FRANCAISNorwegian Church Aid - History
1980-1989
-From 1980, Thailand: with the United Nations, NCA runs a project to develop alternatives to opium growing.
-From 1982, Poland: NCA sends relief through church channels after its secretary general Jan Erichsen visited Warsaw and the military dictatorship of General Wojciech Jaruzelski took power in December 1981.
-From 1983, Nicaragua : through the Evangelical Council for Aid and Development, the CEPAD (Consejo Evangélico Pro-Ayuda al Desarrollo), NCA starts to work in a country where the revolutionary Sandinistas, who came to power in 1979, fight against the Contras guerrillas supported by Washington. In 1983, for instance, the organisation builds a school in Pablo Ubeda, a village in the South.
-1984-2001, Mali: following the drought of 1984 in the Sahel, NCA establishes an office in Gossi and supports food crops in Gourma. The problem, explains Henrik Secher Marcussen, is that the programme, which costs 20 millions US dollars between 1986 and 1990, causes conflicts with the pastoral population, who refuses to settle and wants to keep its pasture land. Moreover, NCA does not co-ordinate with the United Nations Development Programme, the World Bank and international organisations which support similar projects with the same funding. Last but not least, the Tuareg rebellion between 1991 and 1995 impedes aid. With the ICRC (International Committee of the Red Cross), NCA is the only humanitarian organisation to stay in the region of Gao. It has to remove the expatriate staff but continues working with one third of its local employees and seven of them die in 1994. At the end of the conflict, NCA leaves the region in 2001 but keeps a regional representative in Bamako and backs a local NGO it created, OAEDES (Organisation for the economic development of Sahel).
-From 1986, El-Salvador: in a country where it is active since 1982, NCA assists the victims of an earthquake in October 1986. It works with the LWF and a famous bishop of the local Lutheran Church, Medardo Gómez, who is suspected by the authorities to support the opposition because he is asking for the repatriation of refugees, wants to negotiate with leftist guerrillas and plays a central role in a peace forum, the CPDN (Comisíon Permanente de Debate Nacional), which helps to legitimize the rebels. While the government fights against “Marxist” subversion with Washington, NCA tries to stay independent and refuses funding from the American co-operation agency USAID, whose social programmes are part of a military counter-insurgency strategy.
-1988, Namibia: NCA receives substantial funding from the Norwegian Foreign Ministry to support church schools. It also backs the Legal Assistance Centre established by David Smuts in Windhoek.
-1989, Zambia: NCA gives financial assistance to the ANC (African National Congress) in Lusaka.
