KEY TAKEAWAYS
KEY TAKEAWAYS
Last September, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) released its first-ever strategic religious engagement (SRE) policy. During its first year, the framework has won praise from a wide range of policymakers and diplomats. Not only does the policy affirm the critical role of religious actors as partners in advancing shared development and peacebuilding goals, but it also provides guidance for collaboration with these religious communities and faith-based organizations (FBOs).
However, the policy’s first anniversary calls for more than merely marking this important step toward institutionalizing expertise and capacity related to SRE. It offers a critical opportunity to reflect and consider how SRE has developed in recent years, and where it still needs to go.
USAID’s strategic religious engagement policy is just one example of the growing wave of governmental and multilateral organizations deliberately and systematically engaging with faith partners.
Several national governments — including the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom — now support initiatives to explore and encourage faith-based collaborations. The World Economic Forum includes engagement with religious leaders, interfaith groups and FBOs as part of its Civil Society Community. And the U.N. Interagency Task Force on Religion and Sustainable Development has encouraged outreach, support and collaboration with faith partners for over a decade.
Behind the burgeoning interest in SRE is the idea that faith-based actors’ participation will contribute to more inclusive and sustainable peace and development outcomes. Several reports and studies demonstrate how religious leaders, communities and institutions represent high-yield partners because of their preexisting and often deep-rooted networks and organizational structures that allow them to engender trust and increase capacity. For example, just this past May, the Adventist Development and Relief Agency swiftly mobilized cleanup efforts following an oil spill off the coast of Tobago.
Religious actors are often well-motivated partners, driven by their religious convictions and direct experience with poverty and armed conflict.
In addition, religious actors are often well-motivated partners, driven by their religious convictions and direct experience with poverty and armed conflict. For instance, in Nigeria, Imam Muhammad Ashafa and Pastor James Wuye are now well known for turning away from violence and promoting peace as a response to both their religious beliefs and personal experience.
Furthermore, the vast majority of the global population still identifies as religious, which has allowed faith leaders and institutions to remain highly influential in many societies and local communities. During the Troubles, for instance, faith leaders in Northern Ireland played a pivotal role in mediating between competing factions because they had shared deeply in their communities’ lives and gained people’s trust over the course of decades.
The monitoring and evaluation (M&E) of SRE projects and programs, however, has not kept pace with policymakers’ and practitioners’ burgeoning interest in faith-based partnerships.
Many reports and analyses, including those presented at the 2020 USAID Evidence Summit on Strategic Religious Engagement, document the wide and diverse range of projects now being implemented with religious communities and FBOs.
Far less attention has been paid to systematically evaluating why, and under what conditions, such initiatives do or do not contribute to their intended outcomes. As a consequence, the current evidence base on SRE draws attention to how faith actors can serve as a power for peace. But we still lack a firm understanding of when and why SRE matters.
This neglect is surprising, given that M&E practices have become an established method for addressing growing demand for evidence-based practices in the development and peacebuilding fields. Through the collection and analysis of reliable and valid data, M&E resources can contribute to accountability for a broad range of projects and programs, help policymakers and practitioners systematically demonstrate impact, and inform organizational learning.
Yet, there remains a dearth of M&E tools aimed at assessing the distinct dynamics, nuances and efficacy of religious engagement. This omission is not only problematic because it obscures SRE’s contributions to development and peacebuilding outcomes. It also fuels criticism, as opponents continue to question the evidence base, or lack thereof, that underpins the recent boom in SRE activities.
To continue advancing the practice of SRE, we also need to improve the way we monitor, evaluate and learn from it. Two recent initiatives demonstrate the promise of developing M&E tools to specifically evaluate the impact of projects and programs that engage with religious actors, institutions, organizations and communities.
To continue advancing the practice of SRE, we also need to improve the way we monitor, evaluate and learn from it.
The Common Ground Approach to Religious Engagement from Search for Common Ground walks practitioners through monitoring and evaluation best practices and points to distinct opportunities and challenges in partnering with faith actors. Meanwhile, the CDA Collaborative Learning Projects and the Alliance for Peacebuilding have developed a framework specifically for assessing the success of inter-religious peacebuilding activities.
These two frameworks are a critical first step toward thinking more systematically about collecting and analyzing information on SRE projects. They highlight M&E best practices and the distinct dimensions of faith-sensitive evaluation processes. But they are far from the last
(or only) tools needed to build and evaluate an evidence base for SRE.
At USIP, we are responding to the need for a more robust set of M&E resources by developing the Strategic Religious Engagement Evaluation Toolkit (StREET). This resource will complement and extend existing M&E frameworks by providing: a detailed guide of how to plan and implement nine key phases of an M&E process through an SRE lens; sample tools (e.g., M&E matrix) adapted for SRE activities; and examples of these resources for a wide range of SRE activities. StREET will help governmental and non-governmental organizations develop and evaluate their faith-based partnerships more efficiently and effectively, incorporate lessons learned into future projects, and enhance the evidence base for SRE.
However, just like the other M&E frameworks, StREET is intended to be a starting point, not an end. Practitioners will be able to adapt and extend the StREET framework to the particular contexts in which they operate. In doing so, we can collectively advance both the delivery of peacebuilding programs and our understanding of when, where and why faith-based partnerships can add to, and even amplify, those activities.
Charity Beam is a program assistant for the religion and inclusive societies team at USIP.