ICFP Faith Subcommittee
This community is dedicated to engaging faith actors committed to interfaith action and collaboration with the global health and family planning field.
FAQ
What Do You Do?
In light of the powerful influence of faith, faith leaders and the far reach of faith-based health providers, the faith community must be involved in family planning to achieve universal access.
Over 90 percent of people in countries with an unmet need for family planning consider religion a very important part of who they are. Therefore, it’s absolutely necessary that these communities are able to see that family planning is consistent with their faith values and supports healthy families.
Who is Involved?
The subcommittee includes faith actors committed to interfaith action and collaboration with the global health and family planning community in order to increase understanding and build bridges between different stakeholders to ensure a greater and more significant impact, leading to healthier mothers, babies and families.
Contact
For more information about the ICFP 2025 Faith Subcommittee, please contact Subcommittee Co-Chair Mona Bormet at mona.bormet@ccih.org. You may contact the ICFP Secretariat at info@theicfp.org.
About This Subcommittee
The ICFP Faith Subcommittee formed before the 2016 ICFP in Indonesia to bring together representatives from a variety of faith traditions to share best practices in faith-based involvement in family planning (FP), lift up the work of faith-based organizations (FBOs) in FP to dispel harmful myths and misperceptions, and encourage partnership among FBOs and the broader global health community.
Faith-based health providers are major health care providers around the world. In 2015, the Lancet explored the reach and quality of faith-based health providers, which provide 20 to 70 percent of medical care in Sub-Saharan Africa.
According to the Lancet series, evidence indicates that the faith-based providers give care without prejudice to people of all faiths and the populations they serve have a high opinion of the care they receive.
Sponsors
Thank you to the sponsors of the ICFP 2025 Faith Subcommittee Pre-conference for supporting this important work.
Faith Subcommittee
The Faith Subcommittee continued its decade-long commitment to integrating faith communities into ICFP conversations about sexual and reproductive health and rights. The subcommittee created meaningful spaces for interfaith dialogue, explored partnerships between faith-based and secular organizations, and challenged the broader SRHR community to engage authentically with faith perspectives.
Major Events, Activities, and Impact
Faith Pre-conference
The Faith Track pre-conference created dedicated space for exploring how faith communities and secular SRHR organizations can work together effectively. Notably, many non-faith groups attended specifically to learn how to engage meaningfully with faith communities—a sign of growing recognition that faith leaders and organizations are essential partners in advancing reproductive health and rights globally.
Conference Activities
The subcommittee organized an interfaith prayer session that brought diverse faith traditions together in solidarity. The subcommittee also secured speaking time during the closing plenary, ensuring faith perspectives were represented in the conference’s final reflections and calls to action.
Key Takeaways
Non-faith Organizations Want to Engage
The subcommittee was encouraged by the significant number of non-faith groups who attended the faith pre-conference to discuss meaningful engagement with faith communities. This signals growing recognition that faith is not peripheral but central to effective SRHR work in many contexts.
Existing Partnerships Strengthened
The subcommittee deepened collaborations with other ICFP subcommittees, particularly the Youth Subcommittee (with whom they held a debrief in January). These partnerships demonstrate the value of cross-subcommittee collaboration for amplifying impact.
Authentic Engagement Requires Respect
The subcommittee faced challenges when some faith community members experienced unwelcoming attitudes at ICFP. This highlighted an essential truth: genuine partnership requires mutual respect. Different opinions can coexist, but respectful, kind engagement is non-negotiable. When individuals in positions representing “the community” demonstrate intolerance, it sends a message that not all are welcome—undermining the inclusive values the field espouses.
Powerful Voices
“People need to be nice to each other. We can have different opinions, but still be respectful and kind. If people cannot, they should not be allowed to have positions that elevate them to represent ‘this community’ as it sends a signal that not all are welcome.”
Next Steps:
Calls to Action
For SRHR Organizations:
Move beyond tokenistic faith engagement to genuine partnership. Invest time in understanding faith perspectives and building relationships based on mutual respect, even amid disagreement.
For Faith Communities:
Continue showing up, sharing perspectives, and building bridges. Your voices and leadership are essential to advancing reproductive health and rights globally.
For the ICFP Platform:
Continue supporting faith engagement through webinars, virtual convenings, and statements that elevate faith perspectives. Ensure that all ICFP spaces uphold standards of respectful dialogue.
The subcommittee remains grateful for ICFP’s decade of including faith communities and appreciates the strong support from the ICFP team in making this work possible.
Strengthening Partnership with Faith Actors in Family Planning: A Strategic Planning Guide
This guide is intended to lead program planners and decision-makers through a strategic process to engage and strengthen partnership with faith actors in family planning. The guide was developed through consultation with technical experts* and builds on guidance from key resources noted in the guide. The key actions in this SPG will enable a variety of stakeholders to engage in a joint effort to identify and develop approaches to collaborate more effectively, openly, and transparently on family planning, as best fits each partnership’s context.
Trusted Voices:
How Faith Leaders Can Communicate Evidence-based FP Information
Hosted by the ICFP 2025 Faith Subcommittee in celebration of World Religion Day, this discussion explores examples of equipping religious leaders with facts about family planning—and shares strategies, challenges, and tools to help faith actors protect the health of their communities.
Video Highlight
Faith & FP: Examples from Kenya, Tchad, Niger, and Somalia
Community Calendar
Stay engaged in the collective effort to advance sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR).
The ICFP Community Calendar highlights past and upcoming SRHR events hosted by ICFP subcommittees, partners, and members of the global community—creating opportunities to learn, collaborate, and keep momentum moving year-round.
Explore what’s next and find ways to stay involved.
Meet the ICFP Community
The ICFP platform is anchored by 11 dynamic subcommittees, bringing together individuals and organizations from across the global sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) community.