To meet today’s environmental, social and political challenges, many of them are taking action every day to help disadvantaged populations. Whether they are well known or work in the shadows, they all have at least one common desire: to leave a positive trace of their passage on earth by improving what already exists.
When individual initiative meets collective strength
Humanitarian aid manifests itself in different ways: monetary donation, human donation (a humanitarian mission for example), donation of goods or objects (a food distribution, a collection of toys, medical equipment).
Well coordinated, humanitarian actions can really have an impact on populations or the environment. In this respect, a vast network of organizations is developing to organize the collective work around the world. Here is an overview of these main actors:
Local populations
This is a category of actors that is often forgotten when it comes to listing these contributors to solidarity. Even before the intervention of the international community, these men and women set up daily actions to help the most destitute among them. Moreover, we often see exemplary behaviour in relation to the citizens of favoured countries, particularly in terms of safeguarding the environment.
Public international institutions
Public international organisations (sometimes dependent on NGOs or the European Union) also intervene in the humanitarian context. For example, the World Food Programme (WFP, the UN food agency). It ensures food distribution in response to emergency situations. Every year, it helps more than 80 million people in 80 countries.
The associations
They can be secular or not, and are financed by membership fees, donations or even sometimes by grants from municipalities and other organizations. The fields of action of the associations are diverse and varied (educational or cultural associations, environmental protection, personal assistance associations, etc.).
Humanitarian Non-Governmental Organizations such as Life ONG
Usually volunteers manage these structures, but staff can also be salaried. As with an association, an NGO is financed either by grants from organisations or governments or by its own funds. Thus, the association Life ONG intervenes in all poor countries to carry out projects such as financing and building water access systems for underprivileged populations.
The companies
In recent years, there has been an increasing number of corporate foundations committed to international solidarity. They make it possible to finance or co-finance national or international projects. Nevertheless, France is still on the fringes of other countries such as the United States or Scandinavian countries.
Some companies are also becoming full-fledged players in the humanitarian cause because it is in line with the objectives of CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility).
It is then understandable that the commitment to solidarity becomes intrinsically linked to the corporate project that is supposed to reflect the aspirations of the human community in terms of social and environmental justice.
