Research Title: The Review of Faith and International Affairs Supplemental Issue 1- Strategic Religious Engagement in International Development

Research Authors: Chris Seiple, Katherine Marshall, Hugo Slim, Sudipta Roy, Olivia Wikinson, Azza Karam, Peter Mandaville, Adam Nicholas Phillips

Research Publisher: Taylor and Francis

Research Publication date: November 2021

In October, 2020 USAID hosted a conference called Evidence-Based Summit on Strategic Religious Engagement (SRE). The three day event examined research evidence around engagement with religious communities, actors and Faith-based Organizations (FBOs) in humanitarian, development and peacebuilding (HDP) fields to consider implications for USAID policy and practice. The Summit brought together leading experts to review and discuss existing evidence about, experience in, partnering with local religious communities and faith-based organizations in humanitarian, development, and peacebuilding (HDP) initiatives. As a follow-on to USAID’s 2020 Evidence Summit on Strategic Religious Engagement (SRE), the Review of Faith & International Affairs published a special edition to highlight the role of religion in (HDP) efforts. This special edition has a lot of information that may be relevant to the interreligious peacebuilding field. Which is why I thought it would be a good collection of articles to review for our Research Talks blog. 

The open edition of the issue consists of four research papers and response essays produced for USAID’s evidence summit. The first article, Strategic Religious Engagement in International Development: Building a Basic Baseline introduces the special edition of the journal and the articles. It explains that the purpose of the the articles are to:

1. accurately name the state-of-play at the nexus of religion and relief/development;

2. help inform and shape the Summit’s deliberations, as well as future discussions about this complex issue.

This introductory article acknowledges that the original primary audience of the essays are mainly professional USAID staff. However, even though the authors are speaking to an audience of USAID staff, most of their analyses are applicable to all institutions looking to strategically engage with religious communities. The articles are also relevant for scholars and practitioners as well as “any person encountering the field for the first time.” I am therefore looking to provide a summary of relevant findings from the special edition essays, because of its potential utility to scholars and practitioners beyond USAID’s periphery.

In addition to this acknowledgment about the primary audience of the research, I appreciated the authors outlining several caveats and limitations. The authors mention limitations with their approach to understanding the idea of “measurable/quantifiable impact” in HDP field, which they acknowledge is a more “Western approach” and reflects assumptions that are “likely quite secular and skeptical in disposition.” This I’ve found to be especially true. Most “secular” or “non-religious” entities in the HDP find the testimonies, anecdotes, or stories of impact to be not be sufficient or rigorous enough evidence of impact, which may lead to some blindspots and biases in analyses of SRE.

Another limitation that the authors acknowledge is around the “unsatisfactory” answers to the research questions that the collection of essays posed. According to the authors, the papers ask a “wide range of questions,” two of which we will discuss below are: 

1. What are the skills of (strategic religious) engagement? What does it mean to practically partner with someone of a different belief system than yours?

2. What is the difference between religious engagement and “strategic” religious engagement?

In the upcoming paragraphs, I will review the essays to find answers to these two questions as they are most pertinent to expanding understanding of what it means to strategically engage with religious actors and communities. I will however first begin by outlining several ways the essays in the journals define SRE and provide a short reflection on the definition. 

What is Strategic Religious Engagement?

The third article in the series Intrinsic and Strategic Leverage of Religion in Development defines SRE as: 

as an inclusive approach seeking to ensure that religious actors are fully included, along with other civil society stakeholders. (SRE does not aim to elevate “religious communities and faith-based organizations” above other actors or issues amidst the overall USG engagement of a country.) SRE should also aim to discern differences within and among the religious communities and faith-based organizations, resulting in better landscape assessments of the country concerned.

Because these articles have been written for mostly USAID professions, it also outlines USAID’s working definition for SRE which is:

Strategic Religious Engagement advances USAID’s Journey to Self-Reliance, building local capacity and commitment to improve inclusive development and humanitarian outcomes, by engaging with religious communities and partnership with faith-based organizations to advance shared humanitarian assistance and development objectives.

USAID’s definition of SRE mentions “Journey to Self-Reliance,” which was USAID’s strategy from 2017 to 2021. I found the mention of this strategy especially interesting because it- in a way- reflects the periodic emphasis that USAID places on SRE. A couple of authors in their articles point out that emphasis on SRE often changes with a change in administration and personnel, and this periodic or “episodic” emphasis on SRE prevents effective SRE from occurring. This is a findings that is consistent throughout the series of essays. And USAIDs mentioning of SRE in relation to its strategy at that time is almost a snap shot of a time in which SRE was reemphasized. So what does effective SRE look like? I will try to eke out answers to this question through answering the research questions posed in the introductory article.  

Question 1: What are the skills of (strategic religious) engagement? What does it mean to practically partner with someone of a different belief system than yours?

