UN seeks greater collaboration with faith-based groups

The minister of state for health, Dr Khaliru Alhassan who spoke during a side meeting at the United Nations General Assembly (UNGAS) noted that Nigeria has benefited greatly from collaborating with interfaith organizations especially in the areas of security and health.The country already has co-opted faith-based groups nationwide into the Nigerian Inter-faith Action Association (NIFAA)—otherwise […]

The minister of state for health, Dr Khaliru Alhassan who spoke during a side meeting at the United Nations General Assembly (UNGAS) noted that Nigeria has benefited greatly from collaborating with interfaith organizations especially in the areas of security and health.
The country already has co-opted faith-based groups nationwide into the Nigerian Inter-faith Action Association (NIFAA)—otherwise known as Inter-Faith, which unites leaders in Christianity and Islam in the fight against poverty and disease.
The side meeting was organised by the Centre for Global Health and Diplomacy conference in New York, wherein Dr Alhassan said faith-based groups “can solve the nitty-gritty issues in communities.”
 “We believe Inter-Faith is working, and yielding a lot of positive results, what we need to do is to strengthen our partnership with these organisations,” he said.
He spoke on a panel debating the future of the global health architecture, considered currently fractured, but with potentials that faith-based groups can fulfil.
The minister of state for health told the panel that faith-based played an important role because they were listened to by the public, even more than the government.
“We have a lot of contact with religious leaders. We have a powerful Inter-Faith organisation. A lot of ordinary citizens will listen to them more than the government,” he said.
Nigeria’s Inter-Faith engagement of religious communities focuses on malaria, tuberculosis, HIV/AIDS, polio, and poverty impact.
He called the partnership with faith-based groups “tremendous”, exemplified in the ongoing fight to stop polio transmission by year end.
Alhassan said Nigeria’s long battle with polio had been pragmatic but with poor quality campaigns which didn’t stop the number of infections growing year on year until faith-based groups became involved.
The same approach was used with the recently contained outbreak of Ebola virus disease, he noted.
“That’s what we borrowed during the Ebola crisis, because it really helped us. Immediately, all the major faith-based organisations came out supporting government, organising health camps, educating the general public, there was progress”.
Also speaking on the panel, Dagfinn Høybråten, board chair at the Global Alliance Vaccine Initiative (GAVI,) said faith-based organisations provide infrastructure critical in reaching marginalized groups.
“In order to reach children on the margins, the infrastructure of faith based organisations is critical, in mobilizing mothers, fathers, volunteers and additional resources. They are important as advocates for global health, especially in a country that may support more resources for these causes,” said Høybråten.
Among other causes, faith-based organisations have played roles in include debt relief, HIV/AIDS programmes and in government funded programmes against malaria, according to Bruce Wilkinson, chief executive officer of Catholic Medical Mission Board, also a panellist at the GHD debate of global health infrastructure.