Speeches

Speech by Tony Blair launching the Faith and Development seminar series

Monday, Sep 07, 2009 in Office of Tony Blair, Faith Foundation

 This is the full text of a speech by Tony Blair to launch the Faith and Development seminar series at the Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufacturers and Commerce, London.

7 September 2009

The creation of DFID was an important moment for the Government I led; and for the country. It has given Britain reach and influence; it has helped shape the global debate on development; and most of all, it has driven change, saved lives and changed lives in a way recognised across Africa and in many other parts of the world.

We then used that strong voice to help put development on the agenda of the G8 for the Gleneagles Summit of 2005. For the first time at such a summit the topics were climate change and aid; and for the first time, we established a mechanism - the G8+5 - which brought together the main emerging as well as developed nations of the world.

There were many intriguing aspects of the summit, not least the cultural shock of Bob Geldof and Bono lecturing world leaders in a language they had not, up to then, encountered.

One of the most critical aspects however, was the role played by people of faith. To place aid on a G8 agenda was not easy. I can tell you there was significant resistance to it. The commitments we were asking for, were also significant. They related directly to the MDGs set by the UN in the year 2000. But it was one thing to proclaim such goals; it was another thing entirely to follow up with precise policy commitments. Now not all of those commitments have been honoured; but there's no doubting the immense contribution that the increase in aid, debt relief and other policies made. There is also no doubt about the contribution the Faith communities made, to securing those commitments.

Essentially civic society across the developed world was mobilised; and within that society, the religious believers participated, in churches, mosques, synagogues and temples . Week after week they raised consciousness, put pressure on political representatives and used their huge networks to push the issue's salience and profile. Believe me, it mattered. It was a massive support, motivator and galvaniser.

It also touched upon a broader truth. Faith matters. It matters, in fact, whether you are religious or not, or even anti-religious. It matters because it inspires people to act. That can be for ill, as we see when extremism captures parts of the faith community. Or it can be for good, as with "Making Poverty History." But the point is, to ignore the role of faith is to be blind to a dimension of the world that plays a part in the thinking and attitudes of billions of people.

Yet it also clearly presents dilemmas and can cause feelings of mistrust and opposition. This can be because of positions of some religious people on issues such as gender equality (especially in relation to issues like maternal mortality on which DFID is rightly running a big campaign), sexuality or contraception. It can also be because some think that people of faith have always some ulterior motive to their "good work," through evangelising or proselytising or even conversion.

I don't minimise any of these dilemmas, still less pretend they don't exist and at points give rise to really sharp disagreements.

It is also the case that religious organisations cannot and should not substitute for the central role of Government. So we have to be realistic about the relationship between faith and development. But that same realism should also acknowledge what it is that faith can bring to the party.

When I began the TBFF, I had a very clear concept about how it should work. I did not want it to focus on religious doctrine; or on trying to narrow theological differences between faiths. I wanted it to focus on action; on specifically, what faith could do in action.

Therefore, we have university and schools programmes that link up students across the world, in order to provide real life interaction between people of different faiths; not just learning about each other but learning with each other. Inter-faith through experience.

And we began a programme to bring people together, of different faiths, in pursuit of the UN MDGs. We have started with the anti-malaria campaign. Roughly 1 million people die every year from malaria, mainly women and children. It is preventable. We know what can prevent it - bednets, medicines and trained health workers. There is also brilliant work being conducted on a vaccine. The right campaign can save lives. Where it is being implemented - and we have first-hand experience of this with the Tony Blair Faith Foundation - lives are being saved.

We have trained a group of young people of faith - from across the faith divide - who will work together to mobilise their faith communities here in the West and link them with faith communities in the affected Malaria regions.

Many of these regions are remote. There are few or no health clinics or hospitals. But every village or town has a church or a mosque. These can be the distribution centres for bednets and the medicines and from where the health workers can give advice.

Obviously what we do, is only a small part of a much bigger picture. But the point is that the faith community here is making a contribution that, in reality, in the practical, living circumstances that apply in many of these countries, only the faith community can make. Of course they do so in collaboration with many non-religious agencies; but their work, obviously their faith, makes a difference, sometimes the difference.

Interfaith groupings are attractive and desirable in a number of ways. Governments in Africa find it easier to deal with a One-Stop-Shop. The Nigerian Interfaith Action Association (NIFAA) made up of religious leaders committed to integrating their communities into national health plans, is a good example. It was brokered this year by CIFA, the Centre for Interfaith Action in Washington, one of the partner organisations to my Faith Foundation, which like us is focussed on ending deaths from malaria. And it is led by two outstanding religious leaders, Archbishop John Oneiyekan of Abuja and the Sultan of Sokoto, Sa'ad Abubakar III. I was delighted to hear earlier this year that the World Bank had given NIFAA funding to further their work.

The answer to anxieties about lack of capacity on the part of faith communities is help to enable them to develop their capabilities. It does not make sense for them to do this apart. This is a core part of the vision of my Faith Foundation. When faith communities collaborate and work together for justice and human development there is a double pay off: things get done and respect and understanding between them grows.

A dialogue that moves from hands to hearts to heads complements what is normally understood as inter-religious dialogue. A dialogue from heads to hearts does not always result in multi-faith action or, as the Holy Qu'ran says "vying with each other in good works". But action together can aid that dialogue.

In Mozambique there are already excellent programmes training leaders from different faiths together so that they can play their role in health education amongst their communities. Sierra Leone, where we have one of our governance teams, has inherited an impressive interfaith organisation from the times of the civil war. This puts them in a position to take up interfaith training for health education immediately if it were offered. Rwanda has a similar possibility and in many countries, existing HIV/AIDs networks are a great asset.

