Inter Pares and ACORD: 30-Year Companions on the Road to Social Justice
 Inter Pares and ACORD Staff. |
On a warm, rainy evening last April, a group of friends and colleagues met around a table in Montreal to share a meal, and ideas for collaboration and action. Laughter rang out and conversation flowed; a passer-by would have thought this was a group of long-time friends, meeting to catch up and share stories from their past. But while this group of international activists does share in a long, rich history, this face-to-face gathering was a first for those seated around the table.
Four of the people at the table had travelled to Montreal from across Africa: Kenya, Sudan, Burundi and Chad. Bonaventure Wakana, Asha El-Karib, Sophie Havyarimana and Seid Sultane are all staff at ACORD, a pan-African organization based in Nairobi, Kenya. They were in Canada as part of a visit organized by Inter Pares to deepen links with long-time Canadian colleagues and to create new relationships.
Also part of the group that night was Tim Brodhead, the first Executive Director of ACORD, and one of the founders of Inter Pares. Everyone at the table listened intently as Tim told the story of the founding of ACORD and the bond with Inter Pares that now dates back almost three decades. In return, Tim was delighted to learn from Asha that one of ACORD's first projects, a vocational training school in Sudan, continues to thrive.
ACORD was created in the early 1970s as a consortium of European international development agencies. These agencies sought to create an organization capable of implementing projects in remote areas in Africa where the members themselves did not have any operational capacity. The consortium's first two projects, in Sudan and Mali, were in response to humanitarian crises caused by civil war and drought.
Tim left ACORD to return to Canada as one of the founders of Inter Pares. His experiences at ACORD shaped his vision for this new Canadian organization. Rather than build a large structure with overseas staff, Tim and his colleagues decided to keep Inter Pares small, collaborating on an equal footing with activists in developing countries, and building networks that would bring people together to effect change. In keeping with this way of working, Inter Pares became one of the first Canadian members of the ACORD consortium in 1977.
Since then, Inter Pares has remained deeply involved in the life of ACORD, serving on the organization's Board of Directors over many years, offering political solidarity and providing funding, institutional, and technical support to programs in different regions of Africa. And when ACORD began its transformation in 1998 from a consortium of northern donors to an Africa-led international organization working in alliance to promote development and social justice, Inter Pares committed itself to accompanying its long-time counterpart in that change process.
Just as the ACORD experience helped shape the structure and methodology of Inter Pares in the 1970s, so did Inter Pares' experiences influence the innovative directions taken by ACORD. As the Chair of the Board of Directors of ACORD for the past four years, Inter Pares Executive Director Molly Kane has played a key role in helping to build this new alliance for international co-operation that is now led by people in Africa. The new structure links local actions in individual countries to advance the goal of strengthening pan-African social justice movements to bring about systemic change.
Inter Pares and ACORD have travelled the road of social justice together for thirty years. The story of ACORD is forever linked with that of Inter Pares, just as an important piece of ACORD history resides here in Canada, with us. Our stories will remain linked, as we move forward together to build a better future.
| Reviewed October 27, 2004 |  |
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