van Wees Sibylle Herzig, Jennings Michael
UGHRIS-Uppsala Global Health Research on Implementation and Sustainability, Department of Women's and Children's Health, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden.
Department of Global Public Health, Karolinska Institute, Stockholm, Sweden.
Health Policy Plan. 2021 May 17;36(4):464-472. doi: 10.1093/heapol/czab006.
Substantial global advocacy efforts have been made over the past decade to encourage partnerships and funding of faith-based organizations in international development programmes in efforts to improve social and health outcomes. Whilst there is a wealth of knowledge on religion and development, including its controversies, less attention has been payed to the role that donors might play. The aim of this study was to describe and analyse the engagement between donors and faith-based organizations in Cameroon's health sector, following the implementation of the Cameroon Health Sector Partnership Strategy (2012). Forty-six in-depth interviews were conducted in selected regions in Cameroon. The findings show that global advocacy efforts to increase partnerships with faith-based organizations have created a space for increasing donor engagement of faith-based organizations following the implementation of the strategy. However, the policy was perceived as top down as it did not take into account some of the existing challenges. The policy arguably accentuated some of the existing tensions between the government and faith-based organizations, fed faith-controversies and complicated the health system landscape. Moreover, it provided donors with a framework for haphazard engagement with faith-based organizations. As such, putting the implications of donor engagement with FBOs on the research map acknowledges the limitations of efforts to collaborate with faith-based organizations and brings to the surface still-remaining blinkers and limited assumptions in donor definitions of faith-based organizations and in ways of collaborating with them.
在过去十年里，全球开展了大量宣传工作，鼓励在国际发展项目中建立与宗教组织的伙伴关系并提供资金，以改善社会和健康状况。虽然关于宗教与发展，包括其争议方面，已有丰富的知识，但对捐助方可能发挥的作用关注较少。本研究的目的是描述和分析在喀麦隆卫生部门伙伴关系战略（2012年）实施后，捐助方与宗教组织之间的互动情况。在喀麦隆选定地区进行了46次深入访谈。研究结果表明，全球为加强与宗教组织的伙伴关系所做的宣传努力，在该战略实施后为捐助方增加对宗教组织的参与创造了空间。然而，该政策被认为是自上而下的，因为它没有考虑到一些现有的挑战。可以说，该政策加剧了政府与宗教组织之间一些现有的紧张关系，引发了宗教争议，使卫生系统局面复杂化。此外，它为捐助方与宗教组织进行随意互动提供了一个框架。因此，将捐助方与宗教组织互动的影响纳入研究范畴，承认了与宗教组织合作努力的局限性，并揭示了在捐助方对宗教组织的定义以及与它们合作方式中仍然存在的盲点和有限假设。
