Agree to Differ

[

] 76

UNFPA-Bhutan engages Buddhist nuns and monks to be

‘agents of social change’ to address sexual and reproductive

health issues and gender-based violence. Currently, three

nunneries have institutionalized life skills-based education

(LSE) as a co-curricular activity. A total of 42 monks represent-

ing monasteries from 12 districts have been sensitized on the

importance of LSE and fostering dialogue on social issues such

as teenage pregnancy, sexually transmitted infections and HIV/

AIDS; as well as gender-based violence and substance abuse.

Whereas in the Maldives, UNFPA partnered with other United

Nations Agencies – including UN Women, the Office of the

High Commissioner for Human Rights and the United Nations

Development Programme – and Musawah (a global move-

ment for equality and justice in the Muslim family), to build

the capacity of those engaged in issues of Muslim women’s

rights within the family in understanding religious texts from

a rights-based perspective. This empowers gender advocates

at community and national levels to promote gender equality

utilizing religiously-sensitive strategies, and also enables them

to push for the incorporation of equality measures into national

legislation in line with the United Nations Committee on the

Elimination of Discrimination against Women.

After decades of engagement, UNFPA was the first

United Nations entity to undertake three key initiatives: to

study and map out its national and regional engagements

with religious actors (in 2007); to develop, together with

its faith-based partners, guidelines for this engagement,

with principles clearly set out; and to convene a group of

these national and regional actors globally, and launch its

Global Interfaith Network for Population and Development

(in 2008). In 2010, UNFPA invited other United Nations

Development Group partners to form the UN Inter-Agency

Task Force around faith-based engagement. This task force

has become a key mechanism in the United Nations system

which harvests the experiences of both the United Nations

entities and their faith-based partners, to build a common

knowledge base and respective capacities with a view to

ensuring learned, systematic and principled outreach.

Traditional and religious leaders, faith-based health service delivery organizations, religious academia and religious non-governmental organizations are cultural

agents of change and development

Image: UNFPA’s Programme on FGM, 2014

gree

iffer