Building Partnerships with IRD advertorial.indd 1
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s the international community prepares to gather for the six-month anniversary of the Haiti earthquake, this year’s heavy rains and hurricanes will likely cause more damage than usual, since hundreds of thousands of Haitians remain in temporary tent camps with rudimentary sewage systems. Downpours can destroy shelters, trigger mudslides and result in a massive increase in communicable diseases. How do we begin to address challenges such as these? Together. While international aid organizations provide valuable technical expertise, resources, and support to the communities with which we work, our work should also be guided by our local partners around the world. In the face of disaster or conflict, we can also draw inspiration from the close relationships and new alliances that are formed. Successful partnerships are based on creatively leveraging, facilitating, building on and accepting guidance from existing local capacities, skills, experience, and ideas. Because in the end, as committed as we are in the countries where we work, we are often just visitors. We are in their house, so to speak, and must seek first to be helpful and respectful guests. IRD Director of Relief Adam Koons distributes solar-powered At International Relief and flashlights, provided by SunNight Solar, in Haiti. Development (IRD), we have been working in Leogane, a city of about 150,000, 18 miles west of the capital city of Port au Prince. After spending time with Leogane and Haitian leaders, we found it clear that the international and Haitian community will have to continue to embrace a disciplined partnership strategy to help Haiti build back better. That means partners committed to demonstrating their efforts and effectiveness in building local capacity. Partners who foresee an end point to aid dependency. Partners focused on not just improving the circumstances of the people in every country where we work, but on working with the people to change the conditions that led to those circumstances.
We look forward to engaging interested partners in these efforts. CONTACT Adam Koons Director of Relief akoons@ird-dc.org
Jim Lanning Director of Acquisitions and Logistics jlanning@ird-dc.org
09/07/2010 19:39:2