ISP3 Bulletin: Introducing the Network
We’re at an interesting time in the Action Against Hunger journey. As we celebrate our 40th anniversary, we find ourselves looking forwards as well as back.
Forty years ago, Action Against Hunger, the first organisation to focus exclusively on ending hunger, was launched by a group of French intellectuals in response to the emergency in Afghanistan. Today, we are a network of Member, regional and country offices that work together to prevent, detect and treat undernutrition in 50 countries worldwide, all the while raising awareness and calling others to action in the fight against hunger.
Check out the explanation of our network attached here, or listen to a five-minute podcast about some of our lesser-known offices. Alternatively, watch the video below about our programme achievements last year.
So that’s today. But what about tomorrow? Well, this year – and this week in particular – that is something we are working out. With our current 5-year International Strategic Plan (or ISP, as it’s known informally) coming to an end next year, our network is working to map out the strategic plan for the next five years: 2021-2025. Staff and stakeholders at all levels are already involved in consultations about what that plan should look like, the direction we should be looking in and how we’re going to get where we need to go. At our annual international conference in Valencia this week, staff from all corners of our network will get together to look at what you have said, and will start to think about how we’re going to put that into practice.
Over the next few days, we’ll be sharing those conversations with you on the ISP3 Portal, and you’ll have a chance to comment and let us know your thoughts. So watch this space – and get involved!
We are a network, which means we are all cogs in a bigger machine, each of us playing our part to achieve our wider aims. But it’s not always clear exactly where we fit in, or how the whole thing works, so we’ve put together a handy guide to make things clear…
Our network has 6 Members, including an “HQ” office with operations, technical, advocacy, fundraising and/or communications departments, as well as – sometimes – desks and emergency pools). Each Member is governed by a board of trustees, and each board of trustees has a chairperson. The chair of each board sits on our International Council of Chairs, the highest level of governance in the network, which oversees the International Executive Committee – a group comprising the CEOs of some of the Members – who make most of our high-level decisions.
Four of the Member HQs (France, Spain, USA and India) manage all of our country offices between them, while the remaining two manage international functions instead: the International Gender Unit (Canada) and the MEAL Services (including the Evaluation, Learning and Accountability Project (or ELA), based in the UK).
Our regional offices have a crucial role in supporting and (in the case of East Africa) overseeing country offices, within each specific regional context. Finally, we also have two representative offices (Germany and Italy) who do fundraising and advocacy for our network.
