There are many religions and many, many religious people. The number of those within those groups who are speaking out against the scientific evidenc… - Azza Karam

If there is one lesson we keep learning from history, and that has been highlighted of late by the Tunisian and Egyptian revolutions, is that people change their own cultures from within all the time.

Exploring this field of human rights was far from easy, and my interest in the links to religion was even more difficult. The religious groups were, putting it mildly, not the most accepted by the governments. A lot of my work involved coming sitting through many discussions in meetings of men, and of men and women, and of women. I listened to many debates and discussions, and many tried to get me to see their point of view.

Religion and faith do not lend themselves to the usual normative frameworks of development praxis, which means that engagement with religious communities has to be sustainable, built upon common goals, and mainstreamed into broader civil society and government partnerships. This is critical to establishing and maintaining the trust that is required for any such engagement, and for facilitating the co-ownership of national development processes among all the different partners involved.