Reflections on Trust and Trust Making in the Work of Islamic Charities from the Gulf Region in Africa

Abstract

Research on Islamic charities of the Gulf region and their work in Africa conducted by the authors over the past years has stimulated a reflection not only of the importance of trust in aid relationships, but also of active trust making by these organizations. Indeed, as transnational charity providers they are embedded in a web of relationships that they need to maintain and/or further, and for which trust is indispensable. First of all, they need to prove their trustworthiness towards their donors in the Gulf countries. Second, they need to create trust in the local African contexts in which they come to work. Lastly, Islamic charities, especially those from the Gulf, face a lot of distrust in the global context post 9/11, which they need to deal with and counter. This chapter discusses these challenges and Gulf charities’ strategies to address them, illustrated by examples from Chad, Senegal and Ghana. It is shown that their strategies of trust making towards different audiences may create tensions, implying the need for navigating different narratives of trustworthiness. How does this influence their work on the ground in Africa?.