ACF International Network
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Action Against Hunger has developed its water and sanitation expertise over nearly three decades of field work, advancing a number of solutions for populations at risk from water insecurity.
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Central to the targeting of malnutrition, Action Against Hunger extends water and sanitation improvements to communities with little or no access to proper sources.
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Action Against Hunger's programs are sustainable because of our commitment to community participation—to build local capacity and harnesses a population's energy and resources.
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Though strategies may vary, our food security interventions all share a common goal: to fight hunger by preserving and strengthening livelihoods in a sustainable and contextual manner.
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Action Against Hunger’s innovative food security programs offer a broad range of solutions for generating income, boosting food production, and strengthening livelihoods.
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Our comprehensive approach to hunger involves extending water and sanitation services to communities faced with water scarcity, unsafe drinking water, and inadequate sanitation.
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Action Against Hunger occupies a unique place among international organizations: our expertise encompasses emergency relief, longer-term development, and the terrain in between.
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We have developed an effective method to treat acute malnutrition that includes field-tested protocols and nutritional products backed by an international scientific advisory committee.
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Action Against Hunger helps rehabilitate and restock public health infrastructure, fields mobile health clinics, and trains local medical personnel on preventative and diagnostic care.
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Our comprehensive programs address the linkages between disease and malnutrition by coordinating with local expertise and strengthening existing public health systems.
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Where We Work

Update Against Hunger - November 23, 2005
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Field Notes: 

Our Intense Effort in Pakistan

Dear Action Against Hunger Team Member,

I am writing from Pakistan where our staff of 14 expatriates and 120 nationals is providing support to the people of Alai Velly, Balakot, Battagram, and Kagan Valley, areas where few others are working. In the current emergency phase, here's what we're doing:

  • providing clean water to people in camps who have been displaced from their homes in the mountains;
  • providing latrines to people in camps;
  • providing clean water and sanitation to health centers and hospitals;
  • providing food to people in the mountain areas who have lost their homes but aren't leaving;
  • providing winterized tents to at least 3,000 families to help them survive the coming winter;
  • providing cooking kits to 3,000 families who lost their homes;
  • providing 40,200 blankets to help people survive the winter.

We've been here since the day after the earthquake, and we plan to remain through the rehabilitation efforts, which will start after the winter, depending on government permission and local needs.

Cathy Skoula
Executive Director,
Action Against Hunger (ACF) USA

New from US Headquarter: 

A Glitteringand RewardingWorld Food Day Gala

Our annual World Food Day Gala on November 11 lagged World Food Day by nearly a month. But by every other measure the evening was a resounding success. Our honoree, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, spoke powerfully of the need to alleviate hunger and poverty everywhere in the world. Attendees also heard movingly from the director of Hotel Rwanda Terry George, singer Angélique Kidjo, our staff member of the year Aimé Lukelo, his colleague in D.R. Congo Aldwyn Hamilton, and executive director Cathy Skoula.

In addition to celebrating Archbishop Tutu and publicizing our good work, the Gala aids our bottom line, and in that regard too we scored resoundingly. We auctioned off such donated luxuries as John Hardy jewelry, a vacation in Paris, and a walk-on appearance in Law & Order (which alone fetched $16,000!). For the first time, we also asked for contributions to a Wishing Well that included specific gifts to the field including medicines, drinking wells, and equipment for fishing and farming. The Wishing Well raised an impressive $185,000 from generous gala-goers. Altogether, including the cost of tickets (which began at $500 each), the 2005 Gala netted more than $500,000 for our programs.

We're deeply grateful for the yeoman efforts of everyone who helped and for the donors who contributed to the scintillating evening.

News from the field: 

Rethinking Our Jobs from the Top Down

No matter how successful we are at alleviating hunger, we can always find room for improvement. Last week, the Human Resources Directors from all of our headquarters-London, Madrid, Montreal, New York, and Paris-met for two days in New York to assess HR issues. One of the chief problems discussed was how, over the years, jobs with identical titles have come to require different skills at different Missions.

So our HR Directors are tackling a difficult distillation. They're identifying the responsibilities and objectives that are shared, for example, by all our Logisticians or Administrators. We expect that this will lead to job descriptions that will distinguish between, say, Logistician-Supply and Logistician-Transport or Food Security-Animal Husbandry and Food Security-Anthropology. Once we've defined the commonality of all Logisticians or Administrators, our job descriptions can then list the tasks that are unique to a particular Mission to help us find the most appropriate employee. More precise job descriptions will help applicants explain their skills appropriately and help our HR personnel find candidates with the necessary skills.

Drafts of the new job descriptions are due at the end of December, with full implementation scheduled for next June. The significance of this exercise is its illustration of how we're constantly refining and, hopefully, improving our performance across the board at Action Against Hunger. Finding the ideal candidate for a job in the field or at one of our headquarters is a crucial step toward getting nourishing food into the hands of starving beneficiaries.

Person Profile: 

Profile KATY VOSSWINKEL

When Connecticut Yankee Katy Vosswinkel went to college at Notre Dame, she had trouble choosing a single major. "I couldn't really make up my mind," she says. So she cobbled together a major that combined anthropology, environmental science, and German. After graduating, she taught English in Austria for a year on a Fulbright.

During her time in Austria, Katy lived among students from around the world and was fascinated by the variety of their backgrounds. So when she returned stateside, she looked for a job with an NGO hoping to work in international development and relief so she could help people and simultaneously expand her horizons. But she hadn't been trained to work as an ex-pat, so when we offered her a job as office manager and human resources assistant in our New York headquarters, she embraced the opportunity. After two years, having learned from afar how ex-pats work, she got her wish. We sent Katy to Uganda as an Administrator.

Despite her years of contact with the field from our offices, however, Katy says: "I didn't know what to expect." She had anticipated that the work would be both demanding and time-consuming, and it was. But life in Kampala was more comfortable than she was braced to endure, and Ugandans everywhere were warm and welcoming. The national staff, Katy says, was particularly impressive.

Now that her yearlong commitment in Uganda has ended, Katy is back in the U.S. for some R&R. But she will shortly return to the field for us. Once again she'll be an Administrator, this time at our new mission in Pakistan. Again, despite her year in Africa, she can't anticipate what she'll encounter in Asia, she says, except: "I expect Pakistan will be colder than Uganda."