 Good morning and welcome. My name is Elise Grande. I'm the head of the United States Institute of Peace. The Institute was established in 1984 by Congress with a mandate to help prevent, mitigate, and resolve violent conflict abroad. We're very pleased to have the opportunity this morning to host the launch of USAID's new policy on strategic religious engagement. This is an important strategy, and it's one of the first of its kind. It's a particular honor to welcome USAID administrator, Samantha Power, back to the Institute, and to thank her for her leadership in raising this agenda. I would also like to extend a special welcome to Ambassador Rashad Hussein. He's the ambassador at large for international religious freedom at the US Department of State. And to Melissa Rogers, the executive director of the White House Office on faith-based and neighborhood partnerships. Your presence and participation here today affirm that religious engagement is a priority across the interagency. Thank you for being with us. Administrator Powell will open our event with comments and reflections on the new policy. That will be followed by a fireside chat that will give us an opportunity to talk about the role of religious engagement in US foreign policy. We will then have a presentation that will give us an overview of the policy itself. That will be followed by a colleague from USAID who is joining us from Jamaica to talk about the application of the policy on the ground. We're then delighted to welcome to the floor Ambassador Hussein, Madame Rogers, who will be sharing their views on this as well. Administrator Power, with your permission, may I hand the floor to you. Thank you so much, Lees. Thank you for being such a tremendous partner on this and on all things. I feel like I'm always here launching something, talking about how we're trying together to be nimble and meet some of the central challenges of our time. I won't spend more time echoing your thanks, but I do want to single out Adam Phillips for his leadership at USAID and helping bring this policy for strategic religious engagement to the fore, grateful also, of course, to Rashad and Melissa for being here. But Adam really spearheaded this with the team at USAID. And it is the first. And we're incredibly proud that we now have something that is going to set our agency on a path to double down on what is working already and to really expand, I think, and deepen our strategic religious engagement. So Adam, thank you for your service. Thank you for everything you've done to make today happen. Adam has some fans in the house, as he should. The late Madeleine Albright, a towering public servant, was once asked why we can't just keep religion out of foreign policy. She answered adamantly, we can't and we shouldn't. Religion is a large part of what motivates people and shapes their views of justice and right behavior. It must be taken into account. This is so true. As foreign policy leaders, as development professionals, as humanitarians, we must take religion into account. In fact, when we fail to do so, we fail to tap into one of the world's most powerful potential forces for change. In my travels to the communities that we serve around the world, I have seen how faith-based leaders are often the most trusted and effective change makers in their communities. I've witnessed their unique ability to draw from wide networks to convene important, difficult conversations to bring people together and to inspire action. And I've seen how during times of crisis, which sadly there are too many of these days, they are often the first to arrive and the last to leave. Many have committed their lives to fighting for justice and caring for those with the greatest needs, grounded in the principles of their faith and living out their religious conviction in a way that uplifts humanity and inspires us all. And when we partner with these change makers, the results can be extraordinary. Take PEPFAR, or the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief. PEPFAR, as many of you know, marked its 20th anniversary earlier this year. When the initiative began in the early 2000s, research suggested that AIDS would cause early death in as many as half of the teenagers living in the hardest hit countries of Southern Africa, half. Globally, more than 40 million people were living with HIV and the numbers were spiking at alarming rates. As an estimated, 5 million people were newly infected each and every year. To take on that challenge, we would need to reach communities at an unprecedented scale and engage on a topic as fraught, taboo, and personal as sex. And it was clear faith-based leaders were those with the trust, the moral authority, and the connections across their communities that we needed to meet the challenge. So PEPFAR launched its faith and community initiative and began more intentionally engaging with faith-based organizations. As religious organizations and faith leaders became partners in providing life-saving services, breaking down stigma, tapping into their networks and raising awareness, we saw a remarkable increase in identifying cases, reaching those suffering from HIV AIDS who were not coming forward and providing them treatment. Also, religious leaders were absolutely key in disseminating essential information to communities at risk. For instance, in Zambia, when PEPFAR partnered with a faith-based organization to provide care at community posts, the number of HIV cases they successfully identified increased 12-fold. And fully 95% of those HIV-positive individuals received the critical care they needed to maintain their own health and slow the spread of the virus across their communities. Partnerships like these have helped PEPFAR become one of the most successful public health initiatives in history. In total, the initiative has saved an astounding 25 million lives. It never would have been possible. Those results never could have come about without strategic religious engagement. Earlier this year, a cohort of 80 faith-based leaders from across faith traditions and across all 50 states reflected, quote, the story of PEPFAR is a story of medical miracles and mercy, of faith and fierce advocacy. Faith-based organizations were at the front lines of the communities most affected by HIV AIDS, by the HIV AIDS crisis, and faith leaders knew the challenge at hand and the scale of intervention that was required, end quote. At USAID, our long legacy of faith engagement has garnered bipartisan support across administrations through the years. But all too often, we have missed out on opportunities to join faith-based partners in our development work. Because we know these opportunities for partnership are not always perfectly straightforward, while religious organizations possess this undeniable power for good, there have also been real instances throughout history in which religious organizations have used their power to exclude, to impose their views on others, or to offer relief only to people of their same religion. And there are genuine constraints in our own constitution that require us to be thoughtful and principled when engaging with religious organizations. Sometimes, instead of reckoning with this history, facing it squarely and coming up with a strategy to overcome these challenges, including some confusion about those legal constraints, we refrain from engaging with religious leaders who might be able to further our goals. Today, we are attempting to change that. We are leaning in through USAID's first ever religious engagement policy, which is titled, I have a prop, Building Bridges in Development. And I'll let others articulate what each of the letters in bridges stands for. A real USAID strength is coming up, and it