Newsroom

Archbishop of Canterbury gives closing keynote

On the 12th of November the Archbishop of Canterbury gave a closing keynote address to “New Perspectives on Faith and Development” drawing the core themes of the seminar series together. The series was jointly hosted by The Tony Blair Faith Foundation, DFID, Oxfam, Islamic Relief and World Vision at the RSA and provided a platform for a public debate about how an understanding of development efforts can be better informed about the role of faith.

“We very much support Archbishop Dr Rowan Williams’ conclusion to a successful series which affirms the great opportunities that faith perspectives can bring to the development world. This seminar series has demonstrated a successful partnership of organisations coming together on shared goals of justice and poverty alleviation." Sam Bickersteth, Head, Programme Policy, Oxfam

The Archbishop highlighted the integral role faith communities play in development and the need for an informed working relationship between faith based organisations and governments; “There needs to be a willing and intelligent partnership with religious groups, both faith-inspired NGO’s and faith communities.” Steps are already being undertaken to strengthen this relationship. In July 09 the Department for International Development (DFID) released a white paper which commits to doubling funding to faith based groups.

The need to develop mutual trust and understanding between the two sectors was also emphasised; he argued that these were the “missing building blocks”. He then went further and suggested that

understanding faith motivations for helping the poor and needy has the potential to elevate contribution to development work.

Human dignity is the core motivation for most major faith communities and he argued that having this as a driving force allows us to move beyond merely solving problems and towards a strengthening of spirituality; “It connects the whole development project with a renewed political and moral energy”.

The added value that faith groups can bring to development was a strong theme throughout the series. Baroness Lynda Chalker, keynote speaker at “Poverty and Conflict: Faith as a Solution or Cause?” spoke of the relief efforts of faith groups in disaster areas around the world: “There is something extra where the volunteer or aid worker gives their service with faith.” The Secretary of State for International Development, Douglas Alexander, echoed these sentiments in his keynote speech at the seminar Health and Education- Where Faith Fits; “At a deeper level, the faiths provide both a repository and a transmitter for the moral and ethical values that motivate many engaged in the work of development.”

This need to spiritualise and re-instil ethics into the modern world was taken up by Ken Costa, keynote speaker at the “Faith in the Marketplace?” seminar: “it is the Spirit, that gives life that enables us actually to live these values, day to day and to work in co-operative interdependence with each other.”

The meaning of the term “rich” was explored and it was agreed that there is a need to re-evaluate our attitudes towards wealth. ‘What does wealth mean?’, was a question asked by an audience member and the panel stressed the need for spirituality to accompany material wealth. There were calls for us to shift our attitude towards consumption and the relationship between donor and recipient. Doing without can be a good thing; “restraint and sacrifice can be a beautiful and liberating thing” said Satish Kumar, Editor of Resurgence Magazine and keynote speaker at the “Faith and the environment” seminar. The Archbishop called for development to transcend this donor, recipient relationship for one in which “exchange becomes possible in new ways” through a “proper distribution of dignity”. This chimed in with the theme of justice that ran throughout the series and resonated with Andy Atkins, Executive Director of Friends of the Earth’s powerful statement during the climate change seminar: now is the first juncture in history where ignoring justice will literally sink the world.

Tony Blair began this debate by stating his conviction that there is a lot that the faith community and those who work in development can learn from and with each other if each has a little humility. At every seminar a mix of faith leaders and development professionals have sat together and done just that. He also emphasised that if different faith groups work together on this issue then the result will be two- fold: things will get done quicker and through the process of working together on shared goals they will develop respect and friendship with one another.