REPRESENTING ISLAMIC RELIEF AROUND THE WORLD

Islamic Relief is one part of a global community working towards the shared goal of ending poverty and inequality. Our partnerships and participation in global events makes us stronger and help ensures we can make a positive impact on the lives of even more people around the world.

Throughout 2023, our CEO continued to engage at the highest levels to share learning from Islamic Relief programmes and advocate for lasting change. This year the CEO met with dignitaries such as His Majesty King Charles, world leaders such as the President of Malawi, and ambassadors and ministers from multiple countries. He attended major international events, from the World Economic Forum to the Global Refugee Forum, delivered speeches at the United Nations, and met with politicians to lobby for more action on climate change, a ceasefire in Gaza, and investment in ending hunger.

Chairing a session at the UN World Food Programme’s Annual Partnership Consultations in Rome, Italy, Waseem Ahmad explored how the humanitarian community can better work together on advocacy to prevent food crises and tackling global hunger. Speaking on the panel at the launch of the UN’s 2024 Global Humanitarian Overview in Geneva, Waseem highlighted the impacts of climate change on poor communities and pressed for locally-led adaptation.

Waseem visited Buckingham Palace several times for meetings hosted by His Majesty King Charles III. In June, as part of a delegation from the Disasters Emergency Committee (DEC), Waseem updated His Majesty on how the British public’s generous donations have helped hundreds of thousands of people affected by the 2022 Pakistan floods. He also briefed His Majesty on the role of faith-based organisations responding to crises from Afghanistan to Sudan. In addition Islamic Relief was invited to a Humanitarian Reception hosted by The King and Queen to recognise those who have contributed to humanitarian efforts across the world, and to His Majesty’s annual Diplomatic Reception.

Among the Islamic Relief projects Waseem visited in 2023 was in Herat, Afghanistan. In August he met with farmers struggling to feed their families due to climate change and poverty and saw how Islamic Relief’s groundbreaking partnership with the UN Development Programme (UNDP) has renovated irrigation canals to boost agricultural productivity. In Kabul, he visited health and nutrition clinics where we are helping families displaced by conflict, and providing mothers and children with antenatal and postnatal care, psychosocial support and nutritional support.

In June 2022, Islamic Relief, the Lutheran World Federation (LWF) and HIAS, (the Hebrew Immigration Advisory Service), once again teamed up to host the Welcoming the Stranger conference in Geneva.

The event brought together faith actors from around the world to share experiences and lessons on faith-sensitive responses to the global displacement crisis. The conference – named after the concept of ‘Welcoming the Stranger’ that is shared across Islam, Judaism and Christianity, is an extension of the initiative taken by UNHCR in 2013 to support faith community action for protecting and integrating refugees.

Later in 2023, the three organisations submitted a joint pledge to build support for local faith communities’ action on refugee protection. The pledge details plans to develop shared training resources for faith actors, enabling them to scale-up their work and access support and funding from the international aid community. Pilot projects are planned in 2024 in East Africa, Jordan and Central America to use the new resources in partnership with local faith communities.

In May, Islamic Relief was recertified against the Core Humanitarian Standard (CHS) – a rigorous global standard for humanitarian work.  The CHS provides a set of commitments that humanitarian organisations can use to improve the quality and effectiveness of their work.

Islamic Relief was first certified against the CHS in 2017 and first recertified in 2021. Our continued recertification reaffirms our accountability to the communities we serve and our commitment to transparency and ensuring our work is carried out to the highest standard.

The recertification also confirms that we are managing our resources effectively and designing programmes that create a positive impact when responding to crises and supporting communities.

Auditors spoke to staff, implementation partners and members of the communities we serve to assess the compliance of our programmes with sector level quality and accountability criterions and scored Islamic Relief highly against the nine CHS commitments.

Islamic Relief will continue ensuring we meet these commitments by putting the individuals and communities we serve at the heart of everything we do. For us, this means listening to the feedback of the people we serve, involving them in decision making at all stages of our programmes and working to boost the capacity of local authorities and organisations, including NGOs and community based organisations.

In 2023 our Humanitarian Academy for Development (HAD) delivered specialist management and leadership training for over a hundred Islamic Relief leaders, from key volunteers inspiring the next generation to trustees who are pivotal in our global governance.

For staff we have three wide-ranging and intensive management training courses: the Aspiring Managers Programme, the Management Development Programme (MDP), and the Leadership Development Programme (LDP).

More than 30 staff underwent Aspiring Managers training in 2023, honing their management and team building skills. HAD’s Learning and Development team delivered the international-recognised MDP training to managers across the organisation in 2023, including the finance team in Nepal. The training helped the team to understand the value of different management styles, improve their risk mitigation, and learn tips and techniques for best management practice through presentations and practical exercises.

In 2023 HAD trained 15 leaders from three country offices on the LDP to strengthen the leadership of the organisation’s core operations in delivering humanitarian aid in challenging circumstances. Bespoke training was also provided through HAD’s Governance Development Programme for over 40 trustees within the Islamic Relief family – including representatives of our member offices in the United States, South Africa, Germany and Pakistan.