actually works brilliantly in this instance. So I'm gonna leave that to others, great suspense. This policy reaffirms the fundamental truth that religious actors are integral, necessary partners in development. It offers tools and principles to advance inclusive development and honor the separation of church and state in our engagement with faith-based leaders. And it gives our workforce what they need to strengthen existing partnerships and build new partnerships with faith-based organizations, taking advantage of this incredible ability that faith leaders, people of faith, and faith-based organizations have to drive change. At their best, religious traditions around the world remind us of the dignity of all people. Dignity, a force that has spurred people to action. And this policy illustrates how USAID can partner with faith-based leaders to further these efforts. Through this policy, as Secretary Albright implored, USAID will take religion into account in a deliberate, principled manner. We will tap in to the extraordinary potential of religious leaders to help build a more just, compassionate, and equitable world. Thank you so much. Madam Administrator, thank you for being at USIP, for your leadership on the strategy and for presenting it with such intent and interest. We'd like to begin our fireside chat with a very practical question, if you allow. As the head of USAID, what kind of tangible changes do you hope that this policy, with its emphasis on religious engagement, will have on how USAID does its work? Thank you so much, and thanks again to all of you. I think, as a practical matter, I alluded just now to some of the trepidation and sensitivity. And so part of what we have done is launched new training. Just in February of this year, we launched a training for our workforce on strategic religious engagement. We had that comes also on training that exists on international religious freedom and on the establishment clause, around which people still have just a lot of questions. We say in the policy, if you have questions, don't then say, okay, let me go run off and find another partner where it might be less complicated or where I don't have to talk to a lawyer, which many people just don't want to talk to a lawyer. But instead, just call the general counsel, call your legal advisor at your mission. And the wide array of partnerships that are possible, a lot of people, even to this day, don't understand that, yes, we can't fund proselytizing. We can't fund religious instruction. But my goodness, in terms of service provision, in terms of the bully pulpit, the moral pulpit that leaders have, in terms of peace building, environmental protection, public health. So the policy itself, the strategy itself, I should say at the USA, there's important distinctions between strategies and policies. The strategy is itself a message, a signal to go looking, to know that when we talk about inclusive development, of course, that means going out of our way to find marginalized populations, vulnerable populations, but it also means being really inclusive in how we think about partnership. And it means whatever those trust issues, which I should say go in both directions, I think many potential partners out there who are faith-based organizations or faith leaders think to themselves, do I have to hide my faith in order to come forward and apply for USAID resources? So the fact of having a strategy sends an important sort of high-level signal, training our workforce, encouraging them to come forward and be themselves more intentional in line with the principles here. That will make a difference, but it's, you know, we're doing it, but we can be doing it in much more substantial ways. And my broader kind of message, our mantra at USAID is also progress beyond programs. So there's the question of actually how we partner and provide resources, taxpayer resources, to organizations that can provide services, that can do advocacy, that can help tackle a public health crisis or deal with climate adaptation. There's that aspect of it, but it's also getting our teams to see that they can do development diplomacy, even if they don't have a budget for it. If you are trying to get people to take a COVID vaccine, you may not, in that particular community, have resources to fund a pop-up clinic, but you can engage a faith leader for free. And it turns out if you can actually enlist a faith leader doing development diplomacy, that may have every bit as important an impact in terms of steering a congregant to go someplace else to get a vaccine or even to adhere to basic sanitation practices than if you had some large program budget. So I think we'll see this, there'll be implementation, an implementation plan will follow the strategy with a kind of toolkit for our team members, but we really need to get the word out to the faith community as well that USAID, which has always been open for business, but now is being more intentional, even more intentional in this direction. Madam Administrator, how do you see the relationship between the new strategic religious engagement policy and some of your agency's broader priorities? You spoke about the transformative impact that you expect to see from this new policy. How do you think that will affect the other things you're trying to do? And we're very specifically talking about some of the hallmarks of your leadership in USAID's engagement, which would include localization, diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility and inclusive development. Yeah, thank you for highlighting several aspects of what we are trying to push forward at USAID. So let me, first I'll start just by coming back to this idea of progress beyond programs. So in general, we're trying to develop a mindset or deepen a mindset that has us not simply saying what has Congress done for us lately? What kind of appropriation have we been given and how do we go forth on the basis of our earmarks and directives in order to do good in the world and meet people where they are? We're trying to shift it a little bit to say, because no budget could ever keep up with the, as you know from working, from leading here, can no budget can ever keep up with what's coming at us right now in terms of displacement, conflict, climate, never mind coming out of a once in a century pandemic. So shifting the mindset to have our teams in the field say what is the problem that we're trying to solve? What is the problem that this community is most seized with? And then say, do we have resources to apply to that? If not, it's still their priority problem. We're still the world's leading governmental development, humanitarian agency, and we know a lot of people. We know private sector leaders. We know we're the leading funder of the World Bank. We can hustle up other donors, even if we may not have a earmark that aligns entirely. So I think this, and I gave the example earlier on vaccine diplomacy, but I think this intentionality around religious engagement fits really well under that as well, to engage religious leaders to find out what's on their mind, what are the biggest challenges, how do they prioritize, but also recognizing that even if we are not funding them, they have a role to play on team problem solve, let's say, or team development, however the challenge is defined. So that's a major agency priority in terms of bringing that mindset to bear wherever we are and not letting resources define our sense of the possible. Easier said than done. This is challenging. You get promoted at USAID for the amount of money you manage in many instances. There's so much work associated with managing the resources that are generously appropriated to us. So this is actually asking a lot, but it's been