SVPP News - Mercy Corps CEO Addresses Partners at Quarterly Event

(From the October 2006 Newsletter)

Mercy Corps CEO Addresses Partners at Quarterly Event

Neal Keny-Guyer, CEO of Mercy Corps, led a stimulating discussion on challenges facing the international relief and development agency on September 20 at Mercy Corps headquarters in downtown Portland. Mr. Keny-Guyer outlined five mega-forces which all NGOs will struggle with if not now, in the future. They are:

1. The level of absolute poverty in the world today -- 1.2 billion people live on less than $1.00 a day; 120 million children do not attend school; 42 million are suffering from HIVAIDS, and 30 million of those are in Africa. Poverty is a source of anger, frustration and despair.

2. The demographic shift in the world to youth -- 1 billion young people will be in the workforce in ten years and only 300 million new jobs will have been created. Where will these young people work?

3. The rise of Islam -- what will be the impact? There are 1.5 billion Muslims in the world and half are younger than 30.

4. Fragile, failing and failed states -- 2 billion people live in nations categorized as one of these. These nations include Iraq, Iran, North Korea, Sudan, Congo, Afghanistan, Cote d'Ivoire, and others.

5. Climate changes -- what will be the impact of global warming on poverty, disease and geopolitical stability?

The question we must continuously ask ourselves is "How are we relevant to the solution?" "What is the root cause of the problem being addressed?"

He concluded his remarks with:
"Nonprofit organizations must struggle to be less bureaucratic, develop and exploit strong partnerships and alliances, work to be strong stewards of our organizations, and learn to be effective "social entrepreneurs". The improvements in nonprofit organizations over the past two decades have been enormous. In 1980 we didn't focus on measuring impact. The educational and skill level of employees was much lower than now. Partnerships and coalitions among nonprofits were much less common. Mercy Corps, for example, is larger than the UN and UNICEF in most of the 35 countries in which they work. Twelve years ago when Mr. Keny-Guyer took the reins at Mercy Corps, they were a small organization focused largely on relief efforts. Today they have more than 2,500 staff, an operating budget of $200 million and are as much an international development agency as a relief agency today".