog, 25 – 27 January 2006. 60 Christina Lamb, ‘The Pakistan connection’, Sunday Times, 17 July 2005. 61 According to Lamb, some reports suggest that roughly 1% of the estimated 13 000 madrassas in Pakistan support violence. Ibid. 62 In Bangladesh, for instance, almost two million children (45% of them girls) attended 7000 ebtidai (primary level and government-recognised) madrassas in 2003, while millions of other children attend unrecognised pre-primary or primary level madrassas. In Pakistan the figures are uncertain, but commonly quoted estimates point to between 1 million and 1.7 million children in up to 10 000 primary and secondary level madrassas. Mercer, ‘Madrasas in Bangladesh and Pakistan’. 63 The employment opportunities for madrassa students can be significant. In Bangladesh, for instance, up to 950 000 jobs in madrassas, mosques and other institutions (or roughly the total number employed in the public sector) are available to school leavers or graduates with a religious training. Ibid. 64 This situation is changing slowly. dfid's £26 million Girl's Education Project in Nigeria, launched in December 2004, focuses on state provision but also works with non-state providers, especially with Islamiyya, an organisation which runs schools combining secular and Islamic education. ‘Education project launched in Nigeria’, 9 December 2004, News section, at www.dfid.gov.uk. 65 Wallis, God's Politics, pp 270 – 271. 66 Ibid, p xvi. 67 This avoidance was perhaps more passive than active in the sense that dfid managers did not fully recognise the fact that many fbos were unable to secure dfid funding or to establish institutional relationships with it, partly because of the modalities of its funding programmes but partly because of its implicit secularist orientation. 68 Human Development Report 2004: Cultural Liberty in Today's Diverse World, New York: United Nations Development Programme and Oxford University Press, 2004, p 27. The report suggests that faith is the most important element in cultural exclusion, citing evidence that some 359 million people are disadvantaged or discriminated against on the basis of their faith, which amounts to 70% of the estimated 518 million people world-wide who belong to groups that face some form of cultural exclusion (pp 32 – 33). 69 In 1995, for instance, the UN Commission on Global Governance pointed to distinct attributes of ‘religion-based organisations’ and other csos which complement those of official donor agencies in the context of global governance. Our Global Neighbourhood: The Report of the Commission on Global Governance, New York: Oxford University Press, 1995, pp 32 – 35.