Co-Production: Do Faith-Based Organisations offer a potential?
Masooda Bano
Download NGPA Research Paper 41| (PDF)
Forging partnerships for development is one of the eight Millennium Development Goals. While Faith Based Organisations (FBOs) are receiving growing attention as important non-state service providers, they are assumed to be less conducive to forging development partnerships with the state than secular NGOs. Analysing the dynamic of engagement between state and madrasas (the most prominent FBO in the Muslim world) in six-countries across two geographical regions of Middle East (Egypt, Syria, and Turkey) and South Asia (Pakistan, India, Bangladesh), the paper demonstrates that the assumption that FBOs are less likely to work with the state due to strict adherence to religious beliefs is misplaced. Like NGOs, FBOs respond to incentives and enter in a variety of relationships with the state ranging from cooperation to conflict. The defining feature in building a cooperative relationship is the level of trust between the negotiators on the two sides.
Keywords: Partnerships; FBOs; Madrasas; Middle East; South Asia.