Statement at the Policy Round Table with Faith-Based Organizations

Distinguished faith-based partners,
Dear colleagues and friends,

Good morning to you all. It gives me great pleasure to welcome you to UNFPA, the United Nations Population Fund, and to this Policy Round Table with Faith-Based Organizations.

Thank you all for coming. It means a lot to all of us here at UNFPA. And it means a lot to me personally because I believe that faith, as a critical part of culture, is an indispensable element of human development.

When I first took this office, the then-Secretary-General, Kofi Annan, asked me what I thought I could bring to UNFPA. Given the legacy of my predecessor, Dr. Nafis Sadik, who had contributed to redefining global understanding of population and development—from counting people to making people count—from ignoring the critical role of women to placing them centrally in the entire population and development agenda, and from an exclusive focus on statistics and data, to one that ensured that the welfare of each person, as well as that of the family, was placed at the centre of accounting for the data. My response to Mr. Annan then was, “mine will be the task of ensuring that culture is part of development…and that together with gender and human rights, we will have a new paradigm for development”.

Unlike many of our development counterparts, I set up an office for culture, within the gender and human rights branch in our then-Technical Support Division. Our technical research and programmatic experience over the years has shown us repeatedly that, at the root of poverty—the greatest developmental challenge—lies a complex nexus which structures how people think, believe and behave (i.e. culture), that defines relations between men and women in society and their access to resources and opportunities (i.e. gender equality), and, therefore, impacts on the enjoyment of human rights. To bring about sustainable human development without tackling these three root causes is akin to attempting to dive into the deep sea with no clue about swimming.

When we talk about culture, we acknowledge that for the majority of the world’s people, faith—in its varied and heterogeneous forms—constitutes an important part of cultures. We also know that there is much in the basic tenets of all religions that bring people together rather than keep them apart.

When we in UNFPA made a case for engaging faith, we knew of the profound moral authority that religious leaders have, and we were all aware of the fact that religious organizations are the oldest social service providers humankind has known.

Our partners in the World Health Organization, more specifically acknowledging the important work of Ted Karpft and Alex Ross, showed us that 30-60 per cent of basic health-care services around the developing world are being provided by faith-based organizations (FBOs).

And our World Bank colleagues point out that in some instances, these services, in the health and in the education fields, can even be better than those provided by governments. And here I also want to acknowledge Katherine Marshall’s leadership on this since the mid-1990s and to welcome Quentin Wodon’s new arrival on this important scene.

Given these quantitative and qualitative realities and the critical personal and community-based connection between the people and the faith-based organization centres providing services, we realized that to become strategic and sustainable, we needed to engage these critical service providers.

We believe that this engagement has to be systematic, deliberate, and focused. But it must also be studied, informed, and tactical. Ad-hoc partnerships, and ones where the United Nations is a donor and the faith-based organization is one of many civil society partners, can be lost opportunities. Why a lost opportunity? Because a studied approach, where we critically re-examine the way we do culturally sensitive development, how we can better reach the poorest and most vulnerable, and especially the way we assess and evaluate qualitative impact, is an opportunity to enhance results-based partnerships. It is also an opportunity to ensure the achievement of human rights.

And that is why we are here today in a policy round table. We have already gathered your field-based colleagues—and our country and regional offices—in Africa, Asia-Pacific, Latin America and the Caribbean, the Arab states and globally, and we have discussed the areas of joint mutual interest: HIV and AIDS, women’s empowerment, maternal health, migration, humanitarian relief, youth reproductive health, and gender-based violence. In each of these important consultations, you gave us a list of concrete recommendations for action, which my colleague, Aminata Toure, the Chief of the Branch I referred to earlier, the Gender, Human Rights and Culture Branch, will share with you in more detail. I understand that the full list of recommendations is also enclosed in your files.

We could certainly have come together in UNFPA and decided what to pick and choose of the recommendations, as per our strategic plan, from 2009 to 2013. But we are keen to practice what we preach – consultation and engagement with all of our partners, including faith-based. So, when it comes to setting the priorities for 2010-2013, we want to consult with you.

But allow me to stress the following: we are hereby consulting with you as to which specific recommendations, out of the long list, we can agree to work on, aim towards, and set as a joint target, together. In other words, not only what you will hold us accountable for by 2013—which is important enough. But what we will hold each other accountable to, because we are prioritizing what we will work towards, in partnership.

Why now? This year marks the 15th anniversary of an international conference that guides our work here in UNFPA, the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD). So, this is the year to assess where we are with our agenda, and how we move forward.

The ICPD agenda promotes education and health for all, and places women’s empowerment and gender equality, through a special focus on reproductive health and family planning, at the centre of realizing this. Maternal health, and the prevention of sexually transmitted infections, such as HIV, are life-saving services that are essential to improving public health and achieving development goals, especially MDG5 to improve maternal health, which is the goal lagging the furthest behind.

We are also here today because, now that we have adopted our own Guidelines for Engaging with Faith-based Organizations, based on what you and many other faith-based and United Nations counterparts have advised, it is time to reflect on what we can hold ourselves accountable for doing, and how.

Now, let me share with you how we got to this point – so that all of us reach the same part of the story, together.

This Round table is part of a journey. Building on a three-decade legacy of engaging faith-based organizations, UNFPA carried out a global mapping survey that identified over 100 different partnerships with Christian, Muslim, Buddhist and Hindu organizations in over 75 countries.

