Concern India context: Key achievements

Thursday, 1st June 2006

Our work is grounded in a realistic and honest reflection of the environment in which we work, our key achievements and failures and our organisational strengths and weaknesses.

On this basis we choose the areas where we feel we can make a significant contribution to reducing poverty and ensuring greater justice for the communities with whom we are working in the next planning period.

Country Office Location

The decision to locate our Country Office in Bhubaneswar and to restrict our development programme to the state of Orissa appears to have been the correct strategic choice.

Whilst this may have limited our engagement in some national level coordination and networking, as well as reducing our overall visibility at the national level, it has enabled Concern to emerge as a serious and committed player in Orissa.

We do not intend to relocate the country office during this planning period, although we will look for ways of strengthening our national level linkages, including the possibility of establishing a liaison office in Delhi.

Responding to Emergencies

During the last planning period we responded quickly and effectively to a number of national as well as state level emergencies.

We have emerged as a serious player in emergency response, committed to upholding international standards for the delivery of aid.

Our Tsunami programme has been of a high quality and we have emerged as an important critical voice, which is respected and listened to by others.

Capacity Building and Partnership

We have improved the skills and strengthened the capacities of many of our partners.

The partnership approach developed by Concern has largely been viewed by our partners and others as appropriate, supportive and one of the key strengths of Concern.

We have developed a broad portfolio of partners ranging from some small very localised NGOs to more established state and
national bodies.

Concern India country strategy 2006 - 2011: Contents