CFBCI Newsletter, October 2017

The Center for Faith Based

and Community Initiatives

October 2017 Newsletter

LETTER FROM THE ACTING DIRECTOR

Dear Friends,

I was honored to participate in the 5th International Religious Freedom Roundtable Annual Event on October 25, 2017, cosponsored inter alia by the Templeton Religious Trust and the Institute for Global Engagement. As Secretary Tillerson underlined "Religious freedom is a cherished American value and a universal human right. The United States promotes religious freedom as a moral imperative." The Pew-Templeton Global Religious Futures project noted that "79% of the world's population lives in countries where there are very high restrictions on their freedom of belief and/or conscience-often resulting from deliberate, government-sponsored actions, and/or social hostilities toward persons with different beliefs." Why is addressing this critical to USAID's mission and our faith-based and community partners? As the Roundtable strongly affirmed, freedom of belief and conscience directly correlate with social outcomes such as political stability, economic development and women's empowerment.

Sincerely,

Timothy Lavelle

Acting Director, USAID Center for Faith Based and Community Initiatives

News

Humanitarian Grand Challenge

USAID alonside the Bill & Melinda Gates F oundation, Grand Challenges Canada (GCC) and other partners announced its 10th Grand Challenge that will focus on humanitarian assistance. The Humanitarian Grand Challenge will be launched in early 2018 and will seek innovative solutions to address the world's unprecedented humanitarian crises.

U.S. and Mexico Partner for Prosperity

USAID Administrator Mark Green met with officials from the Government of Mexico to deepen the U.S.-Mexico commitment to advance prosperity in Central America. Over the next six months, the two governments will conduct several projects with the Governments of Honduras, El Salvador, and Guatemala to facilitate trade; increase effective governance; and grow prosperity, thereby helping to address the root drivers of insecurity and migration. The agreement comes as a result of discussions between the United States and Mexico at the Conference on Security and Prosperity in Central America, co-hosted by the two governments in Miami in June 2017. Read more here.

Highlights

USAID Broad Agency Announcement: Internally Displaced Peoples in Iraq

USAID/Iraq has issued a Broad Agency Announcement (BAA) for opportunities to co-create, co-design, co-invest, and collaborate in the research, development, piloting, and testing of innovative, practical, cost-effective, and scaleable interventions to facilitate the safe and voluntary return of internally displaced persons (IDPs) to their homes in the Ninewa plains and western Ninewa, Iraq - and to encourage those who already are in their communities to remain there. The BAA can be found here .

Preventing Gender-based Violence

The Gender-Based Violence Task Force of USAID's Interagency Gender Working Group hosted an event focused on the role and impact of faith-based organizations (FBOs) in preventing and responding to gender-based violence (GBV). Panelists shared lessons and challenges they have faced in implementing evidence-based interventions to prevent and/or respond to GBV. You can view the recording and additional resources from the event here.

Combating HIV/AIDS and TB in South Africa

South Africa is the epicenter of the global HIV/AIDS epidemic, with more than seven million people living with HIV. Investments from USAID and other donors provide critical support to the national response by developing and scaling-up state-of-the-art treatment and prevention interventions. Activities are implemented by partners in the 27 districts in South Africa with the highest burden of HIV, including rural, urban, and peri-urban areas. Sub-recipients include several FBOs, which are critical to the Mission's response to HIV/AIDS. FBOs that partnered with USAID/South Africa through prime recipients have received a total of approximately $11 million to fig ht the epidemics since 2015. The full report from USAID/ South Africa can be made available upon req uest to fbci@usaid.gov.

Localizing Response to Humanitarian Need: Role of Religious and Faith-based Organizations


	Photo Credit: USAID

USAID co-hosted more than 140 participants from 36 countries in Colombo, Sri Lanka for the Forum on Localizing Response to Humanitarian Need and the Role of Religious and Faith-based Organizations. The forum provided a platform for diverse religious and faith-based organizations to come together with secular partners to showcase and critically reflect on their respective contributions to humanitarian preparedness, response and recovery. At the event USAID Mission Director for Sri Lanka and Maldives, Dr. Andrew Sisson, noted USAID Sri Lanka's long history of working directly with local organizations, both faith-based and secular.

Partnership for Religion and Development: Second Annual Meeting

The PaRD secretariat, in cooperation with PaRD Member DFID/UKAid, kindly invites PaRD members and partners to the PaRD 2nd Annual Meeting on November 12th-15th, 2017 at Wilton Park (UK). Contact PaRD for more information here.

USAID Business

For contract, grant and cooperative agreement opportunities visit www.fbo.gov and www.grants.gov.

Contact Us

If you have questions or comments about the newsletter email us at fbci@usaid.gov.

The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) provides this newsletter service to further engage and enhance cooperation with the international development community. The listing of events, meetings or organizations in this newsletter do not constitute support or endorsement of any specific ideas, concepts or organizations by the United States Agency for International Development or the United States Government.

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