Religions and Development Programmes Programme

The Religions and Development Programmes programme (2005-2010) is working with programmes partners elsewhere in the UK and also in Nigeria, Pakistan, India and Tanzania. In addition, it has forged a non-academic partnership with Islamic Relief Worldwide, which is also based in Birmingham. In particular, it is working with Islamic Relief’s Policy and Programmes Unit. The collaboration has taken the form of a joint appointment, in order to facilitate the transfer of knowledge and programmes in both directions between the programme and Islamic Relief. As part of this collaboration, a joint project to identify the Muslim development NGOs based in the UK, explore their thinking on development issues, provide a better understanding of their capacity, and understand existing links as a foundation for further networking and cooperation was embarked upon. This report summarises the initial mapping stage of this work. However, tracing and obtaining information from the organisations proved to be difficult and time-consuming, while the idea of facilitating a network was overtaken by other initiatives, so the intended further stages of the project were not pursued. In particular, in 2007 a new umbrella body called the Muslim Charities Forum was initiated by Dr Hany El Banna, the then president of Islamic Relief Worldwide.

This work was undertaken by Mohammed Ralf Kroessin, who was Assistant Chief Executive Officer of Muslim Aid before being appointed as Programmes Associate in the Religions and Development Programmes Programme and Islamic Relief Worldwide’s Policy and Programmes Unit from 2006-7.

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Citation
Kroessin, M (2009) Mapping UK Muslim Development NGOs, Religions and Development Programmes Programme [Online]. Available: http://www.birmingham.ac.uk/Documents/college-social-sciences/government-society/rad/working-papers/wp-30.pdf