incredibly gratifying to see people seize this way of operating. Second, you mentioned localization. We have set a target for USAID to provide 25% of our assistance directly to local partners, faith-based organizations rooted in the communities with all of that history and that local knowledge would be wonderful candidates as our missions look and go beyond traditional, let's say, US-based contracting partners or large international organizations like the one that you used to work for. So they are, I think, great candidates and should be engaged and enlisted and we have great examples already, of course, of doing that, but in order for that really to work in a sustainable way, our efforts to make it easier to work with USAID also have to bear fruit. So at the same time, we've set these targets and tried to create incentives within USAID for USAID personnel to work with smaller organizations and local organizations who tend to be smaller. We also have separately an initiative around paperwork burdens and barriers to entry and all the administrative and compliance requirements that might make a faith-based organization really excited to tap into a pool of resources around community engagement on lowering emissions. They may be really gung-ho to do that and then they go on the website and then their heads explode and then they decide maybe they'll go somewhere else and hope to raise money. So this is gonna take time, it's already taking time but we did over the course of the last year manage to increase the amount of USAID assistance that went to local organizations by 40%. It is a low bar in terms of that share, getting to 25% by 2025 is gonna be really challenging. The other part of our localization agenda though should be squarely in the wheelhouse of strategic religious engagement which is a target of ensuring that 50% of our assistance is obligated by virtue of co-design, co-evaluation, where we all talk about partnership that is the language of development these days as it should be but where we are actually measuring the extent to which this is true partnership or us coming along and kind of bringing a program idea or a particular project to a community. So we've just unveiled our metrics for local empowerment which is different again than this direct assistance. So something could go through a US-based organization for example International Rescue Committee or something, Samaritan's Purse, it could go through one of those organizations but in order to quote count as part of the 50%, it has to be co-designed the conception of what it is, the implementation, who's measuring whether it's really what a community needs. That has to be done locally and so that's to get to 50% of all of USAID assistance by 2030 and we're making progress there again to me that should be close to 100% surely but we will measure it and get there and again that just stands out as being a natural place where our missions can go forth into mosques, into churches, engaging with synagogues, faith leaders and have that conversation about what is needed and how best to channel resources and then an RFP can grow out of that kind of dialogue and that conversation but in at the takeoff, in at the landing and I think that'll be really important and then of course inclusive development which you mentioned we wanna be and again I don't wanna spoil the acronym unveiling but we wanna be incredibly inclusive and respectful of the diversity that exists within all communities. Principles of non-discrimination are going to be absolutely essential as we try to expand and deepen our partnerships and I think again knowing actually that so often it is faith-based organizations who are finding and ministering to the most vulnerable and the most marginalized makes this a really exciting vehicle for our broader inclusive development agenda. At the same time again whoever we partner with we wanna make sure that they're not discriminating on the basis of race, religion, sexual orientation and so forth so I think inclusive development cuts in many many directions, many important directions as you'll hear about when you hear more about the policy. You allow Madam Administrator a final question about dignity which we understand is one of the core principles guiding this particular policy and strategy. In your career you've written very powerfully about human dignity as a historical force. May we invite you to talk about how you see the concept of dignity as it connects to both global development and USID's engagement with religious actors? Absolutely, I do think it's essential. It is the D in Bridges. Just so you know, spoiler alert. But it's more than that. I mean it is the animating principle behind development, behind humanitarian response and if you have a secular approach to dignity it's as simple as each person has an inherent worth. Their agency matters to them and thus matters to the rest of us. Their autonomy, respecting again that no matter where you come from, no matter what family you're born into, what religion you are, what sexual orientation you are, that that inherent worth is a universal principle. So that, you know, I think broadly speaking is the animating principle behind why we help people try to gin up jobs or give them cash assistance in the wake of an emergency so they can go to the market and buy food for them families themselves or spare a parent by providing tangible food assistance, the indignity of not being able to feed a child and to have to look into child's eyes. Dignity is everything to what we're trying to do at USAID. And you know, from a religious standpoint if you believe as I think all faiths do that every individual is born in the image of God that to me is the embodiment of that same core principle of inherent worth. If you're born in the image of God you're entitled to have your rights respected, to have your dignity promoted over the course of your lifetime. And part of dignity is also about, you know, again some of this localization can sound very jargony but it's about dignity, it's about who's exercising voice around how to grow an economy or expand educational access or provide healthcare. So fundamentally localization to me is rooted as well in attention to dignity. You asked the question about dignity as a historical force. I think leaders who ignore the or who negate individual dignity or a community's dignity by stripping religious minority of its rights or of its ability to practice its religion. You know, I think Isaiah Berlin talked about the bent twig you know, long ago of just how that kind of snaps forward when bent and suppressed when one is forced to pay a bribe and that leader asks for a bribe and asks for a bribe and you have no way to vote that leader out of office even though what they are doing is a violation of your dignity, that of your family. You know, that suppressed over time is a very kinetic and powerful force. I think that our engagement with religious communities needs to be alert to the complexity and the sensitivity and the diversity of not only faith but of the practice of faith and be extremely sensitive of the dignity of the individuals with whom we are engaging but the enterprise of expanding engagement in these communities is all about trying to advance, promote, protect the dignity of individuals in the communities in which we work and we think that this strategy is gonna put us in a stronger position that we're going to, we're even just having a strategy. I mean, how can it be that this is the first strategy on religious engagement that's very, very surprise? Even this morning, I was like, are we sure it's the first really? I mean, and again, we've had a dedication to programming and partnering with faith-based partners for a very long time but