With Strong Partners at Local Level
Johanniter is among the signatories of the Charter 4 Change. This set of eight self-commitments is intended to strengthen the visibility and role of local partner organisations. For Johanniter, this includes emphasising the importance and capacities of local partners to donors and the public, and advocating for their direct support. The Charter also stipulated that 20 percent of all humanitarian programme expenditures should be passed on to partner organisations. Johanniter met this commitment in full, for example in 2022, passing on 31% of our funding to our partners.
Recognising Capacities and Resources
With exception of the Democratic Republic of Congo and South Sudan, we implement all our projects through partner organisations. In 2022, we worked together with 60 partners in 20 countries. However, this alone is not enough for a fundamental change.
“Instead of simply transferring our own expectations and demands – and those of our institutional donors – onto others, we need to reconfigure the balance of power and levels of decision-making," says Wiebke Kessens, responsible for Strategy & Quality.
In essence, it has to be about supporting local actors, recognising their capacities and resources, and facilitating their access to international funding.
Since 2018, Johanniter has been centrally pursuing this goal for the first time with the programme "Grassroots Organizational Development - Working Towards Humanity" (GROWTH). A total of ten grassroots organisations from the Philippines, Cambodia and Myanmar are part of the GROWTH pro-gram. They are being supported in their organizational development, expanding the scope of their programmes, acquiring their own funding and assuming managerial responsibility by recognizing their own philosophy and values.