, Pope Francis made a 24-hour visit to the Central African Republic (CAR), where a civil war has been raging since March 2013. Visiting a country where sexual violence has become endemic, he declared himself a "pilgrim of peace and an apostle of hope" (Pollitt 2015, para 1). The importance of the visit to the United Nations (UN) and the CAR government was highlighted by the number of armed UN peacekeepers accompanying him, UN tanks patrolling the streets, and CAR President Catherine Samba-Panza welcoming him by stating that she hoped his visit would lead to the country finally finding peace. The perceived power of the Catholic Pope was encapsulated by a young man from CAR: "Bandits don't listen to politicians, but they will listen to him" (Sherwood and Benn 2015, para 15). While Pope Francis's visit could not solve the violence in the CAR, it serves to illustrate the power and influence of faith leaders, even within arenas not normally associated with faith. The importance of religion or faith 1 in development work is increasingly being recognised in the literature, as well as by funding agencies and governments, now indicating a greater willingness to partner with faith-based initiatives (see Deneulin and Rakodi 2011). For example, the United Kingdom (UK), Swedish, and Dutch governments have all allocated funds for the exploration of the role of religion in relation to development (James 2011). The UK Department for International Development (DFID), committed to a budgetary increase allocated specifically for faith based groups, from 10 percent in 2010 to 19 percent in 2015 (Mitchell 2012; DFID 2009). One area that many faith entities, and specifically faith-based organisations (FBOs), have increasingly been focusing on is gender-based violence (GBV). 2 A recent report mapping faith-based responses to violence against women and girls (VAWG) in the Asia-Pacific Region, identified 58 FBOs responding to VAWG, and noted this represents only a small proportion of the FBOs addressing GBV in the region (Kaybryn and Nidadavolu 2012). In this scope of work, engagement with faith leaders is of critical importance as they are understood to be gate-keepers to local communities, with considerable influence on their communities' beliefs and behaviours (Haddad 2002; Solarsh and Frankel 2004; Tomkins et al. 2015). Faith leaders are said to be embedded in, and respected and trusted by, the local community, with a thorough understanding of local dynamics that affect developmental concerns, and often have considerable leverage with state and non-state powers due to the size of their constituencies (Thomson 2014). In terms of GBV, faith leaders are widely understood to be key to recognising and promoting the rights of women (Tomkins et al 2015). However, the recognition of the importance of faith leaders to reducing GBV is also based on the understanding that faith traditions and, by extension, faith leaders can act as barriers to effective development and GBV responses. For example, faith communities and leaders can be apathetic, ...
