We work with the people at the frontline of change: our 600 overseas partner organisations.
They tackle poverty and its causes. From finding better ways of farming in the Bolivian altiplano, to protecting women raped and forced from their homes in Darfur, they’re there.
Through our partner organisations and our regional offices, we reach some of the poorest communities on earth.
Click on image below and press play to hear staff from some of our regional offices talk about their work.
Our partners tell us the stories: of hardship and disaster, of change and heroism, of the tenacity and resolve it takes to survive, and of the victory of building a life.
They know what’s needed. They know how to deliver change.
On the scene
These local organisations don’t have to parachute in aid; they are already on the scene when disaster strikes. They know the culture, they know the politics, they know how to deliver the real, practical benefits that people need. Most of all, they’re there for the long term. After the cameras have gone and the journalists have flown home, our partners remain.
We don’t support governments. We support organisations that truly represent poor communities, so that they can demand what they need from their governments and from international institutions. We are not on the side of developing country governments; we are on the side of poor people.
After the cameras have gone and the journalists have flown home, our partners remain
We have Christian Aid offices in 28 countries. Their job is to coordinate our country programmes, ensure that our funds are used wisely and effectively, set strategy and report to our London office, donors and supporters. They’re not there to replace local organisations, but to keep us in touch and give on-the-spot support where it's needed. This is especially vital where there are systematic human rights violations, as in Colombia or Zimbabwe.
We have a formal agreement with each partner, which lasts for the duration of the typically three-year funding cycle. Partners report to us regularly, and we monitor their work through visits, reports and project reviews.
Need alone
All our work, and the work of our partners, is governed by the Red Cross/Red Crescent Code of Conduct. This code, to which we are signatories, commits us to giving aid on the basis of need alone, regardless of ethnicity, religion or nationality. We are independent of governments and institutions, impartial in the allocation of aid and relief, and neutral in conflict as a humanitarian agency.
Our overseas partners cover a range of issues:
190 of our partners work on HIV: prevention and care for those with the virus and their families
helping people adapt to the effects of climate change and ensuring that they have secure livelihoods
responding swiftly and effectively to emergencies as they happen
the causes of conflict and its human cost, and human rights violations
the use and abuse of power and how governments, companies and international institutions can be made accountable
economic justice, from trade to capital flight and the global divide between rich and poor.
For a much more detailed picture of how our partners respond to the complex and varied challenges facing the world's poorest people, click here.