Taking Faith seriously: Understanding the relationships between values and beliefs, states and development.
An international research partnership exploring the relationships between several major world religions, development in low-income countries and poverty reduction.
Between 2005 and 2010 the Religions and Development Research Programme Consortium is undertaking a series of comparative research projects that address the following questions:
- How do religious values and beliefs drive the actions and interactions of individuals and faith-based organisations?
- How do religious values and beliefs and religious organisations influence the relationships between states and societies?
- In what ways do faith communities interact with development actors and what are the outcomes with respect to the achievement of development goals?
It focuses on four countries (India, Nigeria, Pakistan, and Tanzania), enabling the research team to study most of the major world religions: Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Sikhism, Buddhism and African traditional belief systems.
The consortium consists of six academic research partner organisations and one non-academic partner. Each partner has extensive links with policy makers, religious organisations and civil society groups. The partners will work with other researchers in the four focus countries of India, Nigeria, Pakistan and Tanzania.
IIDS is involved in its capacity as a partner organization from India.
The research programme is funded by the UK Department for International Development. |
