The Center for Interfaith Action and the MDGs: Leveraging Congregational Infrastructures for Maximum Impact on Disease and Poverty

Abstract

The Center for Interfaith Action and the MDGs: Leveraging Congregational Infrastructures for Maximum Impact on Disease and Poverty Andreas Hipple and Jean Duff As the 2015 deadline for the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) approaches, and as the likelihood of success appears to be fading, it is useful to recall that the urgency to achieve the goals is not a mere statistical exercise; it is a moral call to save lives and end poverty. With some 29,000 preventable child deaths each day (UNICEF Child Mortality), 77 million children denied access to education (UNICEF News Note: “On Global Action Week on Education, millions of children still not in school”), and 536,000 women dying from the complications of childbirth every year (Women Deliver 2010), the challenge is real and profound. Progress has been made—Egypt, Honduras, Malaysia, and Thailand halved their maternal mortality rates over the past several decades—but this progress is tempered by poor trends in numerous other countries. To achieve the MDGs requires the creative use of both new and existing resources. National governments and multilateral institutions must seek new public–private partnerships, the full mobilization of civil society, and new ways of working with groups and institutions that can effect sustainable change on a large scale and across the full range of development challenges. When both fully mobilized and resourced, faith institutions—congregations and faith‐based organizations—are uniquely placed to help deliver progress on many of the toughest problems. While we recognize that religious leaders are persuasive and influential in communities worldwide, this article focuses on faith leaders’ power to have a positive impact on achieving the MDGs in sub‐Saharan Africa. The MDGs will not be achieved without including the religious leaders and FBOs in the effort. Religious leaders can potentially have an extraordinary impact upon key behaviors through their reach, scale, influence, and sustainability. This article reviews various trends and challenges associated with the inclusion of faith leaders in development—paying special attention to an innovative approach with which the authors are involved—and arguing for the benefits of incorporating religious leaders on an interfaith basis in poverty reduction programs. While interfaith action on the MDGs can and—we believe—should include traditional FBOs and related activities, this article is especially concerned with the mobilization of religious leaders themselves, as there is a particular need to increase their direct engagement on MDG‐related issues. Value added by faith leaders Attitude and behavior changes on a massive scale are important elements of the successful pursuit of each MDG. For instance, attaining Goals 2 (universal primary education) and 3 (promoting gender equality and empowering women) requires men and women to become more supportive of girls’ education, while Goal 5 (improving maternal health) requires families to accept that malaria is preventable and treatable, and to take specific actions such as using insecticide‐treated bednets and seeking intermittent preventive treatment during pregnancy. Similar examples can be cited for each of the other goals. The problem is that producing lasting behavior change is among the most difficult challenges that development and public health professionals face. When, why, and how do people change entrenched behavior? The trillions of private‐sector dollars spent on marketing each year tell us that inducing targeted behavior change is neither easy nor cheap. Much of that money, of course, is spent on trying to get a particular message to a potential customer. The most effective marketing campaigns come from sources with credibility, regular access to the target audience to reinforce the messages, and sufficient reach to deliver messages to large numbers of potential customers. In public health messaging, many of the same communications principles apply. In the development arena, there is often no group better‐placed to deliver key messages than local religious leaders. Imams, pastors, priests, and other faith leaders arguably have unparalleled reach, scale, and influence in developing countries, with the relative permanence of their institutions at the local level also potentially adding a significant degree of sustainability if the leaders can be prompted to repeat messaging over time. Weak state institutions in many developing countries mean that the capacity of state agents to reach populations from the most distant villages to the...