CO-SPONSORSHIP: International Development and Religion Unit and Religion and the Social Sciences Unit

Religion and Development 2025-2030

The next five years will be a momentous and potentially tumultuous time for development agendas. In the run up to the end of the Sustainable Development Goals in 2030 and the incoming Trump administration in the US and its effects on international development funding and practices, shifts in our understandings of faith-based development, localization, the role of local faith actors, freedom of religion and belief, and strategic religious engagement are likely to evolve. We are interested in papers that speak to these evolutions:

• The effects on FBOs of shifts in development policy between US administrations
• The effects of religious freedom framings on development as a priority area of interest under Trump administrations 
• A focus on local faith actors and localization in humanitarian and development work
• How strategic religious engagement is being conceived and implemented in development practice
• Planning for 2030 and how to include faith actors in the post-2030 agenda
• Reflections on faith actor roles in advocacy for an implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals, and what should be learned for post-2030