Resources
Other organisations working in research in religions and development can be viewed below:
World Faiths Development Dialogue
WFDD is a not-for-profit organisation working at the intersection of religion and global development. It also refers to a process of exchange involving leaders of the major world religions, and international development organisations.
Religions and Development (RaD)
An international research partnership exploring the relationships between several major world religions, development in low-income countries and poverty reduction. It focused 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.
Joint Learning Initiative on Faith and Local Communities
An international collaboration on evidence for faith groups’ activities, contribution and challenges to community health and wellbeing.
Founded in 2012, JLI Leadership came together by a single shared conviction: there is an urgent need to build our collective understanding of the potential of local faith communities for improving community health, development and well being.
Humanitarian Academy for Development (HAD)
The Humanitarian Academy for Development (HAD) is a leading Learning, Research, and Talent development centre serving the humanitarian sector. Established in 2013 by Islamic Relief Worldwide, the largest Muslim NGO in the UK, HAD strives to enhance the skills and knowledge in the wider humanitarian sector through capacity building, applied research and leadership development.
Centre for Religion, Conflict and Globalization
The Centre for Religion, Conflict and Globalization engages in cutting-edge research, policy advice and analysis that seeks to develop alternative conceptual and practical approaches to understanding "religion" and its relationship with politics and society.
Our researchers explore religion's entanglement with issues related to migration, gender and sexuality, development, human rights (especially Freedom of Religion or Belief), conflict resolution and peacebuilding across multiple geographical, cultural, political, economic and historical contexts.
Southern Responses to Displacement
To better understand the motivations, nature and impacts of Southern-led initiatives to displacement from Syria, this project develops a multi-perspectival approach which is framed around the participatory co-production of knowledge with refugees, local communities, civil society groups, local, national and international secular and faith-based organisations, and UN agencies.
The Pew Research Centre
Religion and Public Life research branch. Pew Research Center is a nonpartisan fact tank that informs the public about the issues, attitudes and trends shaping the world. We conduct public opinion polling, demographic research, content analysis and other data-driven social science research.
Muslim Platform for Sustainable Development (MPSD)
The Muslim Platform for Sustainable Development (MPSD) is an online knowledge hub that enables users to play a constructive and contributory role in achieving the United Nations’ 2030 agenda for Sustainable Development.
Faith based agencies and organisations play a critical role in responding to development issues and mobilising resources to alleviate poverty. The MPSD will enable organisations to collate and disseminate resources and information as well as facilitate cross organisational cooperation in constructing a distinct Muslim understanding of and approach to the Sustainable Development Goals.
IFEES
IFEES is a multi-dimensional organisation and we are proud of our achievements as our successes have come from mainly voluntary endeavour. We welcome the support of visionaries who would like to see this work rapidly multiplied.
IFEES networks world-wide with NGOs, international organisations, academic bodies and grass roots organisations and invites collaboration from institutions and individuals from all persuasions who are also dedicated to the maintenance of the Earth as a healthy habitat for future generations of humankind as well as other sentient beings.
Center for the Interdisciplinary Research on Religion and Society (CIRRuS)
The Center for the Interdisciplinary Research on Religion and Society (CIRRuS) has emerged, after restructuring the Department of Theologie at the University of Bielefeld, from the former Research Center for Biographical Studies in Contemporary Religion.
CIRRuS combines the classical disciplines of theology with research focuses, methods and theories of empirical, hermeneutical and historical sciences. Thus, normative and descriptive competence come into dialogue and a broad spectrum of interdisciplinary cooperation is being disclosed, at the University of Bielefeld and beyond.
Religion and Development in Asia
The Religion and Development in Asia Project seeks to explore how religious actors, discourses, and practices intersect with development efforts, and how these engagements result in changes in our understanding of both “religion” and “development”. It consists of a series of workshops, conferences, edited volumes and journal special issues that provide an in-depth analysis of the role of religious actors in several sub-sectors of development – including but not limited to disaster relief, poverty alleviation, environmental sustainability, and education and social services. The project aims to stimulate a re-thinking of long held assumptions about the apparent binary opposition between “religion” and “development”, and to produce analysis that is relevant both to theory and to practice.
International Partnership on Religions and Sustainable Development (PARD)
The International Partnership on Religion and Sustainable Development (PaRD) was established in February 2016 at the Berlin conference “Partners for Change – Religions and the 2030 Agenda”. It brings together members and partners from all over the world in order to harness the positive impact of religion and values in sustainable development and humanitarian assistance. Membership of PaRD is voluntary and open to all governmental and intergovernmental entities. Partners are civil society and non-governmental organisations such as religious and value-driven organisations, secular NGOs, community initiatives, foundations, academic institutions and other relevant development organisations.
PaRD recognises the crucial role these groups of actors play in achieving the Sustainable Development Goals of the 2030 Agenda. Therefore, PaRD aims at greater and institutionalised communication and coordination between secular and non-secular actors, while fostering new synergies through cooperation of its members and partners. In addition, PaRD uses synergies with existing networks and initiatives to contribute towards a more coherent and effective international agenda on religion and development.
Unit for Religion and Development Research, University of Stellenbosch
The URDR is an interdisciplinary research unit based at the University of Stellenbosch. It engages with the complex interface between religion and sustainable development and the need to equip faith communities to respond more effectively to development issues in their contexts.
The URDR offers a research and learning hub for NGOs, governments, private trusts and post-graduate students through evidence-based research, course modules and training and research tool design. Its interdisciplinary team has expertise across sociology, human rights, development, religion, theology and business disciplines. It offers professional research and training services with an emphasis on evidence gathering, knowledge sharing and theory construction from below. Its empirical footprint spans Asia, Africa, Europe and the Americas with a qualitative research focus able to inform government and international NGO policies and civil society grassroots action. The Unit can be contracted by any third party to conduct research. Our work is grounded within a South African context but with a strong global footprint.