FRANCAISHandicap International - Comments
2) The way it works
-The HI movement is composed of regional units in France and offices abroad, in Brussels since 1986, Copenhagen since 1990, Geneva since 1996, Luxembourg since 1997, Munich since 1998, London since 1999, Minneapolis since 2000 and Montreal since 2003. The Overseas Department is centralized in Lyon. Only the Belgian section runs its own operations, while the Swiss one plays the role of a diplomatic lobby for the follow-up of the Ottawa Treaty. Supervised by licences, the other national sections are mainly fund-raising centres that participate in drafting programmes but do not directly administer missions abroad. The amount of resources for the French, German, British, Luxembourg and Swiss sections (as well as Canadian since 2003) totalled 57,2 million Euros in 2000, 57,6 in 2001, 54,5 in 2002 and 55,3 in 2003; the Danish and American’s budgets were not mentioned; the Belgian Financial Report was available on the Internet.
-HI-France got professional since the beginning. To hire competent staff, it had to raise salaries. According to Philippe Chabasse, the co-director of HI-France, in an article in Le Monde dated 9 April 2002, everybody had the same pay in 1982. Five years later, differences of salaries went from 1 to 2; from 1 to 3.5 in 2002.
