FRANCAISComité catholique contre la faim et pour le développement - Comments
2) The way it works
-In order to help building local capacities for development, the CCFD does not send expatriates and volunteers abroad. The advantage of this strategy is that it leaves recipient populations decide for their own projects. Yet, a “remote control” also carries risks of multiplying small programmes, and of not being able to prevent the humanitarian logistics from being used for political purposes.
-The CCFD is very present in Latin America and Western Africa, where it uses former missionary networks and collaborates with the German Misereor, the Flemish Broederlijk-Delen and the Canadian Développement et Paix. However, it does not proselytise and works in Christian as well as Muslim countries.
-In France, the CCFD relies on the support of about ten thousand volunteers; according to a 1988 study, one quarter of them belong to a trade union and one fifth are politically active at the local level. The board of the CCFD included many members of the Socialist Party, like Philippe Farine, a town councillor in Paris, Menotti Bottazzi, who ran in the 1983 municipal elections, Bernard Holzer, a militant, and François Bellec, a trade unionist and a former CGT executive.
