The Pulse of Humanitarian Assistance

12. Transformation from Relief to a Justice and Solidarity Focus

12 Transformation from Relief to a Justice and Solidarity Focus Joan Neal For over sixty years, Catholic Relief Services (CRS) has been working overseas, providing emergency relief and development to economically and socially disadvantaged communities in poor countries. This chapter will present some of the organizational experiences, challenges, and successes that have transformed CRS as an agency, as well as the approaches used, the focus of its work, and the way in which impact is measured. As the official overseas relief and development agency of the Catholic Church in the United States, and one of the largest private voluntary agencies in the world today, CRS is currently working in ninety-six very poor countries. On behalf of the U.S. Catholic community, and in partnership with local Catholic and non-Catholic agencies, CRS’s staff of nearly four thousand employees support local programs of emergency assistance, educational outreach, agricultural development, micro enterprise for small-scale traders, farmers and producers, peace building in con- flict-ridden societies, prevention, care, support and treatment for persons living with HIV/AIDS, and health care for vulnerable women and children. In 2004, CRS served over seventy million beneficiaries through these programs, implemented primarily by local partner agencies, many of which are faith-based. However, CRS began as a more modest operation, focused on emergency relief and refugee assistance at its founding. The bishops of the United States created CRS in 1943, during the Second World War, to help respond to the needs of refugees in Europe and the poor worldwide. In the beginning years, CRS (then known as War Relief Services), out of its first three offices in Paris, 280 JOAN NEAL Rome, and Berlin, relocated Polish refugees freed from slave labor in Siberia, and assisted war orphans, refugees, and other suffering populations. Funding for these first programs came both from U.S. Catholics and the National War Fund Appeal established by President Franklin D. Roosevelt. A strong commitment to the alleviation of human suffering due to catastrophic events has continued and the agency has responded to numerous emergency situations around the world. Over the past sixty years, major world events and trends have fundamentally transformed the organization: the Cold War, decolonization , Vatican II, globalization, war, and genocide in Africa , Asia, and Europe, as well as the war on terror. These events have influenced how CRS understands its mandate, how it carries out its programs, and how it measures impact nationally and internationally. In the 1960s, CRS broadened its mission from one of charity and emergency response to one of sustainable socioeconomic development of local communities. For several decades, the agency viewed its work through a relief and development ‘‘lens.’’ High value was placed not only on addressing the manifestations of poverty through relief activities but also on eliminating the immediate causes of poverty through development programs. CRS used this relief and development model until the early 1990s. It is important to note two characteristics of early programs—a close relationship with local Catholic partners and significant funding from the U.S. government, particularly P.L. 480 food assistance . In subsequent decades, these two factors dramatically in- fluenced both the quality and content of CRS’s programs. Initially, programs of assistance around the world were merely free distributions of food aid, clothing, and medicine. Over time, however, an increase in professionalism occurred both as a result of a growing awareness of the root causes of poverty and disease, and because newer agencies were also competing for government resources. Program design and evaluation standards were set and professional employees were recruited to ensure that programs dealt with causes, and not only the symptoms, of poverty, malnutrition , and disease. By the late 1980s, programs of health care, nutrition education, micro-enterprise, and agriculture achieved levels of excellence never before reached. In Africa, CRS was FROM RELIEF TO A JUSTICE AND SOLIDARITY FOCUS 281 sponsoring over 90 percent of all U.S. government food aid, and received millions of dollars of U.S. government grant funding for emergency and developmental assistance programs, largely as a result of improved managerial capacity and its professional standards. By 1990 CRS’s self-identity was that of a highly professional socioeconomic development agency with a strong, well-respected, logistical capacity to deliver food aid and other supplies in times of emergency. The agency accessed hundreds of millions of dollars in public resources annually and the...