Religion is increasingly being recognised as a key impetus or obstacle to development. As a result, both government and donors show a growing concern with what role religions play in development policy, and the debate has often been controversial as state and civil society negotiate the secular and religious divide, within often competing development paradigms. This module will deal with these arguments across a wide variety of religous and developing country contexts and regions. Specifically, it will concentrate on the relationships between religion, politics and conflict, value framewords, gender and religion, and the increasing role of faith based organisations as both development advocates and basix service providers.