Christian Aid is a partnership of people, churches and local organisations committed to ending poverty worldwide. For more than 70 years, we have provided humanitarian relief and long-term development support for poor communities worldwide, while highlighting suffering, tackling injustice and championing people’s rights.

They work globally for profound change that eradicates the causes of poverty, striving to achieve equality, dignity and freedom for all, regardless of faith or nationality. We are part of a wider movement for social justice.

Christian Aid provides urgent, practical and effective assistance where need is great, tackling the effects of poverty as well as its root causes.

Faith Affiliation: Christian Aid’s values are rooted in Christian belief

Their belief that poverty can be ended is based on our understanding of scripture and the work of a creative, loving God. Established so that sponsoring churches and others ‘could respond to Christ’s command to care for all in need’.

Their values are based on our understanding of relational theology, which asserts that human beings are called to have a special relationship with God and in turn to have a particular relationship with one another.

They work for and with people of all faiths and none, where the need is greatest.

Key Facts:

Christian Aid is the official relief, development and advocacy agency of 41 sponsoring churches in Britain and Ireland. In 2016/17 they worked with 475 local, national and international partners in 37 countries. Christian Aid is also a founding member of ACT Alliance, a coalition of 146 churches and faith-based organisations working together in more than 100 countries.

Programmes

Christian Aid has programmes working on topics as diverse as emergency response, accountability, peace-building, health, land rights, tax justice and helping communities adapt to climate change.

One example is the SABI programme in Sierra Leone – a citizen-led accountability programme working in every district of the country to increase awareness of, and demand for, the delivery of basic services – including health, education, social protection, water and energy.

Youth Accountability Volunteers

Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs):

Christian Aid believes the 17 SDGs should be delivered as one package to frame development objectives in all countries, with national indicators of progress which feed into a global set of indicators to review overall delivery of the global goals.

Their focus is on ensuring that there are cross-cutting issues delivered across all goals, particularly around the ‘leave no one behind’ principal and the relationship with the finance for development process. In addition, they support the delivery of the goals on climate change, energy, and peace, justice and strong institutions.

Humanitarian standards:

Christian Aid is committed to upholding the highest standards of accountability and humanitarian principles. They are certified against the internationally recognised Core Humanitarian Standard on Quality and Accountability (CHS) for all development, humanitarian and advocacy work. They also work with our partners to implement the Sphere Standards in all humanitarian programmes.