Rights to end poverty ActionAid International strategy 2005–2010 Page number Contents Foreword 2 Section one: Introduction 3 What’s new? 5 Poverty eradication goals 5 Strategic priorities 2005-2010 5 Section two: Power, poverty and injustice 6 Section three: Our distinctive organisation 10 Our identity 10 Distinctive approach: past, present and future 11 Core interventions 12 Section four: Our strategic priorities Women’s rights 14 The right to education 14 The right to food 15 The right to human security in conflict and 15 emergencies The right to life and dignity in the face of 16 HIV and AIDS The right to just and democratic governance 16 17 Geographical focus 18 Section five: Organisational implications 19 Organisational objectives: • strengthen our governance and deepen accountability 19 • strengthen staff capacity 20 • strengthen our structures and systems 20 • strengthen our communications and campaigns 21 • increase our supporters and mobilise supporters and partners behind our mission 21 • increase and diversify income 22 Section six: Making it happen 24 Rights to end poverty, ActionAid International strategy, 2005-2010 Page 1 of 24 Foreword This new strategy, Rights to end poverty, is our We set ambitions for making a significant impact renewed commitment to fight poverty and at the international level because we believe that injustice. progress at the local and national level cannot be achieved or sustained without changing the world It is our call for collective action to take sides with order that is dictated by powerful nations and poor and excluded people and communities and international institutions. to support their ideas, aspirations and actions. This agenda, and the priorities in this strategy, It is an offer of partnership, an offer to join hands reflect the ambition of all of us in ActionAid with our supporters and others in eradicating International. Many of us contributed to the poverty and fighting for justice. development of this strategy. Let us now translate the strategy into actions and results. We are continually informed and inspired by the resilience, ingenuity and struggles of the poor and excluded people and communities we work with. Our resolve is constantly strengthened by the progress – be it big or small – that people and communities make in claiming and expanding Noerine Kaleeba Ramesh Singh their spaces, voices, choices and rights towards a Chair, Chief executive dignified life. International board of trustees We will walk alongside poor and excluded people and support every step and action they take in claiming their rights. There are plenty of gains and achievements in our fight against poverty and injustice to be happy with, but not enough to be satisfied with. The world around us is changing fast and the context of our work is getting ever more complex. This strategy recognises and responds to the changing context of our work. This strategy is about staying on course with our agenda, responding to new challenges and bringing focus to our work. This ambitious strategy relates directly to the enormity of our mission. We set high priority for women’s rights because we believe that eradication of poverty and injustice will simply not Note: ActionAid International is often referred to as ActionAid be possible without securing equality and rights throughout this document. for women. Rights to end poverty, ActionAid International strategy, 2005-2010 Page 2 of 24 Section one Introduction More than 30 years after ActionAid was founded, institutions think and act, is helping to propel our vision of a world without poverty remains a action against poverty and injustice. distant prospect. But far from a hopeless dream. We have not done this alone. Donations and While one billion people still live in extreme campaign actions by hundreds of thousands of poverty – on less than $1 a day – the picture is ActionAid sponsors and supporters have played a not universally bleak. Illiteracy and child mortality significant role in improving poor people's is declining in many poor countries. While almost circumstances and in strengthening action and 40 million people still live with HIV and AIDS, protest against poverty and injustice. Our some African and Asian countries have brought partnerships with civil society organisations and infection rates under control. Buoyant civil society engagement with the media have propelled a host movements, aided by instant global of critical issues – including aid, trade, debt and communications, are creating mass citizen HIV and AIDS – into public discourse. The support for action against world poverty and remarkable and humbling creativity and resilience injustice. Developing nations are forming their of the poor communities with which we work own power blocs and fighting back against grossly underpin all our field programmes. unjust global trade policies that favour the rich. Nevertheless, in 2005 we are faced with the We live in a world where many are suffering great unacceptable truth that poverty and injustice hardship, but where opportunities also exist to remain deeply entrenched in many neglected or challenge and change, at every level, the inequity conflict-ridden corners of the globe. As the world and injustices that underpin the existing order. becomes wealthier, the gap between rich and poor communities and nations is not closing, but Tackling poverty and injustice is a global yawns ever wider. Systematic discrimination challenge, increasingly so in our interdependent perpetuates inequality between men and women world. and between different castes, classes, religions and races. Every single day we witness the ActionAid is just one of many organisations terrible consequences, with 30,000 children dying contributing to the global anti-poverty effort. of preventable, treatable diseases and 800 million Nevertheless, the success of our work in assisting people going hungry. This is a moral outrage. some of the world's poorest and most excluded people to climb free of poverty and reclaim a The implications for our organisation are clear. place in society is encouraging and instructive. We must strive even harder to reach our goal of eradicating poverty from our world. Together with over 2,000 partner organisations worldwide, we have helped millions of individuals One of ActionAid's strengths is our ability to adapt and families and thousands of communities to to changing realities. We do not shrink from address their immediate needs and to have a change, we embrace it. Reviews of our work say in overcoming poverty and injustice. By around the world indicate that our programmes providing access to information, education, and policies are having a lasting impact. But they training, funds and materials we have enabled also highlight the need to improve if we are to poor and excluded people to claim the rights contribute to the anti-poverty movement with owed them; rights that citizens of wealthier maximum impact. This is especially true in our nations take for granted. work on women's rights, where we have achieved far less than we had hoped to under our previous From small beginnings in India and Kenya, we international strategy Fighting poverty together. now work in more than 40 countries in Africa, Asia, the Americas and Europe. Our advocacy and campaigning, by influencing the way individuals, governments and international Rights to end poverty, ActionAid International strategy, 2005-2010 Page 3 of 24 Hence this new six-year strategy, Rights to end But it also adapts to a changing world and to the poverty, which seeks to apply our deepening lessons we have learned in the field, by understanding of the causes of poverty and focusing our goals and efforts specifically on injustice to heighten our impact. Following the securing poor and excluded people's rights. founding of ActionAid International, it also Informed by this international strategy, all parts of provides clear direction for organising both the ActionAid will develop and align their own ActionAid family and our relationships with others. strategic plans so that we can deliver consistent collective action. The aim is to ensure that we do The scale of the task ahead is both humbling and all in our power to fulfil our mission. daunting, but we remain optimistic. We believe we have learned from both our successes and We have made every effort to make this strategy mistakes and are heading in the right direction reflect the true voice of our organisation. It has with renewed momentum and in partnerships with been born of lengthy internal and external like-minded people and organisations. consultations and draws closely on the 2004 ActionAid staff conference, attended by volunteers and staff leaders from over 40 This strategy countries. It also absorbs lessons learned from our 2004 external review, Taking stock II and This strategy reaffirms ActionAid's commitment to most importantly, draws on feedback from the fight and ultimately eradicate poverty and poor and excluded people with whom we work injustice. It will guide the actions of our staff and and our partner organisations who live and work partners, setting out clear and ambitious priorities among them. for 2005-2010. It also sets out a clear framework for our work to be accountable, both to the poor The document is presented in six sections. and excluded people with whom we work and to Section two presents our understanding of the our supporters and funders. causes of poverty and injustice and Section three describes the distinctive approach that ActionAid This strategy builds on the strengths of its employs in fighting poverty and injustice. Section predecessor Fighting poverty together. It states four presents our mission-related strategies and ActionAid's dedication to act as part of the global Section five our internal, organisational movement for equality, rights and justice, while strategies for the next six years. We conclude with seeking to deliver significant, lasting a statement of our commitment to do everything improvements in the lives of poor and excluded humanly possible to achieve the ambitious people.