in signaling how much we value what faith-based organizations and faith leaders have to offer our broad strategic objectives in tackling the world's hardest problems. I hope that's an affirmation of the dignity of our faith-based partners in broad strokes but I also hope it invites and excites a proliferation and broad expansion of the conception of what's possible between our agency and this community. Thank you. Madam Administrator, thank you for your comments. I hope everyone joins me in expressing our appreciation. Thank you, Liz. Thank you, Administrator Power and Liz for the thought-provoking conversation we just had here right now. As Administrator Power noted, dignity, inclusion and respect are the foundation of this policy and everything we do at USAID and I'm grateful for the opportunity to reflect on these values together. My name's Adam Phillips and I'm honored to serve as the director of USAID's faith-based and neighborhood partnerships. We talked a lot about what does it mean to be a neighborhood partnership center when you're working across 100 plus countries at USAID and I think about it as the last mile. When you think about faith-based organizations, when you think about development delivery, we often talk about last mile delivery. Well, there is no last mile because it's their neighborhood and so it's been a pleasure and honor these two and a half years to lead this center with an incredible team. I wanna thank our colleagues in the interagency including many from the State Department and White House who have joined us here today and who have been supportive partners throughout this process, sharing resources and innovative ideas and providing essential critical feedback. I'd also like to acknowledge the policy drafting team including Amanda Vigno, David Hunziger, Thomas White, Gretchen Burkle and Alexander Rice. This policy would not have been possible without their diligent day in and day out work so thank you team for your work. We're launching a strategic religious engagement policy and we're not having a lot of engagement with the audience this morning so we wanna own that but we've engaged the community for two and a half years, over 500 partnership engagements. We had a robust public comment period last November and December garnishing 300 plus more comments. We have a series of implementation events coming up where we'll get to engage even further both here in Washington, across the US and in the field so look forward to hearing more from you on this policy in the weeks and months to come. And finally, I wanna thank USIP, the US Institute for Peace for hosting us and for the work USIP does every single day to advance research and learning on strategic religious engagement and many other important topics, especially Melissa, Peter and Paula Washar. I'm very grateful for your hospitality here. So with that I'd like to now introduce two of my colleagues at USAID, Alexandra Rice and Jay Singh. Alexandra is a policy analyst with the Center for Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships. She will provide an overview of the acronym of the policies, principles and the four step framework that will guide USAID staff in their engagement with religious communities and faith-based organizations. I'm also really delighted that we have Jay Singh with us who is the mission director for USAID Jamaica and the seasoned leader in strategic religious engagement himself at the agency having served once as acting director of the Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships Center. He'll be joining us virtually to provide a mission perspective on the new policy and what it looks like to put strategic religious engagement into practice. Again, welcome Alexandra and Jay. Thank you so much Adam. It's an honor to be here today and walk you briefly through the contents of the policy. The policy articulates a set of principles to guide USAID's strategic religious engagement efforts and a framework for putting that policy into action. The frameworks convey our commitment to building bridges. The bridges acronym as administrator power previewed spells out the principles. Belonging, respect, integrity, dignity, growth, equity and sustainability. I will briefly highlight how each of these principles will empower our staff to be confident and intentional in their interactions with religious actors and faith-based organizations which I will refer to as FBOs. Belonging, recognizing that religious dynamics can serve as levers of unity as well as division. The principle aims to balance the respect for distinct world views with universal principles of human dignity and authentic relationships. Pluralism is strengthened where people of all backgrounds, belief and conscience can flourish, not in spite of profound differences but because these differences are valued. Respect, a critical component of successful engagement entails respecting the autonomy, character and independence of the local faith-based organizations and FBOs we engage. This acknowledges the complexity of religious landscapes and countries where USAID works, appreciating the differences between and among those religious traditions and recognizing the distinct approaches to development. Integrity, evidence and consultation with these groups highlight the need for both government and donor communities to resist instrumentalizing such partners to meet their objectives. Interacting with integrity promotes two-way engagement. It seeks to build trust and mutual understanding and serves as a commitment to engaging in line with all legal requirements. Dignity, we will partner with organizations that share common ground in defending the dignity of all people. As we consider the impact of foreign assistance on those with whom we engage, we will embrace a do-no-harm approach as a central tenant of our efforts. Carefully considering at the outset and at an ongoing basis, the potential unattended consequence of our proximity to external partners. Growth, as highlighted in USAID's localization efforts, local leadership is critical. Embracing the spirit of nothing about us without us, religious communities and FBOs, our key actors of change and USAID's engagement with them is critical to not only sustain development progress, but also to learn and do more. Equity, USAID supports equity in its work so all people can thrive and prosper. Our commitment to advancing this principle translates to broad outreach in our engagement, fairness in our interactions, and even handedness in our selection of institutions and individuals with whom we work, including that no one is favored nor discriminated against because of their religious affiliation or lack thereof. Sustainability. We will initiate and support long-term engagement with religious communities and FBOs through solution-driven dialogue and in-country collaboration to strengthen those development goals. This principle includes lowering barriers to partnering with USAID where possible to support sustained partner diversification. Finally, this policy offers a framework for USAID staff to work directly with the aforementioned stakeholders. Survey the landscape. Because religious dynamics vary considerably between and within countries and communities, there is no one-size-fits-all approach to strategic religious engagement. USAID staff are encouraged to conduct this step by assessing the country context, reflecting on how the principles of engagement might be applied in that context and developing a plan accordingly. Set the foundation. It is essential to equip the USAID workforce with requisite knowledge and skills to partner confidently with religious communities and FBOs. Setting the foundation encourages staff to take advantage of available trainings, tools