What we stand for

We work with people living in extreme poverty to achieve major improvements in their lives which last and spread without ongoing support from Concern. Informed by the priorities of affected communities, we go where the needs are greatest, and work to save lives, protect and develop livelihoods, support recovery and build long-term resilience.

To advance our mission and achieve quality and impact in all that we do, our work is guided by our core values and nurturing a culture of inclusion, compassion, and humanity. Built on the inspiration of our founders, and our long record of delivering effective programmes, our values reflect our history and our commitment to addressing extreme poverty in the most fragile countries. 

We are: 

• Community-led, listening to and building trust with communities to agree effective solutions to their needs. 
• Courageous in our programming in the most challenging contexts, going the extra mile to support those most in need.
• Committed to equality in all our work, strengthening our culture where those who work with Concern feel valued, safe, trusted and supported to thrive. 
• Collaborative in our approach by working with partners, peers and those who support and fund us.

To advance our mission, we are guided by two key policies: How Concern Understands Extreme Poverty and Concern’s Approach to Emergencies. Recognising the challenges that exist in the countries in which we work, our standard operating model is to have an in-country presence informed by a robust risk management approach. 

In our work: 

• We collaborate with others to support people living in extreme poverty and affected by crises. 
• We are accountable to affected populations, and all those who support us. 
• We respond rapidly to emergencies, support preparedness and recovery, and invest in sustainable longer-term programmes. 
• We adhere to the fundamental humanitarian principles of humanity, impartiality, independence, and neutrality. 
• We are agile, efficient and effective. 
• We strengthen systems, policies and practices. 

• We raise awareness on issues that contribute to extreme poverty and humanitarian need and influence policies for positive change. 

  Among our key approaches to ensure the quality and impact of our work: 

• The security of personnel is of the highest priority. Strong and adaptive risk management is required to allow us to operate in insecure contexts.
• Maintaining the safety, dignity, and protection of the communities with whom we work is of primary importance. We are committed to accountability and safeguarding through our responsibility to ensure that our staff, anyone engaged with or by Concern, and our operations and programmes do good and cause no harm. 
• We seek to understand power dynamics in all that we do and ensure that people from groups that experience inequality can participate fully and benefit from our programmes. 
• We are committed to locally led programming, the strengthening of local systems, equitable partnerships, and increasing the visibility, voice and agency of communities and local actors. 
• We aim to reduce the impact of conflict on communities and promote peace through a conflict-sensitive approach in our work. 
• We seek sustainable solutions by working with communities on positive environment management and climate change adaptation.

Concern works primarily in fragile countries characterised by some or all of the following:  

• Low income and high levels of extreme poverty. 
• High vulnerability to climate change and other shocks and stresses.  
• Affected by violent conflict. 
• High levels of hunger, food insecurity, and malnutrition. For emergencies of a sufficient scale and where Concern can add value to principled humanitarian responses, we may respond in higher income and less fragile contexts.