do you believe in human rights? trioond - actionaid usa ... · pdf file209 0a9 nulrueu9...

Do you believe in human rights?

Do You Believe in Human Rights?

2009 AnnuAl REpoRtw w w. a c t i o n a i d u s a . o r g

ActionAid USA

1

InstItutIonal supporters | A&E Television Networks | Abbott Laboratories Employee Giving Campaign | American Institute for Research | America’s Charities | Anonymous Donor Advised Fund | The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation | Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Matching Program | CFC Berkshire County Pittsfield MA | CFC Central Virginia Area | CFC Chicago Area | CFC Community Health Charities of NC- CFC Onslow County | CFC Fort Hood | CFC Fort Sill - Lawton | CFC Hawaii Pacific Area | CFC Huntington | CFC Greater Los Angeles Area |

Do you believe in human rights?ActionAid is committed to the basic human rights of poor people. The rights to food, shelter, healthcare and social protection are recognized in United Nations covenants, and governments that sign on have a legal obligation to respect and uphold them. At ActionAid, we design our programs to help poor people understand, secure and exercise those rights.

Founded in 1972, ActionAid is an international

anti-poverty agency working in 50 countries, taking

sides with poor people to end poverty and injustice

together. ActionAid’s U.S. office opened in 2000 to:

• Educate decision-makers and the public about

international poverty and development;

• Mobilize concerned citizens in the U.S. to support

human rights-based development initiatives; and

• Raise money for effective anti-poverty programs in

developing countries.

2 l 2009 Annual Report 3

CFC Metropolitan Arts Partnership CFC Campaign | CFC Miami Valley | CFC North Puget Sound Everett Washington | CFC of South Hampton Roads | CFC Philadelphia Area | CFC Portland | CFC Potomac Area | CFC Richmond | CFC San Diego | CFC South Jersey | CFC Southeastern Michigan Area | CFC Southern Arizona | CFC Southern Nevada | CFC Tri-Community Columbus GA | CFC United Way of Coastal Empire PCFO for CFC | CFC United Way of Greater Cleveland CFC | CFC West Point, Orange, Rockland, Sullivan | CFC Wiregrass Area, Dothan Alabama | CFCSENC FUND | Dartmouth Ends Hunger | FirstGiving Inc. | Connect U.S. Fund | Giving Express | Giving Tree LLC | Global Giving Foundation | Global Impact | Groundspring | The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation | HRG North America | The Judith Carey Zesiger Family Foundation | The Knife Center | KPMG | The Margaret A. Cargill Foundation | The McKnight Foundation | Merrill Lynch Trust Company | The Miller-Wehrle Family Foundation | The Moriah Fund | Nestle USA | Nissan North America Inc | Noblis, Inc. | The Prem Rawat Foundation |

ActionAid focuses on the root causes of

poverty – not just symptoms or immediate needs.

Our projects empower poor communities and

encourage local partner organizations to engage

with their governments to seek lasting solutions.

ActionAid strengthens local partners – over

the years we’ve gone from implementing our own

projects to working through local community

organizations to build their own capacity to

manage projects and train people for new

opportunities.

ActionAid’s rights-based approach empowers

poor people – community residents discuss their

needs and their assets before deciding together

which projects to prioritize.

ActionAid is accountable and credible – we use

rigorous research and case studies to press for

better international development policies.

ActionAid’s anti-poverty advocacy works

simultaneously at local, national and

international levels – local development projects

will fail if they are undercut by national policies

or by conditions imposed by international

institutions. ActionAid works with poor people’s

organizations to demand respect for human rights

from local, national and international authorities.

As the saying goes, “give a woman a fish and

you feed her for a day; teach her to fish and

you feed her for life.” When conflict or a natural

disaster creates an urgent need for emergency

food, clothing or medical supplies, ActionAid

responds with immediate support. Beyond crisis

response, our programs also help poor people

build sustainable livelihoods and teach them skills

to meet their own needs.

But we also know that poverty is not just about a

lack of food or training. And poor people are not

merely unfortunate victims who depend on outside

support. Through long experience, ActionAid

knows that even the best programs to meet

emergency needs or to teach important skills will

fail if they don’t take into account the systems and

structures that keep people poor...or the capacity

of poor people to help themselves. You can teach

a woman to fish – but that won’t help if her river is

polluted by chemicals from a factory upstream, or

by fertilizer run-off from a biofuel plantation that

has taken over land where local people used to

grow food. And what good are fishing skills if she

is displaced from the shoreline where her family

has worked for generations because someone

decided to build luxury hotels?

In all our work, ActionAid takes the side of poor

people as they learn about their rights and

confront the injustices that hold them back. We

campaign with governments and multilateral

agencies to make sure that their decisions on aid,

lending and trade agreements respect the rights

of poor people.

Give a woman a fish and you feed her for a day; teach her to fish and you feed her for life...