and resources to conduct strategic religious engagement and integrate it across our activities. Build together. Empowering local actors and sharing equal ownership of a project enhances sustainability and results. So constantly incorporating input and feedback is necessary, including religious actors and stakeholder consultations, identifying shared goals with them, and integrating engagement opportunities are some of the steps USAID can take to establish relationships that are built to last in multiple sectors and geographies. Maintain and repair. As with all of USAID's approaches, strategic religious engagement requires continuous communication with our partners. We seek regular feedback to maintain and build our alliances, or to adapt and adjust interventions as necessary to ensure partners result in a strong bridge, partnerships result in a strong bridge that will allow for future collaborations and continued positive results. Together, the principles and framework will increase the impact and sustainability of our development and humanitarian assistance programs through improved engagement with religious communities and faith-based organizations as strategic partners. Thank you all again for joining. I will now turn it over to Jay Singh, the country representative and director of USA Jamaica. Thank you. Thank you so much. I just want to say I'm just very humbled by this opportunity to talk to all of you, but also to, I wish I was there in person because Lisa and I served in Dhruva, I think 12 years ago. And good to see you on screen, Mr. Power. Thank you for your leadership. Adam Phillips, I mean, we've been working on this for a long time. As Adam mentioned, I was the head of the faith-based office the transition between the Obama administration and the Trump administration. And I just found this is a long time coming. And I'm really happy that it builds up two principles that Mr. Power mentioned, progress beyond programs and the DEIA inclusive development at Ethos that we have now in USCID. It's been there for a long time, but this actually puts it into motion. As a credit diplomat, I've served as mission director in three different countries. And I've always found my engagement with faith-based communities really particularly important to understand the development context and target interventions that make sense while not politicizing the faith-based community, which is very key and the key tenant of our approach. The strategy, what we did here in Jamaica is look at the context. As many of you know, Jamaica is a great country to visit, but it has a lot of issues. So climate change has a bit has torn apart a lot of the resilient structures. But beyond that, the violence, the gang violence is incredible. To put it in perspective, Jamaica has a size of Chicago, but twice the homicide rate. So that puts it in perspective. Besides the, when you look at violence, it's gang violence and domestic violence with gender-based violence is the second largest driver of statistics when it comes to violence. So looking at those two issues, we decided that the mission to do a kind of assessment took an evidence-based approach of how do we actually address these issues? So we did a sort of innovative analysis about the cursory, but a little more in-depth in cursory, go out and talk to them in faith-based theaters and realize that the only institutions besides the police that live in inner cities and in these hot zones of the gang violence is the faith-based community. It was a missed opportunity for all of us. So we did an analysis of looking at these. So most of the faith-based communities are used to sort of come here in Jamaica. It's come one, come all, a very parish approach to providing services. And they target two types of services here largely, and that's youth at risk and parental support, given the fact that a lot of young families who have violence, rape and gender-based violence is parenting skills and along with the vocational training of these at risk youth. So we did a very targeted and now a little bit approached how do we actually engage with the faith-based community besides just the dialogue and understanding the issues is really looking at where are they and how do they actually work with the community to give us an insight of how do we actually approach them and provide services or needs that they need. So given the fact that most FBOs use a come one, come all approach, that gives us a, and they provide services. Most of these services are funded through congregational donations. There's not a lot of money, but they're very committed to it. One thing you find in Jamaica is I've met some of these priests here who are working in these really highly violent areas, but they walk around without any fear because they understand the community and understand the dynamics of the community. And we're missing that. I've talked to the police commissioner. I've worked, we've worked directly with the minister of national security on, we have a G2G, they're a very unique G2G on gang violence and citizen security. It's very innovative in that way. So basically, if you look at the first thing we looked at was the way they approach their parishes and the people in the community. It's not a more proselytization for it. It's a thing of doing the right thing. These people are at risk. They need to find ways to get them off the being less risky in their behavior. So what we have to do more rigorous analysis, but most of the respondents we've talked to of the beneficiaries have really clearly mentioned two things. One, they like the faith based approach of doing the right thing. And when I say faith based, it's a, it comes more of a morality than doing the right thing versus a particular religion. And secondly, these institutions provide a safe space. And that's critical. Safe spaces are highly important in these areas where you feel the wrong place at a long time, you end up getting, losing a life. There's a strong need identified by the beneficiaries and the faith institutions on skills, on skill building, training, providing family focused support. Again, funding is an issue. So what we did was we looked at the analysis and said, well, here's the next steps. We want to find ways to support and train the faith based data on financial management so they can manage the finances more effectively. And there's ways we can do that through our partnerships with our NGO partners and grantees here who are not faith based but can work with faith based institutions to provide that services. And then connecting faith based institutions to private sector actors to generate funding for these types of things. Because the security of Jamaica relates to development outcomes as well as creating more investment opportunities in Jamaica. So it goes hand in hand. And then working with NGOs like International Youth Foundation, I think if Susan Reichley is there, I mean, some of the work that her NGO has been doing has been phenomenal in Jamaica in building the support with youth and youth leaders and creating these society actors who are youth based to find ways to reduce violence. And then finally, what we decided we wanted to do was really train these institutions on monitoring, evaluation, and learning to make our approach very targeted but also allow them to understand and decipher where they're going right and where they're going wrong and what needs to be done to fix that. So that's in a nutshell how we're approaching this. Again, it's not a lot of money but it takes a lot of my time which I, as a career diplomat and actually a marketing DCM, I spend a lot of my time with these communities because I need to understand how we as diplomats, American diplomats, given the fact that Jamaica has