The potential here is very great. Faith communities given training, a small amount of funding, and mobile phones, could provide government with vital and missing data about the incidence of disease and the effectiveness of delivery of health care in parts of their populations where government has negligible access. But there is so little research on what these communities need, even what they are already doing, to know what interventions are required. DFID is funding one of the first research consortia studying faith and development based at Birmingham University and importantly involving major research centres and universities in India and Africa. The South African based ARHAP research network has produced some outstanding country profiles in a series of mapping papers on the health work of faith communities. But we need more.

Religious leaders are given a high level of trust. Faith communities retain a high level of social capital. A local Sufi zawiya is not just a prayer centre but a job centre. You sing and pray. You make the right contacts and meet the right people. The Mouridiyya networks spread from a small town in Senegal in the 1920s to Montreal, Paris and New York today.

World Jewish Relief, Islamic Relief and Christian Aid recently got together and have highlighted all of these points. Their conclusions are contained in a valuable Report from the Woolf Institute of Abrahamic Faiths called Keeping Faith in Development. One insight is the importance of small symbolic acts. The personal donation from the local Bishop of Jubbah to Islamic Relief who were working in the predominantly Christian southern Sudan. The £200,000 collected by World Jewish Relief after the 2005 Pakistan earthquake and given to an Islamic organisation to help the victims. I would add to these the funds given by Islamic Relief to CAFOD for projects in El Salvador. Such gestures build up trust and understanding both at the grassroots and internationally. They are the harbinger of a new level of commitment by people of faith working together for development.

In this way, faith can benefit action for development; but action on development can also benefit faith. It is true the faith community has issues it must confront and overcome. It is true also that, in recent years, most mainstream religious faiths have been prey to the influence of extremist groups who see faith as a badge of identity in opposition to those of a different faith. Even a short stay in Israel and Palestine, where I now spend a lot of time, would show you that, all too graphically.

But this, in a sense, is the dark side of strong belief. People who hold deep convictions about life and its purpose necessarily can be prone to holding those views to excess or to the point of prejudice. That danger is inherent in faith.

But faith also, precisely because it is about profound belief, also has resilience, commitment, dedication, and courage to go where others fear, a willingness to go beyond the normal bounds of compassion; and above all a clear moral purpose.

Yes, some of the worst actions of recent times have been committed by people of faith; but also some of the best.

Provided each side - in Faith and development - approaches the other with a little humility, there is a lot that the faith community and those who work in development can learn from and with each other.

For those who promote development, they can achieve greater depth and penetration of policy and action; they can gain from the networks and reach of the faith communities.

For those of faith, they can do Gods work more effectively, and in doing that work, if it is done in co-operation and partnership with those of another faith, also come closer to understanding and respecting diversity.

When I began my Foundation. I would from time to time say we needed it to promote greater tolerance between those of different faiths. I now don't use the word "tolerance" in this context. We shouldn't "tolerate" those of a different faith. We should be humble enough to accept that we cannot either circumscribe or define adequately God's will. So though we may disagree with those of another faith, though we hold true to our own faith we should not have the arrogance merely to tolerate a person whose faith is different; but instead respect them as an equal.

The best way to encourage such an attitude, is to let it develop naturally. And the best way for it to develop naturally is for people of different faiths to express their values, together in action.

It is right that we are beginning to analyse and reflect on this now. Faith and Development in harness would be an enormous, historic breakthrough.

It is true there are difficulties. The MDGs involving women are providing intractable. In this sense, DFID's commitment to doubling funding of faith communities given in it's recent white paper is both a vote of confidence and a challenge.

There is a need for an informed, public debate about how an understanding of development efforts can be better informed about the role of faiths. Each session in this seminar series is designed to be an open, honest, and if necessary, critical discussion about the role that faith can play across all aspects of development. In Yale later this week, TBFF will be bringing together practitioners, funders and religious leaders from 9 African countries, US and Uk to look at how to overcome some of the practical barriers and challenges.

The Observer journalist Antony Sampson liked to tell a story from his time as ghost writer for the 1980 Brandt Report. The Report, you will remember, was the product of an International Commission containing leading development experts as well as politicians. It was seen at the time as a major contribution to the analysis of the problems of international development. After it was done and dusted, Sampson asked Willy Brandt how he felt about it. "Too many economists, not enough anthropologists" was Willy's somewhat cryptic reply.

He meant, of course, that the Report had not paid enough attention to the importance of culture and religion in determining outcomes in development. Now Willy had his faults but excessive religiosity was not one of them. The developing world was steeped in religious ideas and practice. You neglected them at the cost of effective development. At the time the secular world of econometrics and development experts, on the whole, simply didn't get it.

I tried to rectify this lacuna in a chapter of the Report of the Africa Commission published a quarter of a century later in March 2005, just prior to Gleneagles.

The remarkable thing is that religious practice and belief in many African societies have increased with urbanisation and the decline of so-called "traditional" society. Quite unlike the trajectory in Europe. The chapter is called Through African Eyes. I do commend it to you. We really need the ability to see development through African eyes as well as our own.

As I always say, the chief characteristic of today's world is it's interdependence. Nothing from the financial crisis to climate change can be solved except by nations acting in unison. Such global action based on global alliance is impossible without some sort of shared global values. Climate change, in particular, will require action that is effective but also equitable. Indeed I would argue the major unifying value needed for global alliances is a sense of justice, and justice universally accepted and decreed.

Such a view is not confined to people of faith; but the concept of justice is none the less possibly the single biggest point of unity of all the major faiths. Religions were the world's original globalisers. Their influence is not diminished it may even be growing.

So this is a debate that is vital. It can over time be transformative. And the time to start is now.

 

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