It was noted that working with the UK's Department for International Development (DFID) presented some singular challenges for Faith Based Organisations (FBOs) and Faith Communities (FCs), and in particular getting them to understand the distinctives within faith based responses to health needs such as HIV.
Two members of the group highlighted how internationally, through President Obama, WHO, the Partnership Unit of UNAIDS and others, faith has become a key issue in international health and development circles, but this has had relatively limited traction in the UK. The difficulty is not just one of evidence of a tangible difference made by FBOs, it is also one of world view and culture – most donors are driven by managerial, input/output approaches to health and development, whilst most FCs and FBOs come from a different world view, that is usually more relational, community, behaviour/lifestyle and values oriented. As a consequence most FBOs either buy into the donors world view for the sake of funding (and run the risk of losing their distinctive faith dimension in the process, becoming indistinguishable from secular development agencies) or they bypass donors and strategic bodies, operating independently, but keeping their faith based distinctives.
If we are going to engage with DFID (which seems to be where the FWG could make a singular contribution - there already being much work on engagement between faith and other bodies being done elsewhere), then we need to enter into a dialogue with them, and explore with them the specific dimensions that faith brings to the table that are distinctive, both in approach, practice and impact.
In light of the Pope’s recent visit to the UK, and his speeches that challenged the churches in the UK to be more engaged with society, and challenging society to allow space for faith and belief in the public square, alongside the positive speech from David Cameron (and other voices within the coalition, such as Baroness Warsi) it would suggest that, in the UK at least now is the time to make such an engagement.
World AIDS Conference – Vienna
Those who had been in Vienna in August reported back. Some encouraging advocacy with Pharma – encouraging more of the big drug companies to sign up to the Patent Pool, and some good networking opportunities. The big issue seemed to be the increasing emphasis, from USAID and the Obama administration on health systems strengthening rather than AIDS as a unique focus, and how this was feeding through into wider strategy and funding priorities from other major donors.
The Ecumenical Pre-Conference was really multi-faith, only one day, and as a result far too broad, large and brief to be of much value. African voices were not much heard (the focus seemed to be more on intravenous drug users , commercial sex workers and men who have sex with men), and there was an overall feeling that the whole conference is now so large that it is of very limited value for the vast majority of participants.
Question marks were being raised about the value of the 2012 Washington D.C Conference, although there were plans to restore the faith based pre-conference to three days. See earlier posts reporting back from various other faith groups at the Vienna Conference for some wider perspective
Faith Based Advocacy
In a wide ranging discussion on the theme, several key points were raised.
Faith leaders have a huge impact on behaviour, and FCs on the whole put an emphasis on ‘orthopraxis’ (right behaviour) as much as they do on ‘orthodoxy’ (right beliefs). As a consequence, being able to talke to faith leaders in their own terms and own language to help them see the value they can bring to tackling HIV by promoting behaviour change can be highly effective and reaching a whole community. And often those communities are ones that secular groups find it hard to access – e.g. Muslim women in rural areas.
Advocacy to governments and international bodies can only come from our engagement on the ground – seeing the issues ‘at the coal face’, and so being able to present real cases and real solutions gives us a very strong voice. But advocacy that just changes policy and not behaviour of individuals or practices within a community is of very limited value.
However, many FCs, FBOs and religious leaders are anxious about advocacy because it can seem political and confrontational, and in some cases, e.g. where a certain FC is a marginalised or persecuted minority, it could rightly be perceived as dangerous. However, there are ways of addressing these concerns and going back into tradition, scripture and the spiritual dimension to address advocacy needs.
One story was recounted of getting a group of Ethiopian church leaders together to start to self identify needs in their communities and what they could do to address them. Without prompting they identified female genital mutilation (FGM) as not only a problem to be addressed, but one that they as male church leaders had overlooked. This led to a spontaneous act of public repentance, a lengthy prayer meeting followed be discussions on actions that could be taken to change attitudes to FGM, and subsequently they have been active in working to end the practice in their communities ever since. They could see the need, could see from scripture that this was one they needed to address and there was a leading of the Holy Spirit to change. This is not the sort of advocacy a secular group would have felt comfortable or able to facilitate, but it was one that a Christian organisation was able to.
AHPN shared how they were now working with Christian and Muslim leaders of the African Diaspora in the UK to address HIV and other health issues amongst the African expatriate communities of Britain, and were already seeing the huge influence of these leaders in changing behaviour and attitudes.
It was agreed that these discussions were opening up some of the areas where the British faith communities and FBOs should start a dialogue with DFID and the British Government.
