The United Nations is exploring ways to increase better collaboration with the inter faith organisations in the country to reduce challenges in security and health.
According to the Board chair at the Global Vaccine Alliance (GAVI), Mr. Dagfinn Høybråten, faith-based organisations provides infrastructure critical in reaching marginalised groups.
He spoke during a side meeting at the United Nations General Assembly (UNGAS). The meeting was organised by the Centre for Global Health and Diplomacy conference.
“In order to reach children on the margins, the infratructure of faith based organisations is critical, in mobilising mothers, fathers, volunteers and additional resources. They are important as advocates for global health, especially in country that may need more support resources for these causes,” said Høybråten.
Chief Executive Officer of Catholic Medical Mission Board, Bruce Wilkinson, said: “Amongst other causes, faith-based organisations have played roles in debt relief, HIV/AIDS programmes and in government-funded programmes against malaria.
“Now we have a chance of universal health coverage to exercise great influence, not because we are on the ground but we can influence leadership and policymakers to take that next step.”
The Minister of State for Health, Dr Khaliru Alhassan, said Nigeria had benefited greatly from collaborating with inter-faith organisations, especially on security and health.
The country has brought faith-based groups nationwide under one umbrella: the Nigerian Inter-faith Action Association (NIFAA), also known as Inter-Faith. This unites leaders of Christianity and Islam in the fight against poverty and diseases.
Alhassan said faith-based groups “can solve the nitty-gritty issues in communities.
“We believe Inter-Faith is working, and yielding a lot of positive results. What we need to do is to strengthen our partnership with these organisations.”
He spoke on a panel debate on the future of the global health architecture, considered fractured, but with potential faith-based groups can fulfil.
The minister told the panel that faith-based organisations played important roles because the public listen to them much more than to the government.
“We have a lot of contact with religious leaders. We have a powerful Inter-Faith organisation. A lot of ordinary citizens will listen to them more than the government,” he said.
The Inter-Faith engagement focuses on malaria, tuberculosis, HIV/AIDS, polio, and poverty impact.
He described the partnership as “tremendous”, exemplified in the ongoing fight to stop polio transmission by year end.
Alhassan said the long battle with polio had been pragmatic, without much success due to what he described as “poor quality campaigns”, which didn’t stop the number of cases year in and year out, until faith-based groups became involved.
He said: “The same approach was used containing the Ebola virus disease.
”With the involvement of faith-based organisations, there is added quality in terms of selection of teams and community involvement.
“That’s what we borrowed during the Ebola crisis, and it really helped us. Immediately, all the major faith-based organisations came out supporting government, organising health camps, educating the general public, and a lot of people listened to their religious leaders.”