a lot of connections in the United States, how we actually best support and make this country a much more investable place to live as well as then address the issue of climate change and basic education and some other key challenges. But I just think this is a long time coming and I can't thank Adam enough to bring me in to the fold and helping me to sort of design and take this on. So I want to say this thank you to all of you and I really appreciate the opportunity. Thanks Alex and Jay. Our hope is that the policy will provide a useful framework for our mission colleagues as they build partnerships with religious communities and faith-based organizations. The Center for Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships looks forward to being a resource for all of our colleagues at USAID and the interagency as we implement the policy in the coming months. Now I'm very honored to introduce Melissa Rogers, the executive director of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships. In February 2021, President Biden reestablished the White House Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships through executive order and urged the office to work with leaders of different faiths and backgrounds who are the front lines of their communities and crisis and who can help us heal, unite and rebuild. With a 20-plus year bipartisan legacy at USAID, our center is part of this wider whole-of-government network that is working to advance President Biden's mandate to serve our neighbors in need, both near and far. As director, Melissa has provided exceptional leadership to the USAID Center and the broader network of faith centers across the federal government. At USAID Center, we are very proud of the work we have accomplished, including this policy to further the administration's priorities. So now, I'll turn it over to Melissa to share how this policy fits into the administration's broader efforts to build partnerships with faith-based organizations and communities at home and abroad. Thank you so much, Adam. And hello, everybody. It's great to be here with you today. I am so excited to be able to join you for the launch of this exciting new strategy, especially after we had the acronym unpacked. I want to thank Administrator Power for her leadership and for your work and your eloquent understanding of these issues is clearly not just something that you know about and dip into, but actually think about in all facets of your leadership. And that is so appreciated and makes such a difference in whether this policy will be successful. We know it will because your heart and your mind are fully invested in it. Thank you for that. And I want to thank my colleague, Adam, as well. The same thing is true of him. And he has been a phenomenal colleague. You wouldn't know it, but before this job, Adam had not worked in government service. And that's one of the greatest compliments I can give somebody that you didn't know. And the other greatest compliment I can give is that Adam has worked his heart out and he has gotten a heck of a lot done in two and a half years. And that is the best kind of compliment you can give a colleague. I also want to thank my friend, Ambassador Rashad Hussein for his stellar leadership at the Department of State, serving as this beacon for us to all call for religious liberty for everyone everywhere. And again, this is a leader who has this on his heart in his mind every day and comes to his position exceptionally well qualified. And so we're so grateful for his leadership at the Department of State. And as I look around this room, I see people, so many friends and colleagues that it's just, it's hard to hold back, but I only have a few minutes, so I'm not gonna do a name check for everyone. But I want to say that here in this room, we have incredible servants from faith-based organizations present with us. We are so grateful for your service. And I want to say a special word from President Biden of thanks for your service. And also we have a community of people who have been very engaged with government for their lifetimes, it's their life work. And they have been in and out of government service sometime and when I look at you today, I hope that you can feel that everyone is standing on your shoulders today. We are building on this work and this space and you've all contributed. And if you hadn't, we wouldn't be able to continue to move forward. And to see you today is really moving. So thank you for what you've given to this tradition, for this educated understanding of how we engage faith communities in a way that's authentic and impactful and respectful of our constitutional guarantees. Well, we are so proud of this strategy today. And as Adam said, the center is part of a larger initiative that the Biden-Harris administration has undertaken that collaborates with faith and community groups. And this started as has been alluded to by President George W. Bush many years ago when he established the first White House office of faith-based and community initiatives. And as he recognized, excuse me, government cannot be replaced by the efforts of religious and community organizations, but it can and should welcome them as partners. And the Biden, the Obama Harris, excuse me, the Obama Biden administration carried that forward. And then as Adam recognized in 2021, President Biden relaunched the office at the White House and also relaunched a bunch of centers for faith-based and neighborhood partnerships that are spread across numerous federal agencies. And we actually get together all the time and it's such a fertile idea springing group because what we recognize is that people don't live their lives in silos of governmental departments. And so we want to have that kind of teamwork that meets people where they are and finds all kinds of collaborations where we can serve people better. And so that is a real joy. And we know as ambassador and administrator power has said that for countless people around the globe, faith is a core element of their lives. Thus reaching everyone requires us to reach out to faith-based organization and religious leaders. We need to do that to reach everyone. And for so many communities, religious organizations, including the ones that are represented here today are among the people who are always at the front lines of providing hope and healing. So serving in the White House, I have to say, is just such an inspiring window on this work. There is not a day that goes by that I don't find out about some work that a faith or community group is doing that's unknown, unsung, but absolutely vital and moves me to tears many times because this is what makes a difference in someone's life to be told you matter, to be linked to resources that you might not otherwise find, changes a life forever. So this is so important. And again, I want to say on behalf of President Biden, thank you to everyone who is in the room, who is watching around the world, who does this life-affirming work. The Building Bridges strategy wisely recognizes that we need to encourage greater collaboration between government and faith communities to serve people in need. We need to take religion seriously as administrator power described. We need to understand it in a nuanced, complex way and engage it thoughtfully and respectfully. And also, the strategy rightly recognizes that we must always do so in a way that respects our precious constitutional guarantees, including the First Amendment's guarantee of free exercise of faith and no establishment in religion. In other words, we can and should work with faith communities in a way that respects church state separation and religious liberty. And all this fits into a bigger picture of the Biden and Harris