At each of the regional consultations with faith-based organizations I noted earlier, participants, representing religious, geographical and institutional diversity, were able to:

1. Share their experiences of working on such themes as women’s empowerment, maternal health, youth empowerment, migrant outreach, humanitarian assistance, and HIV prevention;
2. Share cases of partnership with UNFPA on these issues, lessons learned and success stories;
3. Provide concrete recommendations to enhance the partnerships for better service delivery; and
4. Suggest concrete guidance for the working modality of the Interfaith Network for Population and Development.

The Global Forum in Istanbul in October of 2008, culminated in the launch of the first Global Interfaith Network on Population and Development. The Network reflects the collective commitment of FBOs and religious leaders around the world to work together, as well as with UNFPA, to realize the ICPD agenda.

The basic terms of partnership of the Network are outlined in one of the outcomes of the Forum, the Istanbul Consensus. Not only does the Istanbul Consensus provide grounds to strengthen existing alliances, it also paves the way for future partnerships and collaborations amongst and between faith-based organizations and United Nations agencies and bodies.

The Consensus acknowledges the principle that faiths share the same aims of safeguarding the dignity and human rights of all people, women and men, young and old.

In Istanbul, we also heard that, although we come from different faiths, different regions and different development experiences, we share much in common. We share the common values of compassion, tolerance, respect for differences, and a passion for improving the lives of the people we serve.

We also learned that we differ by necessity when we come to details of planning and implementation, because we come from different spaces. We have different definitions and interpretations. And we see political circumstances differently. We explain conflicts differently. Nevertheless, there we need to dialogue through joint action, to reach ends that ensure the human rights and dignity of all human beings.

The Interfaith Network members stressed the need to continue learning from each other, and from other developmental counterparts, through science-based evidence, information and research. They emphasized that we must be inclusive and strategic in our work, and that we must work on two levels – with mainstream populations, and also with vulnerable and marginalized ones.

We noted the need for technical support to build capacity so that faith-based organizations can better support their constituencies, particularly in terms of the varied services they provide.

Many faith-based organizations’ members stressed that we need strong country and regional alliances to make the interfaith partnerships with the United Nations effective. They also indicated that whether the issues related to amending national legislation, providing services, building schools, roads, clinics, or houses, and whether working together as intra- or interfaith organizations, or indeed partnering with varied agencies and bodies in the United Nations, messaging – and advocacy – remained critical.

That is how we came to the three modalities we have organized the working sessions around:
1. Capacity-building and technical assistance;
2. Knowledge and information; and
3. Advocacy and media.

Since the launching of the Interfaith Network, a range of activities has taken place locally and regionally with our faith-based-organization partners. Here, I will mention a few examples only.

Our colleagues in Eastern Europe and Central Asia were approached by the faith-based organizations, which participated in Istanbul, and urged to host their own regional consultation. Accordingly, a Steering Group composed of the organizations and our regional colleagues has been set up to do the groundwork for this regional gathering at the end of August and early September.

Our Latin American colleagues, together with the Berkley Center's Program on Religion and Global Development in Georgetown University, carried out a mapping and assessment of FBO engagement in the region and convened to share methodologies and best practices.

In Africa, in addition to the already existing Muslim network, a regional consultation amongst the Christian faith-based partners was hosted in Nigeria, to assess the best means of intra-faith organizing around maternal health, gender-based violence, and migration. This is important, given the range of highly effective Christian service providers in the continent. UNFPA is in discussion with the Commonwealth to jointly offer capacity-building human rights training for sub-Saharan faith-based organizations and traditional leaders.

In the Asia-Pacific Region, our country offices have revisited memoranda of understanding with various faith-based partners in light of the Istanbul Consensus, and continue to seek new FBO partners on a wider range of ICPD-related issues. Moreover, together with the International Women-Faith and Development Alliance that we supported, I will be visiting Australia to participate in activities of the Asia-Pacific branch of the Alliance. Also in Asia, we supported two major women of faith initiatives together with Sisters in Islam, and the Women’s Initiative for Spirituality; I believe the leader of that, Ms. Daisy Khan, is also here with us.

To share the many engagements with the Interfaith Network, UNFPA is co-organizing a joint panel presentation at the Parliament of World Religions in Australia. I would like to welcome our UNICEF, UNESCO and UNAIDS partners in this initiative, who are here with us today to reflect jointly on the respective journeys with faith-based organizations.

Back to today and tomorrow. I hope that during our time together, we can be both idealistic and realistic in what we can achieve together. At the very least, I hope we can agree to what constitutes priority areas for joint interventions, under the three modalities noted.

At most, I want us to aim for identifying the specific three to five key programmes that we can work on together, and hold our partnership accountable for, in the coming three years.

In closing, I would like to stress that the Interfaith Network for Population and Development is based on equal partnership, common goals, respect for differences, and tolerance for each others’ points of view. It is about how we can work together to ensure that every birth is wanted, every pregnancy is safe, every young person is free of HIV, and every girl and woman is treated with dignity and respect.

Finally, I would like to thank people of my own house, without whose hard work and commitment, in spite of many challenges, we would not be here today. I would like to take this opportunity to thank Werner Haug, the Director of our Technical Division, who joined UNFPA a year ago and has always supported our partnership with faith-based organizations, and Aminata Toure for her leadership of the Gender, Human Rights and Culture Branch and her commitment to supporting this new area of work. And I would like to appreciate Azza Karam and her team for bringing all of us together today and every day.

Thank you.