ALMOST half of Christian Aid’s staff may very well be made redundant under proposals, announced on Tuesday, to channel resources to local partner organisations as an alternative.
“Our job in lots of cases now’s so as to add our weight to waves of change being created by other people, not necessarily creating the waves ourselves,” the charity’s chief executive, Patrick Watt, told the Church Times.
Five regional hubs will coordinate the organisation’s work overseas instead of the present international network in 26 countries. The recent model, which is subject to a consultation period, would see a discount in staff from a little bit over 700 to about 400.
On Tuesday afternoon, Mr Watt said that the country offices were expensive and sometimes led to “siloed working”, whereas regional hubs in Bogotá, Abuja, Nairobi, Amman, and Dhaka would allow for projects to chop across borders more effectively.
Christian Aid could be “stepping back” from direct delivery of humanitarian and development projects to focus as an alternative on regional partnership work. “We sometimes began to behave a bit like an area organisation our selves, and form of cannibalised space and capability that we should always be supporting for national organisations,” Mr Watt said. “We sometimes began to behave a bit like an area organization ourselves, and form of cannibalised space and capability that we should always be supporting for national organisations.”
It was an approach that had worked well in Gaza and Ukraine in recent times, allowing the charity to be more agile in the way it used donor funds, Mr Watt said. More than £20 million was being spent on programmes in Ukraine.
Last yr, the then Archbishop of Canterbury visited a project in Odesa, in southern Ukraine, which is run by an area charity but receives funding from Christian Aid (News, 23 February 2024).
Under the proposals announced on Tuesday, this dynamic with local partners will turn out to be the norm in all the 26 countries through which Christian Aid operates, continuing a trajectory that the help sector has been on for a while.
Headcount at Christian Aid had already been reduced by about ten per cent, owing to a discount in “direct implementation” of programmes, in keeping with last yr’s report.
Explaining the further cuts being proposed, Mr Watt said that the restructuring would depart the charity with about 350 core posts, and an additional 50 reliant on specific funding.
UK-based jobs could be reduced together with those in the present country offices, he said, and, going forward, many posts, including those in strategic leadership, may very well be based within the UK or any of the regional hubs.
Many of the roles that remained wouldn’t be earmarked for specific people, and could be open for applications. It was vital, Mr Watt said, to be certain that “anybody who does leave leaves well.” Changes would come into effect within the autumn.
Last yr, the report Shifting Power in Aid outlined Christian Aid’s progress in moving towards more locally led work — as set out within the charity’s strategic framework for 2019-26, and in keeping with agreements made with other aid organisations.
“With a programme presence in lots of previously colonised countries, we recognise that we’re a part of a wider aid system that’s each a mirrored image of unequal power, and infrequently reinforces that inequality,” the report said.
At the beginning of this yr, the present chair of Christian Aid, the Bishop of London, the Rt Revd Sarah Mullally, wrote that “in the longer term, responding to the facility of the prophetic voice, I can see us playing more of a convening, connecting, and catalytic role, linking the local to the worldwide and supporting wider movements for change” (Comment, 3 January).
“This would require more of the capability and capability now we have built up inside Christian Aid to be situated in our partners, creating opportunities to shift power to people living in poverty, in order that they will make their voices heard and create their very own opportunities for a life free from poverty,” Bishop Mullally wrote.
The UK’s recent cuts to the international aid budget, from 0.5 to 0.3 per cent of GDP (News 28 February), weren’t a decisive consider Christian Aid’s decision to restructure, Mr Watt said, but they validated the choice to be a “majority voluntary-funded organisation”.
The reduction of institutional funding coincided with the shift towards “more intentionality in regards to the voice and the agency of affected people”, Mr Watt said. It was a part of a changing landscape within the aid sector. “I believe the truth is that aid plays a comparatively smaller role on the earth than it did 20 or 30 years ago. There are fewer aid-dependent countries,” he said.
“In some ways, I believe the help sector is having to meet up with [this changing picture] and recognise that we’re only one relatively small, albeit vital, a part of a much greater network of actors attempting to create a more just world.”
