Multi-stakeholder Consultations 2025

The aid sector is in the midst of major crisis and upheaval. Abrupt funding cuts, the co-option of aid into foreign policy agendas, and the ongoing, now unavoidable calls for reform demand urgent reflection and adjustment. At the same time, many Muslim organisations are experiencing increasing Islamophobic hostility and securitisation while witnessing the growing secular interest in a form of religious giving they have long been considered the best placed to administer – Zakat.

Over the coming months WHAF will be conducting a multi-stakeholder consultation to explore the meaning and role of Zakat and its relationship, in theory and practice, to social and economic justice – both what is currently realised and its potential. The process will clarify the rights of donors and recipients and the obligations of Zakat administrators – with the aim of better determining how Zakat should be administered, for what, and by whom.

The project will be carried out over three phases, and in the first we will be consulting with zakat donors, academics and international and local Muslim-led NGOs that administer Zakat.