Global development professionals may have to think harder about the language they use when engaging with faith-based groups and faith communities around the world.
Western aid workers and donors often use the term “human rights” when confronting religiously sensitive issues such as LGBTI rights, family planning, and empowerment of women and girls. But while the term represents an important ideal shared by aid workers and religious leaders alike, it is seen within some communities of faith “as the west trying to impose cultural values on another part of the world,” according to John Blevins, acting director and associate research professor at the Interfaith Health Program at the Rollins School of Public Health at Emory University.
There is growing consensus among development institutions that boosting economic growth and tackling poverty can’t be accomplished without partnerships with the world’s religious communities and faith-based organizations. Successful partnerships between faith-based groups and big development donors prove that such collaboration works — even around faith-sensitive issues.