Topics of significance for international development from religions and COVID-19 research

ABSTRACT

This review article looks at trends from academic articles published on religions and the COVID-19 pandemic between March 2020 and October 2021 in relation to their relevance for international development and global health researchers, policy makers, and practitioners. It focuses on mental health and gender-based violence. The literature shows that the use of religion and spiritual support as a coping mechanism when experiencing mental health issues and/or being exposed to gender-based violence are key topics for religions and COVID-19 research, but that neither topic is always appropriately considered when planning and implementing public health interventions.

KEYWORDS:

• COVID-19
• partnership
• gender and intersectionality
• gender and diversity
• aid – developmental policies
• social sector – health
• technology

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

The work for this paper was partially funded from a grant from Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit through the International Partnership on Religion and Sustainable Development (PaRD).

Notes on contributors

Susanna Trotta

Susanna Trotta is a Research Associate at the Joint Learning Initiative on Faith and Local Communities and a PhD candidate at the Research Programme on Religious Communities and Sustainable Development of Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Germany. Her main research interests are migration, sustainable development, religion, and new technologies. She has previously worked as a researcher at Bruno Kessler Foundation – Centre for Religious Studies in Trento (Italy). Susanna holds a MSc in Global Migration from University College London.

Olivia Wilkinson

Dr Olivia Wilkinson is the Director of Research for the Joint Learning Initiative on Faith and Local Communities (JLI), an international collaboration on evidence for faith actors’ roles in the humanitarian and development sectors. She directs JLI’s research work, collaborating with partners from UN agencies and governments, to faith-based organisations and NGOs, and in collaboration with universities. She published her book, Secular and Religious Dynamics in Humanitarian Response with Routledge in early 2020, which unpicks how secularity is one of many privileges and biases in the humanitarian system that makes aid irrelevant and inappropriate. She co-edited a new volume also with Routledge called International Development and Local Faith Actors: Ideological and Cultural Encounters. Her PhD research focused on the response to Typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines and she has since conducted collaborative research work around the world, most recently with local faith actors in South Sudan.

Katherine Marshall

Prof. Katherine Marshall is a senior fellow at the Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs, where she leads the centre's work on religion and global development, and a professor of the practice of development, conflict, and religion in the Walsh School of Foreign Service. She helped to create and now serves as the executive director of the World Faiths Development Dialogue. She is also vice president of the G20 Interfaith Association. Marshall, who worked at the World Bank from 1971 to 2006, has nearly five decades of experience on a wide range of development issues in Africa, Latin America, East Asia, and the Middle East, particularly those facing the world’s poorest countries. She led the World Bank’s faith and ethics initiative between 2000 and 2006.