Background

It is our duty to help people in need. In exceptional crises and disasters they need assistance in the short term merely to survive, and then they need support in the long term in order to be able to permanently overcome poverty and conflicts and to prevent new crises occurring. The development and relief agencies involved in the Alliance Development Works do both. They help people in Africa, Asia and Latin America in acute emergencies and they are committed to comprehensive social, economic and cultural development. Their goal is to fight the causes of poverty and conflicts, not merely to alleviate them. The alliance is viewing with concern the current trend whereby aid and the funding made available is increasingly being channelled into managing exigent and, in all likelihood, dramatic disasters.
 
Development is the best prevention
Even in the first phase of immediate crisis management, preparations need to be made for subsequent rehabilitation and development. By helping them to establish food security and to safeguard their livelihoods themselves as well as to build up functioning health and education facilities, people can regain their independence. Development does help – and at the same time it is the best form of insurance against disaster. Earthquakes, crop failure or military conflicts can have serious consequences when people are weakened and defenceless on account of their precarious circumstances and if they have no means of participation. The agencies working together in the alliance feel it is their duty to provide aid that is not bound by the security policy motives of their governments, that is clearly oriented to the peoples’ needs and that is geared to bringing about lasting change.
 
Involving those affected
Even when the most devastating disasters strike, it is first and foremost neighbourly help provided by those affected that guarantees that people are saved and receive social support. Help from outside must not undermine local self-help groups or even supplant them, but must provide them with appropriate support. The development and relief agencies involved in the Alliance Development Works co-operate with a network of local partners to ensure that it is indeed those in most need and those who are weakest who receive help. When disasters occur and emergency aid is required the partners in the alliance are already on the spot, providing unspectacular assistance. They can ensure that any plans drawn up will take specific needs into account and that aid is effectively provided. This is not possible without the fundamental involvement of those affected.
 
Experience, insight and know-how
Based on many years of co-operation with our local partners, the agencies in "Development Works" have wide-ranging insights into the political, social and cultural situation in the respective countries. Without knowledge of the social context of crises, aid will not succeed in overcoming want. That is why we are trying to give a realistic picture of poverty and conflicts in the German media, amongst other things by encouraging reporters to focus on the causes.
 
Dealing responsibly with donations
The development and relief agencies that have joined the Alliance Development Works stand for civil society commitment that is independent of government and international institutions. The organisations have all been awarded the seal of approval for charitable organisations by the German Central Institute for Social Issues (DZI); they apply a common code of conduct to their PR work. The alliance brings together larger and smaller development and relief agencies, both church-run and non-church agencies, and thus reflects a cross section of German society. Their specialisations and complementary special competencies ensure the aid they provide does justice to the complexity of the emergencies and conflicts and to the people they support.