Last week CGD hosted a Global Development Meetup event on faith and development with Brady Walkinshaw of the Development Dialogue on Values and Ethics at the World Bank. The event was well-attended, with guests from the Jubilee USA Network, Church World Service, Search for Common Ground, the Inter-American Dialogue, the U.S.
The role of faith-based organizations (FBOs) in development can be contentious. Some consider faith in itself unempirical or irrational and thus unintelligent. Some think faith groups base their programs and policies on feelings rather than facts. Others worry that FBOs do not respect peoples' local beliefs and customs; they shudder at the thought of someone demanding conversion in exchange for life-saving medicine.
Talking about religion, or faith to use a more general term, is about as popular a thing to do as overpaying your taxes, especially in the policy world. We shy away from the topic because of the personal, sometimes intense, reaction it elicits and, I suspect, because faith feels a little soft, emotional, even anti-intellectual when compared with hard political and economic realities. But since faith impacts U.S. policy, it is a conversation we ought to be having.
When I told my co-workers I was going to an event called "Fashion Fights Poverty" (co-sponsored by the United Nations