FaithAction will hold a follow-up event to its Faith and Public Health symposium. This will be on the afternoon of Thursday 19 March, starting with lunch, at the RSA in central London.

This seminar will serve as a platform for leaders from faith-inspired projects talking about the work they are doing, and how that work is being (or could be) evaluated. It will also be used to suggest principles, criteria or processes that might contribute to the development of a joined up system for evaluating aspects of health-related work that is taking place within faith-inspired group.

At a meeting in Washington Feb 18th, President Jim Kim, senior World Bank officials and Rev. Adam Taylor hosted a dialogue with leaders of international faith bodies and FBOs on the topic of ending extreme poverty by 2030. President Kim extended a strong invitation to the faith community to collaborate with the Bank, and challenged us to present evidence for where the faith community can make the most difference. Faith leaders gave feedback on a draft moral narrative for faith engagement in ending extreme poverty, which had been prepared by a diverse faith-based drafting team.

This meeting is important background for the July 2015 leadership conference on Effective Partnerships between Public Sector and Faith Groups, to be hosted at the World Bank in conjunction with German BMZ, USAID, DFID and others, in collaboration with JLI F&LC.

A parliamentary event was held on February 11 with Archbishop Edward Thamba Charles (Catholic Archbishop of Freetown) and Rev. Fr Peter Conteh (Director of Caritas, Freetown) speaking as panelists on the crucial role of faith leaders on the Ebola crisis.

Accompanying this meeting was the release of the CAFOD, Christian Aid, and Tearfund briefing “The Crucial Role of Faith Leaders in the Ebola Response: Unrealised Potential?” The briefing includes calls for ensuring that forthcoming review into the Ebola response consider whether the role of faith leaders was fully utilised from the start of the outbreak, for independent research into their role in behaviour change and that Ebola recovery plans include a clear strategy for working with faith leaders.

The draft Ebola recovery plans will be presented at a conference in Brussels on March 3rd and then finalised at the World Bank Spring meetings in April.

An Interdisciplinary Conference of Local, National and International Leaders

Sponsored by the Community of Sant’ Egidio and the Office of Religious Life at Princeton University.

Co-sponsored by The Mamdouha S. Bobst Center for Peace and Justice, Pace Center for Civic Engagement, Princeton Institute for International and Regional Studies (PIIRS), and the Center for Migration and Development at Princeton University

Poverty and Peacemaking will convene local and international religious leaders, scholars, practitioners, community partners, government and agency representatives, students, and philanthropists to think together about foundational and connected issues of shared concern. In particular, our focus will be the role of poverty alleviation as a critical component in the building of peace.

more information here.