Ben Jones wonders if religion can be a force for good in Africa:

In learning about life in Katine [Uganda] we are beginning to realise that people’s spiritual life is connected to how they think about development. While the strength of religious feeling is something that makes many outsiders uneasy, if we do not take it seriously then we are not serious about understanding social, economic and political change.

Many people working for development agencies or writing in the media about Africa choose to ignore this side of life on the continent (how much coverage of Christianity or Islam do you see when Robbie Williams or Victoria Wood descend on a community in aid of Comic Relief?). But this makes for a slightly unreal representation of life on the continent, one that many people living in Africa would struggle to recognise.

Read the full article here.

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