Values & principles
Principles
Inter Pares applies four principles to our work:
Participation – People and communities actively participate in creating solutions to the poverty and injustice that affect them.
Sustainability – Development efforts make communities more self-sufficient, and are environmentally and financially sound.
Leadership by women – Women make decisions and create change, and their central role in development is recognized.
Respect for cultural values – Efforts for change build on the culture and values of the people concerned, while respecting human rights.
What is Development?
When we speak of development, we refer to the self-development of people, their communities, and their societies. Development is not a project to be managed, or a problem to be solved with the knowledge, technology, and power of others. It is a historical process in which people act together, learn together, make political and economic choices together, and struggle for autonomy and emancipation. Its essence is the free participation of people in the creation and expression of their communities and their society.
This vision of development sees the true national interest to be the interests of all people and their communities, including the poor. Development benefits the poor when the goal is not simply creating wealth, but equitably distributing wealth, and restructuring the social forces that generate and sustain economic inequality.
Social development is thus not a technical process, but a profoundly political one. In every country, there are people and organizations who are working to ensure that development promotes peace and social justice for all, not just the interests of the few. To succeed, they need the support of a global people’s movement for international cooperation within an ethos of respect, reciprocity, and interdependent diversity. This means not merely charity, although charity is required, nor only global social solidarity, which is also critical. Development has to be based and built in profound, radical common cause: to change the world in the common interest of all humans, and the planet itself. Not international development for "them," but global development for all of us.
Women Working for Change
As the major contributors to the productive life of the community, women are the heart of social development and change. But women are also often marginalized because of their gender, their race, their poverty, or other aspects of their lives that are used against them. Inter Pares’ analysis of poverty and injustice is rooted in an understanding of these unequal power relations, and we collaborate with women and men who are committed to changing them. Together we are committed to working toward achieving one universal standard of opportunity and dignity for all.
Inter Pares is a feminist organization in both our politics and our structure. All full-time staff share the management of the organization, with a deep commitment to the principles of equal responsibility and equal salary, of working by consensus, and of nurturing women’s leadership. Externally, Inter Pares relates to women as essential primary partners and colleagues integral to all of our work. Yet we recognize that precisely because we live in a world where pervasive discrimination against women makes this goal so difficult to achieve, we must also work with women to develop programs that are specific responses to their particular needs for health care, for education, for autonomy and independent organization, and for political participation.
| Reviewed July 21, 2010 |  |
Publishing Policies |
