FROM RELIEF TO DEVELOPMENT

Partners for Development (PFD) is an American, private non-profit organization currently managing self-help overseas programs in Cambodia, Nigeria, Tanzania, and Bosnia and Herzegovina.  PFD previously managed public health and livelihoods programs in Somalia and Rwanda.

Initially, PFD's work centered largely on responding to emergency needs, we have since shifted focus to providing sustainable, community-driven, long-term development programs.                                                      

WHAT WE STAND FOR

PFD’s mission is to work with underserved populations in developing countries to improve quality of life. The central criterion for assistance is need, without regard to race, religion, age, sex, or ethnic group. We work in a manner such that local partners help design, implement, and assess programs to the greatest degree possible. This approach of collaborating with local counterparts leads to skill-development in key areas. 

• Training local health-care providers in prevention and treatment of primary health-care problems. 
• Providing technical assistance in start-up and support of small enterprises.
• Promoting growth and enhanced capabilities of many partner non-governmental organizations (NGOs) locally.
  

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SUMMARY OF PFD PROGRAMS

Cambodia

Since 1992, PFD has worked with community residents on priority issues.  With its local partners, PFD has addressed poverty, malnutrition, and preventable diseases through integrated activities in public health, safe drinking water and sanitation, and agricultural development.  More specifically in health, PFD has worked in malaria and dengue fever, maternal mortality and child survival, school health education, HIV/AIDS, and reproductive health.

Bosnia & Herzegovina

From 1993 and for most of the 1990s, PFD assisted several central Bosnian municipalities devastated by the war in key areas: agricultural, economic, and environmental rehabilitation and development; reconstruction, shelter, and winterization; public health; and facilitation of ethnic reconciliation.  In recent years, PFD’s work in BiH has evolved toward support of agricultural production and marketing, priority sectors identified by the government.  Program interventions have included addressing poor infrastructure, lack of market linkages, and technical support for local farmers. 

Nigeria  

Since 2000, PFD has been implementing an integrated program in central and northern Nigeria.  Working with several Nigerian NGOs, PFD promotes improved agricultural production, processing, and marketing and enhanced health care.  PFD’s support of local NGOs strengthens such groups and therefore enhances local capacity; it also enables the program to have a broad reach as many of our local partners have fairly extensive networks .  Geographically, the program works in  several central-northern states and in the Niger Delta.  A key PFD innovation in Nigeria has been to incorporate reproductive health education among borrowers in a large micro-finance activity.

Tanzania

The Tanzania program, begun in late 2008, has a three-year core grant from USDA to implement an agricultural development program benefiting 31,250 small-holder farmers in several regions of Tanzania.  The program goal is to diversify and increase the incomes of rural, small-holder farmers through the expansion and commercial utilization of Jatropha curcas, commonly referred to as Jatropha. In addition, the program will improve food security and nutrition amongst participating households.  The program will also build the capacity of national partners to work with smallholder farmers to cultivate and process Jatropha, thereby mainstreaming Jatropha into the economy for industrial uses, contributing to national energy policy, and creating income growth along the value-added chain.

Rwanda

The Rwanda program, 1994-96, rehabilitated health and water infrastructure to help attract displaced Rwandans back to the country to rebuild.  The program repaired 35 gravity-fed water systems and trained village committees to maintain the systems, thereby providing an estimated 55,000 persons with improved access to clean water.  It also repaired four health centers and trained the centers’ Rwandan staff, thus insuring primary health care to an estimated 2,100 persons weekly.  Finally, the program trained teachers in how to work with war-traumatized children and provided credit to 300 small groups of vulnerable women so that they might start income-generating activities. 

Somalia

The Somalia program, 1993-97, assisted in the rehabilitation of primary health care in the northeast.  Community leaders and program staff identified communities in need and capable of managing health posts and/or Maternal and Child Health (MCH) clinics and then trained the personnel.  Thus, approximately 30,000 Somalis, particularly the most vulnerable population groups -- infants and children, pregnant and lactating women, the malnourished, and the sick -- received basic preventive and curative health care from Somali health care workers.  In addition, through the use of PRA, sanitation and income-generation activities were initiated in some communities.