Cordaid, Netherlands
Member profile
Cordaid combines more than 90 years’ experience and expertise in emergency aid and structural poverty eradication. It is based in The Netherlands. It is one of the biggest international development organizations with a network of almost a thousand partner organizations in 36 countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America. Its counterpart organizations work on various themes, including participation, emergency aid and reconstruction, health and well-being and entrepreneurship. Each year around 170 million euros is spent on initiatives in the South, of which over 30 million euros is available for emergency aid. A small part is spent in the Netherlands on lobby, public support and consciousness-raising.
Main activities
As of January 2007, the Cordaid organisation is structured around the programmes. There are four programme sectors: Participation, Emergency Aid and Reconstruction, Health and Well-being and Entrepreneurship. The programme sectors have regional teams. Besides regional teams the sector Emergency Aid and Reconstruction has a team for immediate emergencies. In the sector Participation there is a small team for the developing programme of Women and Violence. And in the sector Entrepreneurship there is a fund management team. Cordaid focuses on individuals, groups of individuals and people who are pushed again and again towards the edge of societies. Cordaid wants to cooperate with community centres, social structures, and Church and local authorities, and join them in lobbying at international institutes. Cordaid wants to encourage own individual initiatives, to strengthen capacities of especially youth and women, and to help getting one’s own voice heard. It’s the only way to seize the opportunity together to increase participation in society.
Links to the health workforce crisis
Cordaid dedicates its efforts to assure affordable and accessible basic health care for the poor. Through its lobby activities on national and international level, Cordaid wants to make sure that the needs of medical personnel and the care for the most vulnerable groups will not be forgotten by decision makers. The main programmes are: Access to Healthcare, Care for Vulnerable Groups, and HIV/Aids. In many countries the health care systems do not function properly. Public health care has to contend with a chronic lack of resources. The church health institutions find themselves forced to increase the patient’s own contribution, with the result that fewer people can make use of the services. In addition, health care also has to contend with staff shortages; this is intensified by the HIV/AIDS crisis. Cordaid's vision supports interventions in the field of human resources in health. Improving the quality and accessibility of health care is the objective of Cordaid’s health program. The basic requirement for the provision of health services is availability of qualified personnel. A shortage of qualified health workers or malfunctioning of available health professionals will make it impossible to reach the Millennium Development Goals in health.
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