The contents of this report have been drawn from 40 interviews with senior development professionals held during February and March 2015. A small number of members of faith-based organisations (FBOs) also took part. The exercise was commissioned by the Joint Learning Initiative on Faith and Local Communities (JLI) to understand the key opportunities and challenges that could be addressed through the Religion and Sustainable Development Conference on public sector partnering with FBOs. The conference took place on 8th and 9th July 2015 in Washington, DC and will be co-hosted by the World Bank Group, the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), the United Kingdom Department for International Development (DFID) and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) in collaboration with JLI and others.

The goals of the conference are to:

• Connect frontline policymakers to knowledge, experience, research, methods and experts to support more effective partnerships with faith groups
• Develop specific recommendations for actions to strengthen effective partnerships between the public sector and faith groups
• Obtain leadership commitment to follow on activities, including country working groups, recommended next steps, information exchange and working meetings.
• The key themes that have emerged are reflected in the design of the conference itself, which provides a forum to bring together a diverse group of leaders to work on these issues and to develop ideas and corresponding actionable recommendations.