Keeping Faith With The MDGs?: An investigation into the extent of influence of the Millennium Development Goals upon the activities of Christian faith-based development organisations

Abstract

Whilst historically the role of religion and faith has been little considered within the development project, it is now an area of renewed interest by practitioners and academics, and has been receiving growing research and discourse since around the turn of the new millennium. The focus of much research has been to analyse the role of faith-based organisations (FBOs), how they contribute to development and how the values affect the work of FBOs. As a result of their being limited research on the interaction of faith-based organisations with the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), this study has sought to analyse the extent of influence that the MDGs have had upon the activities of 3 Christian Development Organisations. It also explores whether the MDGs are held to be ideologically compatible with the values of some of the practitioners within the organisations. The Research shows that in the organisations studied, the extent of influence of the MDGs has been minimal upon development activities in a direct sense, although some indirect influence due to donor funding requirements has been reported. More activity has been found however in the area of advocacy. Whilst no ideological incompatibility between participants and the MDG framework was reported, and whilst viewed sympathetically, the MDGs are viewed as an incomplete framework when compared to some of the multi-dimensional perceptions of poverty held by participants and visions of the releasing of human potential. However, as the MDGs give the issue of poverty a higher profile, general views from participants have shown a preference toward a post 2015 international framework, but not a continuation of the MDGs, as it is perceived that this will help to keep the issue of poverty in focus. It has been unclear whether the FBOs would themselves have had a preference to be a part of a Global Partnership based on the MDGs, however, with the deadline of 2015 approaching, focus needs to turn more toward post 2015 discourse.