Ein Strategaeth

Mae’r geiriau isod yn y broses o gael eu cyfieithu. Bydd fersiwn Cymraeg ein strategaeth yn cymryd lle’r tudalen hwn cyn gynted â phosibl.

Hub Cymru Africa is a partnership formed in 2015 between Fair Trade Wales, Sub Saharan Africa Advisory Panel, Wales and Africa Health Links Network and Welsh Centre for International Affairs. We work across civil society bringing together charities, individuals and organisations around our core organsational themes. Each partner has their own goals and strategies, but we are united around the delivery of global solidarity and work together on several areas including sustainable development, fair trade, climate change, health, livelihoods, equalities including gender, race and intergenerational justice.

The following strategy was agreed and approved by stakeholders in May 2022.

Vision and Mission

Our vision is a globally responsible Wales, that acts in solidarity with the people of Africa

Our mission is to be a catalyst for change, contributing to global development outcomes by supporting the Wales and Africa community.

Values

We are independent in thought and act with purpose. We are driven by our strategy, and work with others to achieve a shared vision. We are objective, and evidence-based.

We are dedicated and determined, and act for lasting change. We are guided by the long-term, achieve outcomes through perseverance and remain flexible and adaptable. We encourage others to think and act towards long-term impact.

We are open, honest and reflective. The way we work is collaborative and participative. We welcome challenge and scrutiny. We use resources responsibly, and are accountable for our actions. We reflect on our performance, embrace learning and encourage new ways of doing things.

We are dedicated to equity and inclusivity. We respect diversity and difference, and believe everyone should have the same rights and opportunities.

We promote an internationalist perspective and seek to engage and explain why we do what we do to those who may not value global solidarity.

Principles Statement

Our vision is for a globally responsible Wales. A Wales that acts in solidarity with people in Africa, is anti-racist in all aspects of national life; challenging international structural and institutional racism. Global solidarity is at the core of what we think and what we do. Urgent global challenges mean there is an important place for development and humanitarian assistance. But our world needs to be re-balanced, so that power, resources, benefits and burdens are shared fairly. The wealth of Wales and other more developed economies, has been achieved through colonisation of Africa and other countries in the ‘global south’.

Hub Cymru Africa embodies the spirit of friendship, respect, partnership, humanity, mutuality, fairness and justice to help deliver the Sustainable Development Goals. and enact a globally responsible Wales. We work towards a racially-just world where everyone is able to enjoy their economic, social, and environmental rights.

Strategic Objectives

Our five year plan for a globally responsible Wales

Goal 1 – Building a stronger, more effective sector
Goal 2 – Support the community we work with to become anti-racist
Goal 3 – Making the case for global solidarity

Goal 1 – Building a stronger, more effective sector

The challenge: Global challenges look set to intensify over the next decade, many as a direct result of our actions in Wales, historically and currently. It needs to be recognised that wealth in the global north has been achieved through colonisation. This in turn is creating a greater need for more and better global development. The pandemic has shown us how connected we are and forced partners to work in new and different ways, opening up opportunities as well as creating new problems.

Our response: We need to redouble our efforts to improve the effectiveness of programmes supporting community-led development. We must continue to ensure the best use of resources and work harder to include diaspora communities. We want to further strengthen our responsiveness to and be led by the needs of partners in Africa and ensure monitoring, evaluation and learning underpin a continued improvement of Welsh programmes.

Over the next five years we will:

Increase the participation of partners in Africa in the design and delivery of our work and the work of the sector by improving the quality of needs assessments, devolving decision making where possible, and advocating for funding to go straight to partners.
Support the sector to sustain funding in the short term and aim to increase it long-term through advocacy and supporting funding bids.
Define best practice and disseminate it through the sector by updating the effectiveness framework, showcase groups that are doing good work, increase use of digital learning, build external networks, constructively challenge bad practice.
Celebrate success by supporting groups to highlight and publicise their own successes and use communication channels to ensure groups’ achievements are acknowledged
Fostering a culture of peer-led learning, involving experts in our work and form advisory groups when specific needs arise.
Actively participate in international networks like the European Citizen Initiated Global Solidarity network to increase effectiveness, knowledge and capacity within our work.
Work to build learning links from the public and private sector.
Consider and decide (based on evidence and our understanding of impact) whether to increase the scope of our work to include groups working outside of Sub Saharan Africa.
Educate and engage policy-makers, decision-makers and opinion-formers in Wales on the need to improve programme effectiveness.
Review our volunteering offer, with an aim of diversifying our volunteer base to better reflect society.
Advocate for a more strategic and better resourced Welsh Government Wales and Africa

Goal 2 – Support the community we work with to become anti-racist

The challenge: We work with people facing challenges today, that stem from the historical exploitation of people, power and natural resources by European-based colonialism and imperialism. Today, institutional and structural racism are still ingrained in many aspects of life in Wales. Additionally, we cannot realise our vision of a globally responsible Wales that acts in solidarity with the people without acknowledging that the ways we work and the systems we work in uphold racial inequalities: both at home in the Welsh sector, and in our international relationships and institutions.

