Gorta In The World

"Building Confidence in Partnership"

840 million human beings on our Earth remain chronically hungry, 799 of them in the developing world. The number has been decreasing by barely 2.5 million per year over the last eight years. Every day, 40,000 children die from lack of food. Although any form of aid helps, it is common sense that a real solution to the problem of world hunger will only be found in long-term efforts to help the people of the Third World countries to feed themselves.

This is the aim of Gorta. It works to defeat hunger before it becomes the tragedy of famine. Gorta was established in October 1965 and is Ireland's first non-denominational Third World development agency, specifically set up to prevent famine by established self-sufficiency community-controlled projects. In areas where Gorta has supported local people, famine has not recurred by natural causes.

Gorta has supported projects in Africa, Asia and South America. Gorta has also joined forces with other NGOs, both Irish and overseas, to support their agricultural projects within the structure of fully integrated programmes. Gorta is now concentrating its development activities in Africa, although several long-term partners in other countries are still being supported.

Gorta's emphasis is on the utilisation of local resources, with projects designed, implemented and controlled by the local people to the greatest extent possible. Most of the organisations that Gorta co-operates with have locally trained personnel managing the day to day running of projects. The role of expatriate mission personnel is increasingly becoming that of contact person with Gorta only. Also, in an increasing number of cases, Gorta has direct contact with local representatives.