administration work streams, both to promote partnerships to serve people in need and to advance religious freedom for everyone everywhere. And that record includes the establishment of interagency groups that are dedicated, for example, to protecting places of worship and to another interagency group that has been focusing and continues to focus on countering anti-Semitism, Islamophobia and related forms of bias and discrimination and which recently produced as its first order of business the first ever national strategy to counter anti-Semitism. Again, this is where we all come together around shared convictions, one of them being that no one should have to be fearful when they are practicing their faith. We should all be able to practice our faith without fear. And so as we consider this road ahead, I want to again thank you to those who have helped to give birth to this initiative over time and those who will come after us as well. And I'm reminded that President Biden often says that America can be defined in one word, possibilities. In other words, nothing is beyond our capacity, everything is possible. There are so many powerful possibilities represented in this room and online today. And these possibilities include possibilities of utmost importance, which mean helping people around the world live more abundant lives. I hope and pray that one day we will look back on events such as this one and see that some of the finest chapters in our history began right here. So thanks again to everyone, to USIP as well, Lees and Peter for having us here today, Administrator Power, Adam, Ambassador Rashad Hussein, USA and all of you and Godspeed. Thank you, Melissa. It's terrific to have your leadership here today. It goes without saying that government work is sometimes hard, but also interagency work is sometimes even harder. But it's always been great to work with our friend Ambassador Rashad Hussein, Ambassador at Large for International Religious Freedom. He and his team have just been stalwart colleagues, a text away, a zoom away. It's been terrific to work with them. And so we're delighted he could be here with us today for this event, this policy. Thanks. What an awesome group of leaders here gathered here today from so many different backgrounds, so grateful to be a part of this event and to be a part of the work that so many of you are doing all around the world. I have to say I feel a little bit like Charlie at the chocolate factory really in this USIP and this peace factory absorbing all the brilliance here, feeling the dedication of all of you, so many leaders that are focused on work that I know that we feel so strongly about. I want to thank Liz Grand and USIP for your commitment to strategic religious leader engagement and for really all the work that you've been doing around the world. I've had a chance to work with so many of you from USIP, with Peter, with Paul Wascha, and others here on the range of issues that we've been addressing. I also want to thank Adam for his partnership. As he said, just a phone call away, a text away, and sometimes we do hear about cases in the middle of the night of someone that's been wrongfully detained, someone that's being persecuted, and we know that every hour, every minute that we wait can cost that person his or her life. And so it's really been an honor to be in the trenches with you working on religious freedom issues, but also religious leader engagement more broadly. Ambassador, Administrator Power, and Director Melissa Rogers are two of the most sincere public servants that I've worked with in my time in government, and they are people who have really been on the ground implementing the principles that are outlined in the strategy that's being unveiled today. And so it's really been an honor to work with you for all of these years. And working with so many of you that are here, I know that we've been together in so many places and have seen firsthand the impact of strategic religious engagement work. I think about the Marrakesh Declaration. I see many of you here that were instrumental in that work all around the world that started off as a small project with the room of religious leaders in Mauritania with Sheikhun Baya and others, and then moving to Tunisia and Morocco and so many other countries and really kind of building the momentum for that effort to protect the rights of Christians and other religious minorities living in Muslim-majority countries. We've been together in places such as Central African Republic, in Pakistan, Nigeria. I remember efforts to address the famine in the Horn of Africa where oftentimes religious leaders that were the ones that could provide access to places that were difficult because of extremists and others that were controlling certain areas. And so the bottom line is this. Religious actors can be such a powerful force for good and we cannot fully meet our foreign policy objectives without engaging them. And this engagement is an engagement that must be based on mutual respect. We've spoken about dignity. Administrator Power spoke very eloquently about the power of addressing each human being based on his or her dignity as she's done throughout her life. And I'll speak a little bit about the principle of respect, which is such an integral part of the strategy as well. I'll share a little story. My first engagement with a religious leader, so I grew up in Texas and in the Dallas area. And when we were very young, my parents used to take my sister and I to the mosque in the area to take classes from our Imam, who himself, we found out, was a very world-renowned, respected religious leader whose family had actually fled their home country because his wife, who was a professor, and then his daughter, who was about to start a medical school, were not permitted to wear the hijab in the place where they were from. And so we have this role-renowned scholar, and I'm already a little bit intimidated. And so when we're in his class, he starts telling us stories about the respect that they were taught in their tradition. And he was from the Ottoman tradition. So one of the stories he told us was about his time as a student. When he had a question, he would go to see a teacher and out of the respect that he had for that teacher, for that religious leader, wouldn't even knock on the door out of fear for interrupting the teacher. So they would literally stand there for hours and maybe the whole day to wait for the teacher, the Imam, the religious leader to come out. And then in turn, when they did come out, they would spend hours with them answering their questions, engaging. So that bond, that mutual respect is something that I learned about from a young age. And I think it speaks to the importance also of diversity in the work that we're doing. I mean, there is no one-size-fits-all approach as we've spoken about. And it's so critical that we have the diversity that we do have, and we, of course, must always do better within our ranks, within the government, at our missions all around the world. Because I've seen it over and over again. I know many of you have as well. The person that's most affected that engagement oftentimes is not the person that comes in from Washington, you know, with the big delegation or entourage. It's sometimes that person on the ground that knows the culture and knows the language. And you can instantly see the bond that they have. And so to have that basis of respect is not just a concept, but it's a practice that we have to have. And it's something that's really an integral part of the strategy that's being outlined today. A lot of the work that we're doing, and I spoke a little bit about mutual respect. We've seen it different places around the world. We saw it as