Keeping Faith in 2030: Religions and the Sustainable Development Goals (highlight notice)

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Religion is a major cultural, social, political, and economic factor in many ODA recipient countries, and understanding the relevant religious dynamics and the role of faith actors is crucial to bringing about sustainable development. While development practice and development studies had essentially subscribed to a modernist, secular paradigm of social change for much of the twentieth century, this has begun to change in recent years. Increasing portions of development aid are now channelled via so-called faith based organisations, and religion is increasingly recognised as a human resource rather than an obstacle to development. Many religious groups have also been involved in development policy by adopting and heralding the Millennium Development Goals and through consultations in the drafting of the Sustainable Development Goals.Academic research has, to some extent, addressed these developments in pioneering research projects (such as the DfID-funded Religion and Development (RaD) research programme at Birmingham University, 2005-2011) and there has been an increasing number of relevant publications on related themes, contributing to the rise of a new academic field of 'religions and development' in the UK and internationally, as an interdisciplinary effort between the Arts & Humanities and other disciplines. While these are promising developments and a useful stepping stone for this proposal, there are major challenges which need to be addressed by a sustained effort in order to take religions and development research further, so that it can better respond to the challenges and opportunities generated via the UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, and its associated Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). By networking scholars from the UK, Ethiopia, and India, the proposed Research Network seeks to address the following three challenges: 1) Integrate voices from the Global South: Notable exceptions notwithstanding, there is a considerable disconnect between the religions and development literature produced in the Global North and what development researchers, policy makers and practitioners do in many ODA recipient countries in the Global South. There is a danger that the current interest in religions and development reflects little more than a donor trend among Western policy makers and researchers, while in ODA recipient countries the continued public role of religions is a much more problematic and controversial case.2) Integration of faith-based actors: While there is much research on so-called faith-based organisations and increased funding opportunities available to them, collaboration in research and development policy and practice has been harder to achieve. More work needs to be done for enabling a more in-depth and open dialogue between faith-based organisation and development actors, especially in order to provide an important feedback mechanism for the implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals.3) Improved methodologies, interdisciplinary dialogue, and better data: Academic debate on religions and development is not as nuanced as it could be, due to different methodologies, varying conceptualisations of religion, and relatively little comparative data. The network will focus on issues of methodology and comparison across disciplinary boundaries and methodological premises to pave the way for more balanced and comparative discussions. Our regional focus supports this approach, as it allows us to to collate data, major issues and perspectives in our policy briefings and dossiers in a comprehensive manner.The activities of the research network are built around three conferences (UK, Ethiopia, India), which will be used to network the main actors in the field, produce material and publications relevant to academic and non-academic users, and highlight central areas for further research. A multi-user website and steering group will facililitate ongoing activities.