According to the first essay in the special issue, Strategic Religious Engagement in International Development: Building a Basic Baseline, there isn’t much “available and pertinent” evidence of SRE and no one-size-fits-all methods on how best to engage religious actors. The article however does outline a few skills necessary for SRE. One SRE skill outlined in the essay is to “have an appreciation and respect for the impact, actual and potential, of religious actors and communities in development or humanitarian situations” and to engage with key religious leaders and institutions who play a significant role in development and humanitarian activities. 

Second, skill it outlines is “to recognize and respect the enormous complexity and importance of how religious beliefs, leaders, practices, and institutions, consciously and subconsciously interact with each other, as part of a broader socio-economic-political-cultural context within which development, conflicts, and humanitarian needs transpire.” To elaborate, on the “enormous complexity of how religious beliefs, leaders, practices, and institutions, consciously and subconsciously interact,” the article gives the examples of FBOs breaking stereotypes. One such example revolves around the practice of proselytization. Even though most would assume the contrary, most religious and non-religious organizations agree that proselytization in the context of HDP activities is a “profound violation.” 

There are other areas in which both FBOs and secular humanitarian organizations agree even though most stereotypes would point to their being disagreement. Most would for instance assume that non-religious HDP organizations espouse strict neutrality and would not support the right of FBOs to proclaim their faith while doing HDP work, but the authors argue that many non-religious HDP organizations in fact reject neutrality and do support FBOs’ right to proclaim one’s faith because doing so protects their own right to speak out and espouse political opinions. Thus, an important skill of SRE and partnership with faith actors is to recognize that they are not entirely homogeneous and their views and perspectives on issues in HDP may be different. This also points to another important skill of SRE i.e. having an understanding that interaction between religious and non-religious perspectives is often more nuanced than it is often portrayed.

In the third essay in the series, Intrinsic and Strategic Leverage of Religion in Development, the authors, expand upon the idea that interaction between religious and non-religious perspective in HDP is more nuanced by explaining that the “modern humanitarian and development system has always functioned as a mix of religious and non-religious perspectives.” Understanding both perspectives in a particular context is an important skill of SRE. According to Marshall el al, this is an important skill in SRE because it counters the “notion that there is a divide between religious and the non-religious.” Marshall et al. argue that effective SRE should emphasize the “natural normalcy of their overlapping presence within individuals and institutions—without watering down the also normal distinctiveness of different personal beliefs, and institutional missions.” Thus, incorporating religion in context analysis and understanding and accepting that “different religious and non-religious perspectives as significant factors shaping the way local and national communities approach development challenges” is an important skill in SRE. 

In addition to understanding the nuanced interaction between religious and non-religious perspectives, another important skill in SRE is to understand the nuance within religious communities themselves.  Marshall et al. explain that religions and religious perspectives don’t always result in good outcomes and this should always be a consideration when doing SRE. Thus an important skill in SRE is understanding the “complex and varied roles that religious actors play in fragility, conflict, and peacebuilding.”

In addition to providing the skills necessary for SRE, the special edition, in the fourth article Implementing Strategic Religious Engagement in International Development provides relevant questions that practitioners can use to help them with analysis necessary for SRE. While these questions are prepared for a USAID audience, they are helpful guides for other practitioners and may help practitioners develop their SRE skills. In my estimation, this is the most pragmatic and pertinent element of in this special edition for practitioners who are looking to strategically and thoughtfully engage with religious communities. These questions are thus worth reviewing in their entirety. The questions are:

1. What is (your organization’s) strategy, and what are its priorities? Has there been purposeful experience with faith engagement in conjunction with that strategy? Any conflicts?

2. What are the challenges and risks of (not) engaging religious actors?

3. Are religious groups viewed as part of civil society, and what are the implications of those relationships? Are they part (or not) or any formal consultative processes?

4. What is the state of the relationship between ethnic- and/or religious majority and ethnic- and/or religious minorities? Does the government favor, or is it perceived to favor, a specific community? To exclude one or several? What are the implications?

5. What are the issues that affect localization for specific institutions or sectors? What are the roles of large international NGOs and how do they relate to local actors? Are there ways to engage with smaller, probably less well-known, local organizations? How to assess capacity?

6. Are there questions around possible instrumentalization of religious actors?

7. If there are tensions around proselytism, what are they, and why?

8. What are areas of significant policy disagreement or tension involving development approaches (including by the host government) and what approaches might help in moving forward?

9. How far are issues of funding faith-linked groups of concern and how far do these relate to procurement rules and practices? What are the financial resources available to specific faith communities, especially from external sources? If sector-wide approaches are significant, how do religious actors fit within such programs?

10. How far are multifaith/interfaith approaches desirable or feasible in advancing strategic goals?

11. What is the relationship of religious actors to other religious actors in the geographic region? How does the specific country relate to the other countries of the region where religious matters are concerned? Are regional organizations involved in material ways?

