Health administrators and decision makers who do not belong to a faith community are often ill at ease with the language culture of various faiths. On the other hand, religious health workers regard government health efforts with stereotypic images. They are dismayed by what appears to be inefficient, needless bureaucracy. It is no wonder that there is often a wide gulf between religious-based health programs and their government or secular counterparts.

During assignments in more than fifty developing countries, I have encountered too few examples of mutual cooperation and appreciation between these two sectors. The situation seems to be made worse by Western administrators, consultants, and decision makers who ignore, blissfully or willfully, the potential of the religious health sector.

Health, healing and ministry to the sick and dying have been intrinsic concerns of people of faith throughout history. Religious organizations have played, and continue to play, major roles in the founding of hospitals and health education initiatives in almost all developing countries. Many of the best hospitals and health programs in the developed world were started by the faith community. In the Christian tradition, followers have been working to alleviate suffering throughout the world by establishing health delivery organizations wherever the faithful live. Other faiths have made similar efforts through the work of groups like Aga Khan. In fact, until the modern age of scientific discovery, churches, mosques, monasteries, and ashrams were the primary healing centers -- ministering to both body and soul.

Religious Health Networks (RHNs) are usually the second largest health network in most countries, with governmental services being first. RHNs have been pioneers of advocacy for health care development, and serve as natural conduits for information. They are the logical candidates, therefore, for partnering with private and government initiatives to best utilize available technologies and human resources to improve health conditions.

A first step in the partnering process is to identify, catalog and disseminate information about established RHNs. The last such survey was done in 1963. Updated information is sorely needed to document the experience and range of RHNs. This inventory could also identify country-specific strengths and needs of RHNs, going beyond the general characteristics of RHNs as shown in the table below:
 

During the last 18 months the Institute for Development Training (IDT) has conducted an intensive survey of RHNs in 50 developing countries. IDT has been in communication with RHN national headquarters in each of these countries. Specific data arriving from these sources indicate that RHNs have grown considerably, in number and in membership, since the 1963 survey.

In addition, IDT has surveyed most Western faith organizations which support or have contact with religious health programs. We have found, unfortunately, that many funding organizations do not easily share their data or do not keep systematic records of health programs which they have funded.

The results of these surveys are now being compiled into a Religious Health Network Directory. The purpose of this directory will be to provide a listing of established programmatic health care resources in the developing world and to make this information widely available. The directory will be duplicated on the Internet in searchable electronic form. The RHNs will be categorized by continent, country, state, region, and town. The directory will include cross-cultural and multi-faith organizations dedicated to improving health conditions and providing health service.

If you have access to, or knowledge of, any general baseline information about RHNs, please contact the Institute for Development Training. Such information might include management issues, personnel training, communication networks, funding, and logistical support. It could also include strategies, policies, programs and case studies of RHNs which have been successful in developing and improving health services