Rockefeller Brothers Fund | Schwab Charitable Fund | Seattle International Foundation | Shepherd Foundation | St. Joseph Health Systems Foundation | Unitarian Universalist Service Committee | University of Maryland College Park | Wellpoint Associate Giving Campaign |

When heavy fighting between the Taliban and government forces pushed thousands of civilians out of the Swat Valley in Pakistan, The Prem Rawat Foundation provided critical funding for seeds, livestock and irrigation ponds that helped people resettle their villages and rebuild their livelihoods after the fighting ended. As a result, hundreds of families were able to meet their nutrition needs and sell surplus products to improve their livelihoods. Zohra Bibi’s husband, a school teacher, was killed in gunfire during the military operation in the Swat Valley. “It was as if the world had gone upside down. I

had never stepped out in public before and, there I was, burdened with the responsibility of feeding and clothing my nine children.” Zohra received a cow from the ActionAid project. She sells the milk and makes a humble living. “We would be dying of hunger had we not received this cow. This is our livelihood, our life.” Following in his father’s footsteps, Zohra’s eldest son has started to teach at the local school. “My husband was a teacher. He wanted the best education for our children. Even if I have crumbs to eat, I would send my children to school.” she says.

PRogR AM WORKSwat Valley, Pakistan

2009 was an important year for ActionAid

uSA. For the first time we engaged individual

supporters here in this country to fund rights-based

community development in Bangladesh, Burundi,

Cambodia and Haiti. This committed and growing

group of donors is directly helping children and

families in those countries through food, health,

education and skill-building projects. Their vital

support also teaches poor people to work with their

local and national governments to honor the basic

human rights that will sustain development there

long after ActionAid’s work is done.

...but help her secure her rights and you will empower her forever!

IndIvIdual donors | Anonymous Donors | William Adams | Cristina Aibino | David Ailion | Leslie Allen | Nick Allen | Susan Allen | Margarita Alonso | Eva Alpert | Martha Anderson | Oluwatoyin Ani | Steve Azzara | Vivek Baliga | Caroline Bannan | Jason Batchkoff | Noah Beamer | Cynthia Bean | Monica Belalcazar | Stacey Bellinger | Lois Berg | Herve Bizira |


Dean Bochner | Odeene Boles | Jessica Bonnem | Elinor Bowles | Talia Braude | Kip Brown | Kathleen Brunkala | Heidi Butterworth | David Cehrs | Deborah Chaddick | Ricardo Chagoury | Pallavi Chakirala | Eleanor Cicerchi | Steven Ciciotte | Emily Cleath | Tamara Cobbin | Elizabeth Codd | Jon Cole | Mary Pat Conen | Hannah Cooper | Gordon Cooper | Amy Crupiti | Joe Cruz | Cynthia Cuevas | John Curtis | Paul Czaplicki | Dennis Daigneault | Tatyana Danilchenko | Michael Darren Mark Delanty | Jared Derrick | V. Ramana Dhara | Anthony DiNovi | Nicolas Dior | Darlene Dodson | Craig Donahue | Phyllis DuBois | John-Michael Dumais | Breanne Duncan | Jamie Dunham | Anna Lee Earnest | Amanda Eich | Howard Eisenberg | Jamal Javed Elias | Christa Ernst | Jason Ervin | Elena Lai Etcheverry | Stewart Evers | Melinda Facal | Kenneth Fairbanks | Kate Farb-Johnson | Max and Nancy Fields | Elizabeth Foster | Erin Frigo | Ezra Galston | Jillian Greenriver | Judith Guerrero | David Hamilton | Deirdre Hannigan | Ashley Harvard Frederick Hecker | Heather Hewett | James Hlavik | Chris Hocknell | Randi Hogan | Ruth Holmberg | Steven Holt | Andrea Howard | Mildred Huffmire | Ali Ipakchi | Megan Isenberg | Tina Jacobsen | Sutida Jariangprasert | Martin Jaroszewicz | Jill Jaszczor | Abhishek Jhalani | Blanche Joelson | Danny Johnson | Shanee Johnson | Kadija Johnston | Bob Kallen | Meera Kanabar | Advait Kantak | Nancy Kaplan | Airi Kawamura | Folke Kayser | Sean Keane | Carla Kenyon | Imran khalid-Kahn | Chuck Kirby | Steven Klees | David Klontz | Brian Klosterboer Meera Komitsky | Brian Krysinski | Vijaya Kulkarni | Margarita Lagrimas | Raye Lenson | Gary Liebeskind | B. Lindsay | Jules Littman | Gina Loeber | Shelly Long | Jason Lord | Andrew Lorent | James Lucey |

practitioners and advocates around how to

promote effective prevention policies and practices

that can be adapted to various contexts.

With support from the Rockefeller Brothers

Fund and the Connect U.S. Fund, ActionAid

educated U.S. policymakers about the impacts

of climate change on poor people in developing

countries. We helped build support for major

new investments in strategies for adaptation to

extreme weather, decreased food production and

new public heath threats generated by global

warming. ActionAid emerged as a leader in the

quest for new international institutions to channel

climate adaptation finance where it is most

urgently needed.

