SAID hosts Partner Conference to help deepen mission around world
BY SIMONE WORTHING
The Salvation Army International Development (SAID) team recently welcomed delegates from 10 countries to its Partner Conference in Melbourne.
The theme of the conference was ‘Holistic Mission, Thriving Communities’.
“It was a fantastic opportunity to come together, strengthen relationships, and have meaningful conversations about what partnership truly means to us,” said Daryl Crowden, The Australia Territory’s General Manager of Emergency, Aid and Development.
Every two years the SAID team meets with its international partners. This year, nine of the partners attended the conference in person. Unfortunately, representatives from Pakistan and Uganda were unable to get visas and joined online.
SAID’s partner territories include Kenya (East and West), Malawi, Papua New Guinea & Solomon Islands, Rwanda, Pakistan, Uganda and Tanzania.
Lieut-Colonel Greg Morgan, Secretary for Mission (Australia Territory) and Lieut-Colonel Debbie Clark, International and Development and Engagement Officer (New Zealand, Fiji, Tonga and Samoa Territory) were also part of the gathering.
“Throughout the week, we explored our new partnership framework and discussed our shared commitment to a holistic, integrated mission,” said Daryl. “We also reflected on the importance of gender equality, disability equity and rights, and climate change as cross-cutting priorities that are embedded across all of our projects and programs.”
Partners also assisted in the mid-term review of the SAID strategy. “They fed into the review, giving their experience of our engagement with them,” said Daryl.
“We are also finalising our new partnership approach as an agency. We engaged an external consultant to help us develop that framework, which is almost complete. In the development of that, that consultant interviewed a number of implementing territories, IHQ, other agencies that engage with us and our own external board members. But we use this excellent opportunity to give our partners the framework as it is now, get their feedback and talk about the opportunities and pain points they envisage.
“We will use the feedback we got from them, particularly around the partnership approach of the partnership framework we developed, to finalise it and roll them both out.
“This is about co-owning the ‘power’ – SAID and implementing local partners. Both sides have to own the direction we take. So, while we very much want partners to drive the direction that makes sense for their context, we have to be able to own that as well. We’re going to start prioritising that with a couple of our partners. And that’ll happen pretty much immediately.”
Mid-term review
The mid-term strategy review is also being finalised, after its first audience with the partners, the practice advisory group, the board, and Major Kim Haworth, Assistant Chief Secretary – Mission.
“We will focus on integrated mission and, from a development point of view, I’m looking towards our community development and mission support silos being more integrated,” Daryl said.
“This means, for example, that while our community development team will always focus on longer-term, sustainable development, we will explore ways to provide a more wholistic offering that builds resilient communities and transforms lives by leveraging our mission and emergency expertise, programming and funding.
“We will try to bring those three things together to leverage each of them to multiply and deepen our impact on communities and individuals. And so that’s the goal of the partnership framework and of our next 18 months of our strategic intent.
“We look forward to continuing to work in partnership to strengthen our impact for the communities we serve.”
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