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Quentin Wodon

February 24th, 2022

Measuring the Contribution of the Catholic Church to Human Development: A New Report

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Estimated reading time: 4 minutes

Quentin Wodon

February 24th, 2022

Measuring the Contribution of the Catholic Church to Human Development: A New Report

0 comments | 15 shares

Estimated reading time: 4 minutes

Often, faith extends beyond the weekly services. Communities are responsible for education, healthcare, social provision, and crisis response, to name a few. In this post, Quentin Wodon provides a snapshot of the Catholic Church’s efforts to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals. Wodon provides markers for the church’s impact in society based on a recently released report.

Photo: Grant Whitty, Unsplash

Faith-based service providers play a significant role in efforts to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals and promote integral human development, understood in Catholic social thought as the development of each person and the whole person. Faith also affects people’s behaviors as it relates to investments in human development. Yet the roles of faith and faith-based service providers remain insufficiently acknowledged in policy discussions about the Sustainable Development Goals.

The new Global Report on Integral Human Development 2022 published under the Global Catholic Education project aims to fill part of that knowledge gap by measuring the contributions of faith-based organizations to integral human development with a focus on education, healthcare, and social protection. Because of constraints on data availability from other faith traditions, the first part of the report focuses on the scope of service provision by the Catholic Church globally in these three areas. The second part of the report considers broader issues that are also relevant to other faith traditions. This blog post summarizes some of the key findings from the report.

  • Education: The number of preschools, primary schools, and secondary schools managed by the Catholic Church increased by 54 percent from 1980 to 2019, from 143,574 to 221,144. The largest increase in the number of schools took place in Africa. Globally, 62.1 million students were enrolled in Catholic K12 schools in 2019, with an additional 6.7 million students in post-secondary education. When including other denominations, Christian education serves more than 100 million students. Islamic and other faith-based schools also have a large footprint.
  • Healthcare: The number of healthcare facilities managed by the Catholic Church increased from 19,119 in 1980 to 24,031 in 2010, but fell back to 20,740 facilities in 2019. This includes hospitals, health centers, and leproseries. As for schools, the largest increase in facilities took place in Africa where Catholic facilities are often members of Christian Health Associations.
  • Social protection: The number of social protection facilities managed by the Church increased from 42,084 in 1980 to 97,533 in 2010, with a reduction to 84,872 facilities in 2019. This total includes orphanages, nurseries, special centers for social education or re-education, homes for the old, chronically ill, invalid, or handicapped, matrimonial advice centers, and other institutions (these are the categories used in the statistical yearbooks of the Church). While for education and healthcare Africa accounts for a growing share of facilities over time, most social protection facilities remain located in the Americas and Europe. The Church also contributes to social protection locally through programs run by more than 220,000 parishes, and internationally among others through over 160 organizations member of Caritas Internationalis.
  • Reach to the poor: Most Catholic schools and healthcare facilities are in low and lower-middle income countries, especially for primary education. By contrast, with the exception of orphanages and nurseries, Catholic social protection facilities are often located in high income countries, as is the case for universities. In Africa, across faiths, despite the fact that faith-based schools and healthcare facilities are often more expensive for households to use than public facilities (due to no or limited funding from the state), they often manage to reach the poor to a substantial extent. Private secular facilities tend to serve better off households for both education and healthcare.
  • Market shares: Globally, the market share of Catholic education is estimated at 4.8 percent at the primary level, 3.2 percent at the secondary level, and 2.8 percent for post-secondary education. In the case of healthcare, data for 140 countries suggest that the market share of Catholic facilities is at 6.3 percent for hospitals and 1.7 percent for health centers in those countries. For education and healthcare, the market shares of Catholic schools and facilities are higher in sub-Saharan Africa and low income countries, helping to fulfill the Church’s mission to serve the poor.
  • Preferences, Satisfaction, and Quality: Values and faith play an important role in the motivation of parents to send their children to faith-based schools, and for students to enroll in faith-based universities. By contrast, faith is often not a key factor in the choice of a faith-based healthcare facility. In sub-Saharan Africa, satisfaction is higher with faith-based schools and healthcare facilities than with public providers. This does not mean however that there is no need to improve services. In education especially, efforts are needed to end the learning crisis.
  • COVID-19 pandemic: Faith-based providers of education, healthcare, and social protection have been affected by the COVID-19 crisis, as is the case for other providers. Supporting faith-based providers of critical services in times of crisis makes economic sense. The long-term cost for governments of not doing so could be much larger than the cost of providing support.

The Report is available in open access on the website of the volunteer-led Global Catholic Education project. The aim of the project is to connect Catholic education to the world, and the world to Catholic education. The project brings global knowledge on education and integral human development to Catholic schools, universities, and other organizations by sharing evidence-based good practices emerging from international experience. And it brings to the attention of the international community the work of Catholic schools, universities, and other organizations promoting integral human development, including their approaches to educate the whole person towards fraternal humanism.

Note: This piece gives the views of the author, and not the position of the LSE Religion and Global Society blog, nor of the London School of Economics.

About the author

Quentin Wodon

Quentin Wodon is a Lead Economist at the World Bank. Previously, he managed the unit on faith and development and worked as Lead Poverty Specialist for Africa and Senior Economist for Latin America. Before joining the Bank, he taught with tenure at the University of Namur. He started his career in brand management for Procter and Gamble and later joined ATD Fourth World, a non-profit working with the extreme poor. He has tried to remain faithful to the cause of ending extreme poverty ever since. A lifelong learner, he holds four PhDs, served as President of two economics associations, and has more than 500 publications. His research has been covered by leading news media globally. An active Rotarian, he founded a club, an Action Group, and a Fellowship. He also founded the Global Catholic Education project.

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