This was originally published by Global Health TV on Aug. 26, 2014.
Last November, at an event associated with the International
Conference on Family Planning in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, I was struck by a public
comment from a representative of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID):
“With almost 90% of people globally professing a faith, it doesn’t make sense
to do family planning without the faith community.”
I was bowled over by this statement. I checked up on the
claim, and found that, according
to the Pew Research Center, 84% of the 2010
world population of 6.9 billion is considered “religiously affiliated.”
So the point was valid, and I would go even further: We in
global development should be partnering more with the faith community in all
areas of global health. After all, if the faith community can work on
family planning – fraught with all of its social, cultural and religious
baggage – it should also be able to work effectively on less controversial
issues like malaria, diarrhea, water and sanitation. Especially in places like
Africa where
people have a high level of confidence in their religious institutions.
