Note: This speech was scheduled to be given but due to unexpected weather, Mr. Ward's flight was delayed. Presented here are his original remarks as intended.
Islamic Medical Association of North America (IMANA)
Pre-ISNA Banquet, ChicagoHyatt O’HareAugust 30, 2007, 7:00 pm
Speech for Mark Ward
Assalamu Alaikum.
Good evening ladies and gentlemen. It is a pleasure to be with you tonight along with Dr. Mattson from ISNA and Dan Sutherland from the U.S. Department of Justice. I especially want to thank Dr. Sufi and Mr. Malik and the executive committee for their leadership, and for inviting me to address you today on behalf of the U.S. Agency for International Development.
As the head of USAID's Tsunami and Pakistan Earthquake Reconstruction Task Forces, I am well aware of how your organization supports devastated communities in the Islamic world. I applaud you for your generous commitment to helping those who have lost so much. You represent the very best of American generosity.
I also want to thank all of you for something a little more mundane…paying your taxes. Without your tax dollars and support from the Congress, USAID would not be able to provide humanitarian and development assistance to improve the lives of people in almost 80 countries around the world. And improving health care is one of our biggest priorities.
USAID is a leader in global healthcare. In 2007 alone, over $1 billion of your tax dollars will contribute to health programs. Currently the agency spends about 35 cents of every dollar on health.
We try to improve child, maternal, and reproductive health, reduce abortion and infectious diseases, especially HIV/AIDS, malaria, and tuberculosis.
In addition, the Presidents Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (also known as PEPFAR) has provided $15 billion for HIV/AIDS since 2004. The amount is going to be doubled to $30 billion during the next phase. This level of commitment by one donor to fight a single disease is unprecedented in the history of development assistance.
In addition, the President’s Malaria Initiative will provide $1 billion by 2010.
I think we’ve been very successful. For example in Afghanistan, one of the most challenging countries in which we work, access to basic health services has increased from less than 10% in 2002 to at least to 65% at present. And around 80,000 more children are surviving each year now than when the Taliban ruled.
Why are we successful? In part because we engage effectively with the communities where we work. Our goal is to have quality programs that address local needs – we really try to avoid cookie cutter approaches -- while respecting cultural and religious traditions.
We work closely with national and local governments, community leaders, and health care workers. Their ideas are often the most important ingredient in the design of a new health intervention.
And we try to talk to all parts of the community, even those that sometimes reject our efforts. For example, very often we ask religious leaders for their help. This is particularly true with respect to reproductive health and family planning where health care intersects with religion, culture and local taboos.
We’ve learned that religious leaders often are ethical arbiters of what is prescribed or proscribed by faith. Consequently, activities supported by religious institutions and their leaders have greater potential to promote and sustain positive change.
Let me illustrate with specific examples from some of the Islamic countries in which we work.
Yemen
One of the best examples of our success with religious leaders is in Yemen where we are building the capacity of religious leaders to advocate for maternal child health, reproductive health and family planning.
We held training of trainer workshops with male and female health workers, and included religious leaders. They helped develop the training curriculum and field test it to fit the Yemen context.
In particular, we asked the Imams to help us develop health messages that are consistent with the tenets of Islam.
The Imams were very straightforward with us. They said, “We have no books, no training in science. We only know what is in the Koran. We want to learn about modern science to go back and help our communities.”
After the training, an evaluation demonstrated a 50% increase in overall knowledge of family planning for male religious leaders and a 45% increase for the females.
After the training, one Imam wrote in his evaluation, “Before [the] training, I thought that family planning was an aggressive idea to decrease the number of Muslims. It is now clear to me that family planning is an Islamic idea to offer care for the mother, family and society. And, the contraceptives are safe.”
As of last month, we have trained approximately 100 Yemeni religious leaders from three governorates and 50 districts. They disseminate key health messages during Friday prayers and community meetings.
Bangladesh
Similarly, in Bangladesh, we are working with the Islamic Foundation of Bangladesh to encourage Imams to become involved in development efforts in the communities they serve.
The Foundation offers 45-day training courses at seven Imam training academies around the country.
The courses cover a wide range of development problems common to most communities, such as family health, agriculture, rural electricity, food security, and early childhood education.
They also learn what USAID is doing in Bangladesh, which improves the US image in the country, and discuss how they can help guide the members of their communities to make positive changes for their own good.
They visit our health clinics and see how we cater mostly to the needs of women. They, in turn, talk to the men in the community and advocate for more women doctors.
And the imams have responded by using the mosques’ loudspeakers to publicize the dates and services available and by promoting special events like National Immunization Day, Safe Motherhood Day, and World Breastfeeding Day.
The best examples are on public health issues, but they also help keep families focused on the value of primary education and the perils of trafficking in persons.
Afghanistan
In Afghanistan, we will work with the national government to integrate information on birth spacing and contraceptive use into the Government’s training program for religious leaders, to increase support for these reproductive health and family planning services.
This activity will build on a project funded by the Hewlett Foundation, where similar community and religious intervention programs helped increase contraceptive use in several provinces by over 100 percent.
Philippines
In the Philippines, Muslim religious leaders helped local health officials craft a national message on family planning and reproductive health that condoned the use of modern child spacing methods.
Two radio messages were developed to say that family planning is birth spacing and is allowed in Islam. They were broadcast on 11 stations throughout Mindanao. Today, as a result, three quarters of religious leaders in Muslim Mindanao are helping spread birth spacing messages.
Africa
And we are also working in Africa. In Mali we worked with the government’s High Islamic Council, the Islamic Network for Population and Development and other national Islamic networks to research and develop an advocacy training tool, which uses verses from the Koran to address Family Planning and HIV/AIDS.
And in Zanzibar off the coast of Tanzania, religious leaders are helping us reduce the stigma and promote awareness of HIV. We ran a series of two-day HIV/AIDS workshops for Imams and Madrassa teachers from every district of the island. The workshops integrated verses from the Koran and Islamic traditions with HIV/AIDS information.
Pakistan
Finally, in Pakistan, we are building on the efforts of the Government to create a cadre of master trainers among Imams to train in family planning and reproductive health at the provincial and district levels.
But we are still having a difficult time convincing some Pakistani religious leaders to advocate modern health methods. I remember when I was head of our Mission in Pakistan five years ago; we were working with WHO on a polio vaccine campaign. One influential Imam in the Khyber District of the NWFP, where polio prevalence was (and still is) too high, was actively preaching against the vaccine on the radio, telling parents that the vaccine was against the will of Allah. He believed it showed a lack of faith to get children vaccinated.
Then his son developed polio and became paralyzed for life. Now the Iman travels around the country with a WHO social mobilization project to get the word out about the vaccine.
Unfortunately, there are still other Imams in this region who advocate against the vaccine. They say the vaccines come from the U.S. to sterilize Muslim children. Some say the vaccines contain pork products.
Not surprisingly, we still haven’t eliminated polio from this region of Pakistan. But we will continue to work with religious leaders to spread the right message, because we know we’ll never convince many of these communities without their help.
Conclusion
This collaboration with Muslim leaders is a small but increasingly important part of our overall health program. The successes of the early programs I’ve described above motivate us to keep looking for new ways to engage religious leaders. And to the extent that you, the members of IMANA, engage with local religious leaders when you travel to Muslim countries or regions overseas, we would be very grateful if you too would look for opportunities to teach them about modern public health messages, and seek their help spreading those messages to their communities. Tell them, as we do, that we can’t improve people’s lives without their help.
Thank you again for inviting me to your banquet. Thanks for your wonderful work overseas. And thanks for your support.