Thanks in part to our advocacy, for the first time

ever the U.S. Congress appropriated $30 million for

the Least Developed Countries Fund of the United

Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change

(UNFCCC) and $20 million for the UNFCCC’s

Special Climate Change Fund. ActionAid helped

lead this effort by organizing a sign-on letter

that attracted 40 international development,

environment, faith, and science organizations.

ActionAid also produced a major report, “Equitable

Adaptation Finance: The Case for an Enhanced

Funding Mechanism under the UN Framework

Convention on Climate Change,” released before

the Bangkok negotiations in September and

presented to over 150 civil society representatives

and government delegations in Copenhagen.

ActionAid worked with an anonymous donor-

advised fund to help farmers grow more food in

Liberia and Tanzania, focusing on farming techniques

that use local organic materials in place of expensive

imported fertilizers. This work has lowered costs

while increasing productivity and nutrition, especially

for women farmers and their families.

With support from the same fund, ActionAid

worked with women’s organizations in Liberia and

Uganda to build public awareness campaigns

aimed at ending violence against women and

the spread of HIV&AIDS. In Uganda, three

women’s centers were established to enable

women and girls to report cases of sexual assault

and violence. Within one year, the number of

reports in these districts increased more than

tenfold. In Liberia, 15 regional and national

organizations received training and support in

addressing violence against women. The project

ran national radio campaigns to raise awareness

about HIV&AIDS and violence against women,

pushed for domestic violence and sexual assault

laws, and reached victims of violence with legal,

medical, and counseling support.

ActionAid partnered with the United Nations

Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM) to publish

Together We Must!, a report profiling promising

practices to confront violence against women and

the spread of HIV&AIDS. UNIFEM and ActionAid

released the report on Human Rights Day to affirm

the urgency of confronting these fundamental

threats to women’s rights. Now available in English,

French and Spanish, Together We Must! aims

to stimulate debate and collaboration among

thanks to our institutional donors, in 2009 we also expanded our support to human rights-based

work across ActionAid’s global network.


Igor Lugovoy | Ronald Mahtesian | John Marth | Helen Matzger | Doe Mayer | Peter Mayes | Karen McCarthy | Thomas McCaugherty | Richard McClurg | Raymond McGann | Alex McGinty | Martin Mcintyre | Thomas McKeown | Rishabh Mehandru | David Mell | Nicole M A Messens | Matt Michel | Andrew Millard | Nancy Leigh Miller | Mave Milne | Isaac Mintz | Theophano Mitsa | Videsh Moonan | Derek Moore | Maria Paz Moreno | Mark Naylor | Constance Neely | Barry Nelson | Rebecca Nelson | Becher Neme | Steve Ng | Vu Nguyen | Rhonda Norden | Peter O’Driscoll | Maelle Olivola | Jallel Omari | Julia O’Neil | Anna Ortiz | Stuart Owen | Elizabeth Ozorak | A. E. Parkany | Cinque Perri | BJ Peters |

Our commitment to human rights requires us to place women and girls at the heart of all our work.

ActionAid initiated a project with support from an anonymous donor-advised fund to empower women in Senegal by organizing a movement whose decisions will influence local development policies. Women were also provided with technical know-how for processing and conserving local produce (fruit, cereals and vegetables) and with managerial skills to run their micro enterprises.

PRogR AM WORKSenegal, Africa

Grants from The William and Flora Hewlett

Foundation, the Moriah Fund and the Wallace

Genetic Foundation allowed ActionAid to build a

transnational research network to inform advocacy

on biofuels in the United States, Senegal, Ghana,

Mozambique, Guatemala and Brazil. Building on

our influential study “Food, Farmers and Fuel” from

2008, ActionAid published “Rethinking the Rush

to Agrofuels” in March 2009, documenting how

the expanded production of industrial biofuels is

forcing poor people off their land and contributing

to the global hunger crisis. In June we were invited

by the Congressional Hunger Caucus to provide a

briefing on indirect land use changes from biofuels,

featuring presentations by partners from Senegal

and Guatemala. In October we presented another

briefing in the Hart Senate Office Building on the

linkage between biofuels, climate change and

hunger, featuring partners from Brazil and Senegal.

Much of ActionAid’s US advocacy focused on the

food price crisis that erupted in 2008. We continued

to push for increased funding for local and regional

procurement of food aid for those being impacted

by rising food costs, in order to increase the

effectiveness of that assistance. On World Food

Day, ActionAid testified before the Senate Foreign

Relations Committee about the impact of climate

change on hunger in Malawi and Bangladesh.

ActionAid worked with partners across Europe

to advocate for more generous international

funding of HIV&AIDS programs in the developing

world. With a grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates

Foundation, we have spent the past four years

building the Action for Global Health network into

a major advocacy coalition of 30 organizations in

five European countries, pressing for poor people’s

right to protection from the deadly pandemic.

We do.

ActionAid USA1420 K Street, NW, Suite 900

Washington, DC 20005By printing this book on FSC paper ActionAid saved X trees, and Y kilowatts etc....

do you believe in human rights? trioond - actionaid usa ... · pdf file209 0a9 nulrueu9...

Documents