Partnership is central to CARE’s global vision and mission. We aim to be a partner of choice for governments, civil society organizations, social movements, the private sector and donors who seek long term solutions for fighting poverty and social injustice. In partnership we can collectively achieve more, have greater impact and do so in inclusive, cost-effective and sustainable ways.
In addition, there is an ongoing conversation in our sector on localization, decolonization and anti-racism. The global pandemic has highlighted deep inequalities and injustices in our societies and surfaced the fact that these are also built into our organizations and structures. This challenges us more than ever before to confront the deeply entrenched structural inequalities, racism and power imbalances built into our ways of working as international development and humanitarian actors. The call for change has never been stronger and CARE must be ready to match words with action and meaningful change.
CARE has demonstrated a strong and consistent commitment to partnerships and has shown readiness to adapt to be a partner of choice. At the same time, we need to accelerate our ability to adapt and do things differently. We need to do more to clarify our definition and transform our discourse and processes in relation to partnership particularly if we are going to engage in and with social movements. We must also enact our commitment to partnership in humanitarian contexts to ensure timely, quality and accountable action.