Global Communities 2019 Annual Report Now Available

A message from Global Communities President and CEO, David A. Weiss:
This past year has seen increasingly complex challenges around the world, but the capacities and expertise of Global Communities mean we have a vital role to play in meeting exactly these challenges.
Every day, our innovative, dedicated staff works side by side with vulnerable communities and underserved populations, strengthening resilience and bolstering recovery. Global Communities’ programs and projects promote social cohesion and community empowerment across a diverse range of sectors and geographies. Each challenge may be different, but we bring just the right combination of technical expertise and robust community engagement to design and deliver solutions that truly change lives.
When we work with local leaders and community partners, the journey toward improved lives and livelihoods is their journey; we just help to lay forth the road map and provide the technical assistance. This community-driven approach relies on the inherent dignity and hard-earned wisdom of communities to know what works best for them, as well as Global Communities’ experience and expertise to maximize impact. Together, we create a path to truly sustainable progress.
As we aligned our interventions with the considerable strategic shift by the largest bilateral and multilateral donors toward greater emphasis on humanitarian assistance, we put greater focus on stabilization and other efforts at the complex nexus between humanitarian assistance and development support. Global Communities continues to play an important role in the Middle East, where our extensive humanitarian assistance programs are saving lives in some of the most vulnerable communities in Syria and Yemen. Our Syria Response Strategy responds to the needs of refugees and internally displaced populations in Syria, Iraq, Türkiye, Jordan and Lebanon. We engage with communities and organizations in the region to assist Syrians fleeing their homes cope with the challenges of meeting their basic human needs, and providing protection to the most vulnerable in this crisis wherever they are able to shelter. We do this with a focus on dual accountability – to both the communities we are committed to serve and to the donors who entrust us to be wise and effective stewards of their precious resources.
Our work to engage and empower vulnerable communities and improve peoples’ lives and livelihoods goes well beyond the Middle East. In Sri Lanka, for example, we implement the USAID-funded Social Cohesion and Reconciliation (SCORE) program, a conflict resolution project that brings ethnic and religious factions together, creating the enabling environment for longer-lasting peace. SCORE strengthens local governments and community-based organizations that provide critical services to these communities, and increases opportunities for youth and women to exercise leadership in promoting responsible citizenship and reconciliation. In Honduras, our work focuses on reducing disease such as malaria and tuberculosis, as well as maintaining watersheds to enable farmers to produce their crops, stay on their cherished land, and reduce the need to migrate elsewhere. In Ghana, we are promoting Community-Led Total Sanitation through our WASH for Health programs, which are critical in guarding against the spread of pandemic diseases.  These are but a few examples of the diverse work we do across 25 countries to lift communities out of poverty and honor the inherent dignity of all people everywhere.
To achieve greater impact with broader reach and efficiency requires greater scale. In 2019, we embarked on serious discussions with Project Concern International (PCI) and, as of the publication of this Annual Report, are now merged in a combined organization, enhancing our capacity to bring sustainable change to tens of millions more people in more than 35 countries. In this report a year from now, I look forward to sharing more about our evolution together with PCI to become one of the most dynamic U.S.-based international non-governmental organizations in the world.
Read the Global Communities 2019 Annual Report here.