HelpAge International and CBM Global announce a new partnership

HelpAge International and CBM Global announce a new partnership

Published

CBM Global and HelpAge International are pleased to announce a new strategic collaboration, bringing together two organisations who are both heavily engaged in raising awareness and promoting age and disability inclusion in the humanitarian sector.

HelpAge will work with CBM Global – a global federation working alongside people with disabilities to fight poverty and exclusion – to share expertise and thought leadership in a number of inter-agency initiatives.

These will include the ongoing promotion and roll out of the Humanitarian Inclusion Standards and the IASC Guidelines on Inclusion of Persons with Disabilities in Humanitarian Action. They will also be working together to support Country Age and Disability Working Groups to mainstream older people and people with disabilities in their disaster risk reduction, relief and early recovery projects.

Both organisations are committed to shifting power to southern based national actors, promoting locally led development and humanitarian aid and learning from our localisation efforts. In this regard both organisations are signatories of Charter4Change.

HelpAge and CBM Global both share the same goal to champion the rights and wellbeing of those who are most at risk of marginalisation and exclusion, so this partnership feels like a natural fit. Sharing experience and expertise with such a well-aligned organisation can only serve to strengthen the work we are able to do for the communities we support. We must remember that working together in partnership can only make us stronger.

Samuel Wood, Head of Humanitarian at HelpAge International

I have lots of hopes and expectations in this partnership. Both organisations have so much in common. We share a similar vision of an inclusive world where the most at risk, such as persons with disabilities and older people, are not left behind and are supported to be active agents of the change they want to see. We could not let much more time pass to formally come together and support and complement each other’s missions.

Christian Modino Hok, Humanitarian Director of CBM Global

Edwin Osundwa, CBM Global Kenya Country Director, and Barlet Jaji, HelpAge Kenya Country Director with other members of both organisations meet together in Nairobi to discuss Kenya-specific collaboration.

The agreement

The Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between CBM Global and HelpAge covers a range of areas of collaboration including: humanitarian action, partnering in crisis preparedness and response, strengthening the capacities of national and local humanitarian partners through joint initiatives; Mental Health and Psychosocial Support (MHPSS); advocacy and joint inclusion advice to other organisations – bringing together age and disability inclusion – in humanitarian and development settings.

Meetings between the two organisations have already taken place in Nairobi, where the Kenya Country Directors committed to work on a plan to implement the MoU in country in order to support promoting and upholding the rights of older people and people with disabilities in humanitarian and development programmes in Kenya.

Existing partnership

As a member of the Humanitarian Standards Partnership, HelpAge has been partnering with CBM Global to increase awareness of the importance of inclusive practices for older people and people with disabilities across the humanitarian sector.

The Humanitarian Standards Partnership