Last December, our organisation was awarded the EU Humanitarian Partnership Certificate. This will now allow us to apply for funding for humanitarian actions.

The Directorate-General for Civil Protection and European Humanitarian Aid Operations (DG ECHO) gave its verdict following an external audit, carried out by the audit firm L&S Réviseurs d’entreprise.

This decision is based on an in-depth analysis of our processes and strategies. The audit firm analysed our rules in terms of ethics and the fight against fraud and corruption, project planning, design and management, as well as respect for humanitarian principles and the protection of personal data. In addition, the governance, human resources, finance and IT management of our organisation were also scrutinised.

A new asset to help even more livestock keepers and their families

Thanks to this certificate, we now have the opportunity to respond to the yearly calls for proposals of the humanitarian branch of the European Union (DG ECHO). But it will also allow us to access grants from other donors. This certificate is indeed a condition for working with the humanitarian section of the Belgian development cooperation.

2021 therefore marks a turning point in the history of our organisation, of which most activities currently pursue a development objective. From now on, we should gradually increase our humanitarian actions, with the aim of helping more and more livestock keepers’ families in Africa. Among the possible actions considered by our teams are livestock emergency aid actions, disaster risk reduction and support for refugees.

These activities are not entirely unknown to our organisation. In the past, we have already used our humanitarian expertise to help people in highly vulnerable situations. We have provided assistance to livestock keepers hit by floods or exceptional droughts, for example in West Africa. In Burkina Faso, we are currently working with Malian refugees and internally displaced persons who have fled violence in their region of origin. Among other things, we offer them technical training to help them rebuild their lives.