Update Against Hunger - June 6, 2007
Field Notes:
How We've Grown!
When you receive this, I’ll be in France attending my first international
meeting of the Heads of Missions for Action Against Hunger. This is a splendid
opportunity to let everyone know how the New York headquarters is growing in
impact and respect. Here are some statistics I’ll present:
The budget at Action Against Hunger-USA increased during 2006 by 25%, from
$16 million to $20 million. Our projects in Kenya grew by 500% and in the
Democratic Republic of the Congo by 28%. Overall, our projects in water and
sanitation increased by 64%, in food security by 45%, and in nutrition by 10%.
And increasingly, we’re regarded as the technical experts among organizations
participating in UNICEF’s Nutritional Reinforcement Program in the Congo. We’re
establishing nationwide protocols for nutritional surveillance and the treatment
of acute malnutrition, and we’re training employees of the Congo’s Ministry of
Health in the treatment of severe acute malnutrition.
I’m proud of Action Against Hunger’s momentum and eager to help it
accelerate.
Nan
Dale
Executive Director
Action Against Hunger-USA
New from US Headquarter:
Our Annual Audit Once Again Ensures Our Transparency
Every year we open our books to outside auditors. We must do so by law as a
tax-exempt organization, but we’d do it in any event because of our commitment
to the transparency of our organization.
Since 1992, our auditors have been Gelman, Rosenberg & Freedman, a firm
that specializes in crunching numbers for humanitarian organizations. As always,
the auditors accompanied a member of our financial staff to check the books at
several projects in the field—this year in Kivu province in the Democratic
Republic of the Congo and in Nairobi, Kenya. Then the auditors spent two weeks
in New York combing through our ledgers at headquarters.
The auditors have never argued with our numbers. But every year, the auditors
make recommendations for improving our financial management systems. For
example, last year, the auditors noted that we had only three financial
employees at our headquarters and that the volume of work they processed
required a staff twice as large. Today, we have six accountants on staff. Last
year’s team also recommended that all employees paid by Action Against Hunger
keep time sheets that would allow their salaries to be assigned to the specific
project they were working on, hour by hour, so that the cost could be more
precisely allocated to individually targeted donations. We’ve instituted this
reform as well.
The auditors have'nt yet submitted their recommendations for 2007. But as
usual, we’re grateful not only that they ensure our transparency but also that
they help us strengthen our financial management systems.
News from the field:
We’re Seeking a Livelihood Specialist for Northern Uganda
Civil war in Northern Uganda drove 1.4 million citizens into 250 camps for internally displaced civilians. Fortunately, security in the area recently improved, and many displaced residents are leaving the camps to go home.
Returnees, however, often discover that their villages and economies are in ruins. Residents need to find new livelihoods that will give them sustainable incomes to support their families. To that end, we’ve begun a search for an expert in income-generating activities (known in humanitarian jargon as IGAs). The expert’s assignment will be to produce a detailed analysis of a complex situation.
This analysis will include evaluating the strength of local markets—what kinds of merchandise are presently available, what kinds of merchandise are needed, what prices such goods can command, whether additional items can be produced locally, and if not whether they can be imported economically, and so on. The expert will assess the need for support services—carpentry, for example, or government-sponsored road-building, even barbering.
Then the expert must assess the political and social environment to determine what kinds of jobs will be permitted legally and be acceptable culturally within a community (for example, are specific jobs more appropriate for men or for women?).
Finally, the analysis will suggest how teams from Action Against Hunger can train returnees in skills that will allow them to keep food on their families’ tables.
This project illustrates a vital aspect of Action Against Hunger’s mission that’s often misunderstood. When potential donors first discover us, they assume our purpose is to deliver food to distressed populations in emergencies such as floods, droughts, earthquakes, and war. In fact, our mandate—to rid the world of hunger—demands a much broader vision, and providing beneficiaries with IGAs is essential to meeting that goal.
Person Profile:
Profile—Patrick Mouton
Patrick Mouton was born and raised in Lyon, France, and his parents convinced him to pursue a career in commerce, sending him to business school in Paris when he turned 18. Says Patrick: “It was a really very interesting education,” and he’s grateful for his family’s pressure.
After graduation, however, unsure of what he wanted to do, he accepted a job with an accounting firm in Paris that after a year assigned him to its London office. There he also worked for the French National Railway. But his English wasn’t fluent, and after 18 months of discomfort he returned to Paris without a job. He decided to travel. For four months, he wandered around the United States and south through Central and South America.
At the time, war in Bosnia woke Patrick to the need for humanitarian assistance, and when he returned to Paris, having exhausted his finances, he applied for work with several non-governmental organizations. When they failed to respond immediately, he took a job as comptroller with a commercial air-conditioning business that laid him off after two years when its profits cooled. Patrick wasn’t unhappy to leave.
At the time, a former classmate at business school was working at Action Against Hunger in Paris and urged Patrick to apply. Our Paris headquarters hired him and sent him to Rwanda to help set up a mission there. But after one week, he was summoned back to the financial department in Paris. In fact, Patrick preferred to return to the field. “I was idealistic,” he says. “I wanted to save the world.” Instead, he was soon sent to Madrid to help open our headquarters there. “It was very exciting,” he recalls. “We created everything.”
But after five years of 12-hour days, Patrick was exhausted. Still, when our Paris headquarters offered him the position of Finance Director in New York, he took it. For the first year, he says, “New York was the most exciting place I’d ever been.” In 2001, however, he took a six-month sabbatical to travel to India and immerse himself in Eastern religions. When his successor at our offices left, he returned and has been Finance Director ever since.
Today, Patrick is married to an American wife and recently became a father for the first time. Does that mean he has settled down? Not necessarily. He’s intrigued by the arrival of Nan Dale as our new Executive Director and hopes to help expand our work in new directions. The variety of his experiences, he says, has enriched his life, and at the moment, Action Against Hunger is as stimulating and rewarding as ever.
