Development Across Faith Boundaries Routledge Research in Religion and Development Series

Faith-based organisations (FBOs) have long been recognised as having an advantage in delivering programs and interventions amongst communities of the same faith. However, many FBOs today work across a variety of contexts, including with local partners and communities of different faiths. Likewise, secular NGOs and donors are increasingly partnering with faith-based organisations to work in highly-religious communities.

Development Across Faith Boundaries explores the dynamics of activities by local or international FBOs that cross faith boundaries, whether with their partners, donors or recipient communities. The book investigates the dynamics of cross-faith partnerships in a range of development contexts, from India, Cambodia and Myanmar, to Melanesia, Bosnia, Ethiopia and Afghanistan. The book demonstrates how far FBOs extend their activities beyond their own faith communities and how far NGOs partner with religious actors. It also considers the impacts of these cross-faith partnerships, including their work on conflict and sectarian or ethnic tension in the relevant communities.

This book is an invaluable guide for graduates, researchers and students with an interest in development and religious studies, as well as practitioners within the aid sector.

Part One: Introduction
1. Crossing the faith boundary

2. Common witness, common cause: Beyond Boundaries in faith-based development action

Part Two: Case Studies
3. "Do Not Depend on the Others to Help You": A case of diverging aspirations between a Christianfaith-based organisation and Hindu sex workers

4. Development amidst communal conflict: Case study of a Christian FBO in a Buddhist-Muslim conflict region in Myanmar

5. Crossing faith boundaries: Channels of Hope and World Vision

6. Faith-based forums in Ethiopia: An initiative for development cooperation

7. Walking on Common Ground: Case studies in development across faith boundaries

8. Outside, inside: Working with Monastic Schools in Burma/Myanmar

9. Capacity Building of Religious Leaders in Afghanistan: Experience of the Children of Uruzgan program

10. In Good Faith: The benefits and challenges of Oxfam’s secular work with communities of faith in Melanesia

Part Three: Conclusions
11. See No Religion, Hear No Religion, Speak No Religion: Aid workers, religion and cognitive dissonance in Bosnia and Herzegovina

12. Faith and Crossing Boundaries: Implications for development policy and practice

Anthony Ware is a Senior Lecturer at Deakin University, Australia.

Matthew Clarke is the Head of the School of Humanities and Social Sciences at Deakin University, Australia.