By Lesley-Anne Knight, Secretary General, Caritas Internationalis

Caritas Internationalis owes its strength to the bringing together of so many diverse organisations in a common enterprise – the service of humanity. From the General Secretariat in Rome, we seek to nurture that unity and build upon it.

During 2009 we continued a review of the governance of the confederation, drafting new statutes and drawing up proposals for new governance and funding structures.We also strengthened our senior management team with director level appointments in the areas of humanitarian activities, finance, communications and policy.We carried out a review of our systems and processes and implemented a number of improvements that have increased our efficiency and effectiveness, particularly in emergency response, communications and finance.

Despite the global economic crisis, which has had a severe effect on many of our member organisations, the General Secretariat ended the year with a healthy balance sheet, as a result of careful management of costs and a number of generous donations.

New staff and systems were tested by fire in 2009, a year that saw a series of major natural disasters and conflicts to which we were called to respond. There was flooding in Africa, India, the Philippines and Cambodia; earthquakes and a tsunami in the Asia-Pacific region; and conflicts in Gaza, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Colombia and Pakistan that caused further death and injury and left millions destitute.

Our emergencies team responded to all these crises and more, assessing needs, launching appeals for funds across the confederation, coordinating the relief efforts of our member organisations and cooperating with the wider humanitarian community.

The world’s poorest people continued to suffer the effects of increasingly severe climate related disasters such as flooding and drought. 2009 was a pivotal year for advocacy in the run-up to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) conference in Copenhagen in December.

Caritas published‘Climate Justice: Seeking a global ethic’, setting out a theological and practical basis for Caritas programming and advocacy on climate change.We joined other faith groups in collecting half a million signatures, took part in rallies, church services and discussions, and lobbied politicians.

In the end, the conference failed to produce an accord that will help the poor in developing countries cope with the effects of climate change or reduce global warming to levels that ensure a sustainable future. The commitment shown by people from all over the world in the run-up to Copenhagen demonstrates a real desire for a strong climate change deal. Caritas will keep up the pressure on world leaders to deliver one.

Our advocacy work in 2009 also included an important campaign to promote greater access to Highly Active Antiretroviral Therapy (HAART) for children with HIV. The ‘HAART for Children’ campaign also called for better testing and measures to prevent mother-tochild transmission of HIV.

Caritas staff from the General Secretariat and our offices in NewYork and Geneva represented the confederation at most of the major international events relevant to our work.We were also pleased to welcome many visiting faith leaders, politicians, diplomats and senior non-governmental organisation directors to our headquarters in Rome.We were particularly honoured to welcome many of the African bishops who were in Rome for the Second Special Assembly for Africa of the Synod of Bishops.

During the course of the year I was privileged to be able to visit several of our Caritas member organisations in Europe, Africa, Asia and the Oceania Region, where I was especially pleased to visit Caritas Tonga and our newest member, Caritas Samoa. Just days after my visit, these two beautiful islands were hit by a tsunami that caused considerable loss of life and devastation. It was, however, heartening to see how our small local Caritas organisations rose to the occasion, delivering emergency assistance and beginning reconstruction, with the support of neighbouring Caritas members such as Caritas Australia and Caritas Aotearoa New Zealand.

The solidarity and partnership that binds our confederation was evident in this crisis and in many others during 2009, giving us renewed hope and determination to face the challenges of the future.