we've traveled in many of the places that I've mentioned. And the influence, the real power, the real respect, the real influence that religious leaders have. The ability, particularly the local religious leaders, not even the, you know, we often think about the big names of the big national leaders, but it's oftentimes the local religious leaders when we engage them as USAID and others have been doing are the ones that have a real influence on the ground. And then many of those leaders become more prominent and create large movements and produce change in society. We've seen that around the world. I've seen that here in the United States. If we think back to Dr. Martin Luther King, we think back, you know, as a law student, I studied the civil rights movement. Dr. Martin Luther King, the latter teachings of Al-Haj, Malika Shabazz, Malcolm X. We've seen the impact that they've had in society at so many levels in terms of civil rights, in terms of promoting dignity for all people. And as a public servant, it's really been an honor to work with religious leaders around the world. I mentioned some of the trips that some of you have taken with us. And we work not just on religious freedom. And after all, you do have to have some degree of religious freedom in order to have religious communities that can thrive and that we can engage. So first and foremost, our office is dedicated to working on promoting and protecting religious freedom around the world. But we've also been engaged through our strategic religious engagement team on engaging local communities and religious actors on a whole range of issues. Some of those issues, we've already discussed a little bit today. We talked about in the area of religious freedom, of course, the Marrakesh Declaration, Istanbul Process and others. But there's also been a broader range of policy objectives. Some of you may remember the Religion and Global Affairs team that we had under Secretary Kerry at the State Department. So that team is now folded into the work that we're doing at the Office of International Religious Freedom, the Strategic Religious Engagement Unit. And they've been working with Adam and others focused on a range of issues, of course, global health coming out of a once in a century pandemic to address vaccine hesitancy, countering hate-fueled violence, including antisemitism, Islamophobia, as Melissa talked about, addressing violent extremism, advancing development, of course, the work of USAID, advancing humanitarian efforts, responding to disasters. And of course, we remember the people of Morocco, particularly right now. I know many of you are thinking about them and doing everything that you can to address what we're seeing unfold there in the aftermath of the earthquake, advancing education, including the rights of women and girls in places like Afghanistan, and addressing communal violence, including places as the Central African Republic in Nigeria. We're also in a challenging period, as you all know, of international competition, which the democratic foundations of many countries are under stress with several recent examples of democratic backsliding. And of course, we know that religious actors can be valuable partners in resisting authoritarian impulses in their societies. And importantly, in a work that oftentimes seeks one-size-fits-all solutions, the policy that has been unveiled today commits to sustainability and with the recognition of the local context and partnering, the importance of the local, partnering with local actors to address the needs of unique communities over the long haul. Development has never been a one and done endeavor and work with religious communities only succeeds with long-term commitment. So we've really enjoyed working closely with our colleagues at USAID. And in fact, we've been involved in trainings in different places around the world. Just this year, we've had trainings here in Washington, but also in places such as Honduras and Uzbekistan. And we have a training scheduled to really build on the work of this strategy in Indonesia later this year. So let's keep the momentum going. Let's continue the creativity. Let's continue to work outside the box. And Administrator Power talked about this. Sometimes we get an idea and our gut reaction might be, well, we can't do it because there seems to be like a legal challenge there. Well, the more we dig into things, oftentimes we find that there is a way to yes. And some of the most impactful work has been work that has occurred after a lot of initial hesitancy about whether it's even been possible. So let's continue to push the envelope as much as we can and lean in on this. We're very grateful for the strategy. Very grateful again to Adam and to USIP. And thank you most of all to all of you for all of the work that you're doing. Thank you so much. I greet you with a sentiment universally cherished across all our diverse faith traditions. Peace be with you. My name is Paul Washakakar, and I'm the Interim Director for the Religion and Inclusive Societies Program here at United States Institute of Peace. And it's my honor to close out our event today. That was a lot to hear from and take in. First, a word about the significance of today's gathering. USAID's new strategic religious engagement policy represents the first time a US government foreign affairs agency has developed a systematic framework for partnership with the faith sector. We're grateful to Administrator Samantha Power for her leadership in creating this vision and to Adam Phillips, Alex Rice, and the whole team at USAID's faith-based and neighborhood partnership center for delivering on it. And to Jay Singh, thank you for helping us understand its practical applications. The presence and contributions of Ambassador Hussein, who, by the way, we are next month going to be celebrating the 25th anniversary of the International Religious Freedom Act, and to Melissa Rogers, which also represents the first strategy that we had from the White House on religious engagement. This is the 10th year anniversary this year. Thank you. Thank you for your presence and your contributions. And this affirms an ongoing whole of government commitment to this work. I don't think it's an exaggeration to say that today's gathering marks the largest senior level interagency gathering on strategic religious engagement for the better part of the decade. It's great to see this commitment and thank you all for being here. USIP is a natural venue for this discussion as religion is the longest running thematic program at the Institute, having been around for 36 of USIP's almost 40 years. Today, our work engages in some of the most pressing issues of the day. Developing new approaches with religious leaders to advocate for the full rights of women and girls in post-conflict societies, addressing the religious dimensions of the war in Ukraine, studying how US strategic rivals, such as China and Russia, deploy religion as an instrument of statecraft. There are many ways in which we partner and serve as a resource for the US government, our religious landscape mappings, our trainings, our workshops, our research to name a few. While also working with organizations such as IFIS to understand the impact of religion on ensuring the quality and integrity of elections or with UNDP to integrate religious engagement in their work on enhancing mental health. Finally, let me just express how happy and honored we are that USIP has been able to serve as such a consistent partner and resource to the US government on strategic religious engagement. Needless to say, we look forward to continuing our support to US government colleagues and others in the days and years to come. Thank you all for being with us today.