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, 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, ...

The Policy Research Working Paper Series disseminates the findings of work in progress to encourage the exchange of ideas about development issues. An objective of the series is to get the findings out quickly, even if the presentations are less than fully polished. The papers carry the names of the authors and should be cited accordingly. The findings, interpretations, and conclusions expressed in this paper are entirely those of the authors. They do not necessarily represent the views of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development/World Bank and its affiliated organizations, or those of the Executive Directors of the World Bank or the governments they represent. Policy Research Working Paper 8616Data collected for refugee registration and to target humanitarian assistance include information about household composition and demographics that can be used to identify gender-based vulnerabilities. This paper combines the microdata collected by United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees to register refugees with data from its Home Visit surveys to analyze income poverty rates among refugees with a gender lens. It finds distinguishing between different types of male and female principal applicant (PA) households is important in the setting of Syrian refugees in Jordan. Poverty rates for couples with children do not differ by gender of the PA but for other household types poverty rates are higher for those with female PAs. Households formed because of the unpredictable dynamics of forced displacement, such as sibling households, unaccompanied children, and single caregivers, are extremely vulnerable, especially if the principal applicant is a woman or a girl. This paper is a product of the Gender Global Theme. It is part of a larger effort by the World Bank to provide open access to its research and make a contribution to development policy discussions around the world.