CGD Faith and Development Meetup Raises More Questions Than Answers

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. Department of State, and USAID. (To receive information about future CGD Global Development Meetups, sign up here)Brady gave a great overview of the history of faith communities in international development and spoke about their role today. His main point was to make a case for why understanding their role is vital to our understanding of service delivery in developing countries. Why? Because the scope and scale of what faith communities (faith-based organizations, churches, and other faith groups) are doing in the developing world is huge and varied. Their work in health and education is better-known, but faith communities also work in disaster relief, conflict resolution, and as political advocates, actively engaging in the policy-making process.The discussion drew lots of questions from the well-informed audience. Some of the ones I found most interesting were:

• Why does the World Bank have a separate department for this issue (Development Dialogue on Values and Ethics) when it could be explored under the bank's work on civil society more broadly? Do faith groups merit special consideration apart from other NGOs?
• Should we be concerned that faith-based organizations are by default not evidence-based, as one attendee suggested? Or is divorcing all things faith from all things empirical (read: rational) a false dichotomy?
• How central is the abstinence issue to the debate about faith groups in development? For many, abstinence programs and the perceived reluctance to talk about or distribute condoms colors this conversation. Why? And what actually happens on the ground -- what are FBO's policies on this issue and how much uniformity of opinion (or lack of) is there in the faith community?
• Many believe FBOs do a great job at development work at "bargain-basement prices" (see Nick Kristof's piece in the New York Times Bush, a Friend of Africa). But even when that is the case, does funding them (to build schools and hospitals, etc.) ultimately hamper the ability of national governments to build capacity?

I think study of faith-based organizations is needed -- their role is complex and controversial yet little is known about what really happens on the ground. And I think the dichotomy between faith on the one hand, and the "facts" on the other, is indeed false and misleading. But who knows? Without evidence, we have little to draw upon but our own anecdotes and experiences.