Our response: We will strive to be an anti-racist organisation, recognising that we can and must always do more to help create a racially-just world. We will support and challenge those we work with, in government and the sector, to be anti-racist; whilst continually working to put our own house in order.

Over the next five years we will:

Apply an anti-racist and intersectional lens and bring in diverse perspectives to all of our work, including policy and communications; programme design and delivery; monitoring, evaluation and learning; and internal operations.
Build a sector where people are not ‘called out’ but ‘called in’ and supported to learn, ensuring the groups feel able to make change.
Educate and engage policy-makers, opinion-formers, partners and the public on the linkages between anti-racism, a globally responsible Wales, and global solidarity; and tackle when we can white privilege and white saviorism.
We will use the power and privilege we have to start conversations around racism in international development, and global solidarity.
We will platform the voices of our partners from low and middle income countries and black and minority ethnic backgrounds.
Stand in solidarity with local and global race justice movements.
Work proactively with other partners who also promote inclusive, anti-racist approaches and practises.
Recognise and explore the inter-related nature of climate justice and anti-racism.
We will recognise opportunities to better distribute resources, and drive the localisation agenda in Wales.
We will learn from our experiences in safeguarding and know that an increase in racist incidents being reported in the short term is a sign that understanding is increasing and confidence in disclosure is increasing.

Goal 3 – Making the case for global solidarity

The challenge: Fostering a global spirit of friendship, respect, partnership, humanity, mutuality, fairness and justice has never been more important. We know scepticism and ignorance about development and solidarity in Wales remains, and attitudes borne out of a well-meaning desire to end poverty through charity can often cause more harm than good.

Our response: We will be a platform for our partners in Wales and Africa, centring on the voice of the partners in Sub Saharan Africa and challenging negative narratives. We will educate and engage audiences in Wales on the importance of global solidarity. We will constructively challenge old ways of working, and find practical solutions to help ensure Wales’ global contribution is more firmly rooted in solidarity.

Over the next five years we will:

Facilitate discussion and understand what global solidarity means in the context of Wales; working across society to strengthen a movement for global solidarity.
Engage groups and partners in Wales on the issue of global solidarity and what that means in the context of the sector’s work.
Platform voices for solidarity to ensure we are representing not only our own views, but ensuring self-advocacy.
We will centre on the good work of groups and partners in Wales, not only using their experience to make the case for global solidarity, but ensuring they are visible and celebrated. Giving strength to our platform.
Contribute to and shape the international policy discourse in Wales, informing future Welsh Government policy and strategy, and party manifestos ahead of the next UK Parliament and Senedd
Promote positive stories of global solidarity to audiences in Wales.
Communicate the linkages between the work of our partners and the Wales Africa community to the global Sustainable Development Goals, and Wales’ Wellbeing of Future Generations Act.
Respond to and engage with the challenges of critics, if we can set a positive discourse.

Ways of working – setting our own house in order

The challenge: Our goals are about our external impact, our fourth objective should be to focus on doing things right. To become a truly globally responsible nation, Wales needs a strong and vibrant civil society, which means Hub Cymru Africa must be a well-run, effective partnership that’s financially sustainable.

Our response: To meet this challenge, we will focus our efforts on diversifying our income; accelerate equality, diversity and inclusion efforts; taking action to walk the talk on being an anti-racist organisation; reduce our environmental impact; and strengthen governance and impact reporting.

Over the next five years we will:

Develop an Impact & Income Growth Plan to identify new sources of funding for work Hub Cymru Africa and partners seek to deliver
Conduct a governance review, looking at Hub Cymru Africa’s formal arrangements, board effectiveness and options for the future and make recommendations for modernisation..
Undertake an assessment of our environmental impact, and identify actions to help address the nature and climate emergencies, recognising the disproportionate impact of the nature and climate emergencies upon the global South.
Continue to implement and report on our Zero Racism Wales commitments. We will support staff and boards to develop their own understanding of racism, and their role within it through individual and team activities like training, research, and reflective practice.
Adopt and champion social partnership and fair work commitments, and ensure our procurement and employment policies and practice remain ethical and sustainable.
Undertake work to strengthen our internal understanding and awareness of gender, disability, gender identity, and sexuality issues.
Regularly review our recruitment practises observing when we have and have not made progress in diversifying candidates applying for and being appointed to positions and finding solutions.