FRANCAISHandicap International - Comments
3) The financial resources
-To avoid being too dependent on institutional backers, HI relies a lot on self-financing. In 1984, HI first created an organisation in charge of raising funds through a “Party Without Borders” in Lyon. But this scheme was too burdensome to administer, and was definitely given up in 1992. The next year, HI then started selling various products, a little like the handicraft shops of Oxfam in the UK. In its 20 years birthday booklet, HI was described as both “a charity, a small family business and a multinational corporation”. Besides the donations of the general public, HI got subsidies from the Vivendi Foundation, the Union of Swiss Banks, etc. Private resources allow the association to finance on its own funds programmes neglected by institutional backers, as in Somaliland, a country that gets little assistance under the pretext that its independence has not been recognised by the international community.
-Yet HI showed its first deficit in 2001, followed by a second one in 2002. In 2002 and 2003, the organisation had to stop hiring and vocational training, freeze pay-rise, dismiss nine employees, reduce its operations (especially in France and the Balkans) and close missions in Chile, Gabon, Guinea-Conakry, Mauritania, Chad, Turkey and Timor-Leste.