12. If there are significant conflicts, how are religious communities involved, positively and less positively?

While these are some critical questions that may be helpful for practitioners on their efforts to strategically engage with religious actors and religious communities, this by no means an exhaustive list and I would love to reflect on these questions with other practitioners. Are there questions you would like to add to the list? Do you find any of these questions problematic?  

Question 2: What is the difference between religious engagement and “strategic” religious engagement? 

The difference between religious engagement, and “strategic religious engagement” is not made explicit in the first essay. One difference between religious engagement and “strategic” religious engagement alluded to in the introductory essay is the “instrumentalization” of religious actors by non-religious actors. “Instrumentalization” is the perception that non-religious entities are using religious organizations as “means to message and implement pre-decided programs.” Instrumentalization is problematic because “seeing religion solely or primarily as a political means—and thus failing to understand the beliefs that undergird and propel both positive and negative FBO actions, according to those beliefs—can lead to serious misdiagnosis, and conflict.” Authors Marshall et al. in the third essay in the series argue that for a religious engagement to be considered “strategic” the idea that the same religion “can result in peacebuilding or violence against innocents, depending on the context and circumstances” must be a consideration. 

Peter Mandaville, one of the authors of a response essay in this edition of the journal, in an article agrees with the assessment that “instrumentalization” of religious actors can be problematic. Instrumentalization, he argues, can lead religious leaders and religious organizations to “feel that they are being used or exploited in ways that jeopardize their relationships of trust” with their religious constituencies. Mandaville argues that to best provide contextual knowledge and skills, to facilitate engagement that is not “instrumentalized,” it is not just enough to provide religious literacy to professionals and practitioners. He argues that the focus should be on creating better “institutional arrangements” that enable SRE. Mandaville wants to turn the focus on institutes because he argues engagement with religious actors is often “ad hoc and episodic” and given the “significant churn” in personnel in HDP field, “characterized by a repetitive, Groundhog Day-like quality of appearing to start from scratch every two or three years”, while the local faith communities generally remains the same. Thus for religious engagement to be strategic the focus should be not on individual HDP personnel but on organizations.

Mandaville’s argument is supported by Dr. Oliva Wilkinson, the author of one of the response essays Putting the “Strategic” into Strategic Religious Engagement. According to Wilkinson, to make SRE “truly strategic,” an organization must institutionalize religious engagement knowledge and practices. Wilkinson argues that an organization can institutionalize SRE by critically reflecting on their own previous efforts by asking questions like - “what worked in the past, what did not, who did we engage with in the past, when and why did we not engage.” Wilkinson adds, organizations can also be strategic in their religious engagement by conducting “organizational mapping of religious partnerships demonstrates what has come before, and has successfully for other organizations.” She argues that mapping activity can motivate organizations to “ further refine their faith engagement processes so that they are not as ad hoc and un-strategic.”

Marshall et al. are more explicit about what distinguishes “strategic” religious engagement from religious engagement in the fourth essay Implementing Strategic Religious Engagement in International Development . Marshall et al. argue that “strategic”:

1. indicates that the objectives, approach, and related instruments are present in an articulated and coherent manner (and that resources and means match those objectives)

2. should also imply “shared”—i.e. that the goals have been developed with host nation humanitarian and development partners, to include religious actors.

3. seeks to place short-term and episodic needs within a broad knowledge base and a deepening set of relationships, such that local religious partners’ broad ethos and goals, as they relate to development and humanitarian goals…

Marshall et al further argue that SRE requires: 

a careful country assessment, establishing appropriate principles of engagement, and defining priority sectors and institutions (possibly including multireligious platforms equipped to serve as intermediaries). Important factors to take into account include: (a) a risk assessment; (b) review of information sources and gaps; (c) understanding religion-state relationships; (d) religious roles in civil society and with both formal and informal institutions; (e) involvement in humanitarian activities including prevention and response; and (f) possible sensitivities and conflicts involving religious actors including potential for engagement with a peacebuilding focus. 

I also found Marshall et al. succinct summary of SRE in the concluding paragraph of this essay really useful summary to what distinguishes SRE. They say  SRE is “simply naming and accounting for differing perspectives. (HDP) goals can be discussed, developed, and implemented, together as partners.”

There is a lot more relevant information in the series of essays that I wasn’t able to cover because my focus was mostly on reviewing the articles and summarizing findings to answer the main research questions. However the response article, especially Azza Karam’s The USAID Strategic Religious Engagement Summit: What Was Not Said, offers a critical and thought provoking look at the summit, its assumptions, and power dynamics at play that may have shaped many of the findings of the articles in this special edition. I would highly encourage people trying to strategically engage with faith communities for the purposes of HDP to review it in its entirety. 

AfP Blog Author: Saurav Upadhyay - Research Manager, Learning & Evidence