Humanitarian aid and development cooperation projects are the focus of Malteser International within Malteser Hilfsdienst e.V.. The focus on health is flanked by projects in the areas of water and sanitation, hygiene (WASH) as well as food security, disaster risk management.
Malteser International is active in more than 30 countries with currently 75 employees in Germany and about 1000 employees worldwide.
“Working on a multi-stakeholder project in Kenya co-funded by the BMZ on the topic of health education brought about exchanges with numerous members of the GHA. We wanted to institutionalize this through regular membership,” says Roland Hansen, Head of the Africa Department and Senior Program Advisor, describing the beginnings of Malteser International’s GHA membership.
Malteser International also provides emergency aid in crisis situations. “In acute crises, our teams are on the ground as quickly as possible to support local capacities and partners in providing emergency medical care, restoring or rebuilding functioning health facilities, and ensuring the provision of cash or food and other essential supplies. Our WHO-classified International Emergency Medical Team is ready to deploy within a few days, but we can usually draw on local resources from our country office teams and partners,” Hansen said.
Promoting the health and well-being of people in a holistic way and contributing to universal health care is the central goal of Malteser International’s work. This is achieved, he said, firstly through sustainable strengthening of health systems and secondly by protecting people’s health. “Together we achieve better health and well-being for all (SDG 3),” Hansen describes his vision for GHA membership.
“Getting to know and using experiences, innovations and resources from the private sector for our work as NGOs,” are Hansen’s expectations from the GHA membership, which have already been fulfilled to some extent despite Corona.
Especially the openness of the participants in the exchange and the resulting networking could convince Hansen so far.
Image subtitle: First Aid Simulation of Emergency Medical Service team trained by Malteser International, Uganda
Foto: Nyokabi Kahura/Malteser International