ActionAid

ActionAid
Formation 1972
Legal status Non-profit organization
Purpose/focus Support organisation for child poverty in Africa and Asia
Region served Africa, Asia, Europe, Australia, the Middle East
Membership Child sponsors
Website Action Aid

ActionAid was founded in 1972 as a child sponsorship charity when 88 UK supporters sponsored 88 children in India and Kenya, the focus primarily being to provide children with an education. Global accounts are now reported in Euros and in 2007 and 2008 turnover was close to 180m Euros. [1] ActionAid is an international anti-poverty non-governmental organization whose primary aim is to fight poverty worldwide. ActionAid has been a growing organization for over 30 years. Today, it helps over 13 million impoverished and disadvantaged people, in 42 countries worldwide. ActionAid works with local partners to fight poverty and injustice. ActionAid’s vision "is a world without poverty and injustice in which every person enjoys their right to a life with dignity." ActionAid’s mission is "to work with poor and excluded people to eradicate poverty and injustice." In June 2010, ActionAid faced a leadership transition, as Joanna Kerr became the new Chief Executive of the organization, replacing former Chief Executive, Ramesh Singh. [2][3]

Being connected with the local community and bearing witness to the poverty and injustice are very important aspects of ActionAid’s work. ActionAid works on various projects, from those that address the immediate conditions of poverty to those that focus on campaigning and advocacy, which address the causes of poverty and change practices and policies at both local and national levels. The nature of the work at ActionAid is about assisting different groups of rights-holders to claim and enjoy the rights that they possess.[4]

Contents

International reach

ActionAid International works in more than 40 countries in Africa, Asia, Latin America, the Middle East and Caribbean. The international secretariat is based in South Africa, and operations are organised on a regional basis; managed from Kenya, Thailand and Brazil. Within each region there are a number of countries with an ActionAid office that manages the work there. The international functions for finance and fundraising are based in the UK, and there is a US office in Washington DC for fundraising and lobbying purposes.

ActionAid's work

Over time, ActionAid has moved from being a British charity based on child sponsorship to becoming an international coalition fighting poverty across the globe. ActionAid works with poor and marginalised communities throughout the world to help them recognise, promote and secure their basic rights, and control their own development. Its mission is to work with poor and excluded people to eradicate poverty and injustice.

In order to achieve its mission, ActionAid works in the following areas:

ActionAid has been fighting poverty worldwide for over 30 years and working in over 40 countries. The charity works within regions such as Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean; it is secular and has no political affiliations. The charity campaigns and lobby against the root causes of poverty, to try to ensure that poor people are treated fairly by governments, companies and international institutions whose decisions affect these people’s everyday lives and their basic human rights. ActionAid works in partnership with communities on practical projects aiming to improve the opportunities for these communities and provide them with facilities such as wells, water systems, schools and health centres in order to tackle the causes of poverty.

Organization focus

The seven main areas that ActionAid is focused on are:

  1. Aid and Debt: this includes lobbying for debt cancellation with The World Bank, IMF, and donor governments
  2. Emergencies and Conflict: Providing immediate relief in emergencies, setting up long-term projects to help the most vulnerable people rebuild their lives, their communities and livelihoods.
  3. Women’s Rights advocacy: Lobbying for gender equality
  4. Corporate Accountability: The charity is campaigning for new UK and international laws to make multinational companies accountable for their impact on local communities and the environment.
  5. Trade: ActionAid are lobbying and campaigning for an international trade system to make fairer regulations.
  6. HIV and Aids: ActionAid is lobbying for greater provision of AIDS treatment in the developing world especially for women
  7. Education: ActionAid provides adult literacy and social change programmes. ActionAid also provides education funding and to ensure that schools are places where the right to education is respected.

Organizational Themes

The themes that ActionAid focuses on are the following:[5]

.

Organizational Values

ActionAid’s values are as follows:[2]

...

Women's Rights

ActionAid’s new strategy, “Rights to end poverty”, furthers the women’s rights agenda. ActionAid believes that women’s rights and gender equality help with poverty eradication and hence, women’s rights must be protected and promoted. Women’s rights and gender equality are priorities that lie in the heart of ActionAid’s international agenda. The organization works directly with other women’s organizations in order to advance gender relations. ActionAid wishes to see that women grow in confidence, skills, and knowledge throughout the world.The ultimate goal is that women shape their own destiny, live without fear of violence, and participate effectively in those decisions that affect their quality of lives and livelihoods.[6]

Women's rights within other topics

Right to education

education which is their right

understand women's rights, and discrimination and violence are eliminated.[6]

Right to life and dignity in the face of HIV/AIDS

Right to just and democratic governance

Right to human security in conflict and emergencies

Strategic priorities

ActionAid pursues four main strategic priorities:Reduction of violence against women and girls; Increase attention and action on women’s rights in relation to HIV and AIDS; Contribution to greater recognition, realization, and protection of women’s land rights; enhance women’s participation in politics.

Gender Mainstreaming at ActionAid

ActionAid places a major focus on achieving women’s rights. In addition to achieving gender equality in the local communities, ActionAid works towards achieving gender equality in the organization itself. For example, in ActionAid Nepal, the gender imbalance in the organization itself was so great that ActionAid Nepal established a temporary “Women-Only Recruitment Policy,” which raised the percentage of female staff from 12% to 24%.[7] In 1995, in the Beijing Platform for Action (also known as the Fourth World Conference on Women), gender mainstreaming was identified as the most important mechanism to reach the ambitious goal of gender equality. There are eight major components of gender mainstreaming policy that are implemented by ActionAid.They are as follows: [7]

  1. A dual strategy of mainstreaming gender combined with targeted actions for gender equality.
  2. Gender analysis
  3. Internal responsibility
  4. Gender training
  5. Support to women’s decision making and empowerment
  6. Monitoring and evaluation
  7. Working with other organizations
  8. Budgets[7]

Rights-based approach

The human rights-based or rights-based approach to poverty eradication and development lies at the very heart of ActionAid’s work. ActionAid realizes that poverty is a direct consequence of the violation of human rights and the inequality that is associated with claiming and realizing one’s rights. ActionAid believes that the impoverished should as well realize that their situation is not a consequence of their own failings or a natural phenomenon, but rather, realize it as a consequence of human rights abuses. A vital part of ActionAid’s rights-based approach is holding governments accountable.[8]

ActionAid has a specific process which implements a rights-based approach in the organization’s programs and projects. The six steps are as follows: Organizing and raising critical consciousness, addressing people’s needs as rights they can claim, ensuring participation and actions of poor and excluded people, paying attention to issues of power, deepening democracy at every level, holding state (and non-state actors) accountable.[8]

Criticisms

ActionAid has been criticized for supporting US led violent regime change in Haiti in 2004.[9]

See also

References

  1. ^ Financial Report for 2008 from ActionAid(PDF document)
  2. ^ a b c Who we are | ActionAid
  3. ^ Our Chief Executive | ActionAid
  4. ^ Interview with Ramesh Singh, Former CEO
  5. ^ Powered by Google Docs
  6. ^ a b c d e f g h i Powered by Google Docs
  7. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Moser, Caroline; Annalise Moser (July 2005). "Gender Mainstreaming since Beijing: A Review of Success and Limitations in International Institutions". Gender and Development Vol. 13, No. 2, Mainstreaming a Critical Review. Taylor & Francis on behalf of Oxfam GB. pp. 11–22
  8. ^ a b c d e f g h Powered by Google Docs
  9. ^ See Peter Hallward's Damming the Flood (Verso, London, 2008)

External links