Inter Pares

About Inter Pares:

Founded in 1975, Inter Pares works with its international counterparts — local and national activist organizations — to help communities confront injustice, implement locally-adapted solutions, develop innovative initiatives, and advocate to their governments. It believes in developing two-way collaboration with its partners instead of the traditional one-way 'helping' relationship. Inter Pares works with 108 organizations across Africa, Asia, Latin America and Canada. It primarily works in Southeast Asia (with 67 collaborators), Canada (with 17 collaborators), and Central America (with 10 collaborators). Inter Pares focuses on issues surrounding women's equality, peace and democracy, control over resources, economic justice, food sovereignty, health, and migration. It also advocates for improved and fairer policies, supports women's leadership, and facilitates learning exchanges by connecting activists who are struggling with the same issues.

In its reporting on its activities within Asia, Inter Pares reports that it arranged for four West African rural women leaders to travel to Telangana, India to learn from women’s community groups. In another instance, in response to the prevalent sexual violence from Burmese security forces against Rohingya women, one of the charity’s counterparts published testimonies of 21 Rohingya women survivors who fled to Bangladesh.

In 2017, a Columbian counterpart of Inter Pares helped youth groups develop 8 activist art projects. These projects included community radio programs on sexual violence, poetry and hip hop to raise awareness on militarism, and workshops about trans rights and violence against the LGBTI population. Within Canada the same year, Inter Pares supported the six public education videos International Civil Liberties Monitoring Group created to explain Bill C-59, the new national security legislation that gives agencies allowance to collect information unrelated to national security. 

In Africa during 2017, one of Inter Pares’ counterparts trained 37 women in Côte d’Ivoire, Togo, Senegal, and Guinea-Bissau in agroecology – a sustainable small-scale farming method. The charity reports 12km of stone cordons were built in Togo to combat soil erosion on 45 hectares of land. In 2017, the charity also supported 18 Sudanese Organization for Research and Development lawyers in their fight for women in cases of early and forced marriages, violent spousal abuse, or child custody. In Guinea-Bissau, Inter Pares’ counterpart, Tiniguena, organized 30 citizen watch committees to respond to illegal fishing, mining, and logging.

Results and Impact: The 37 women trained in agroecology taught 2,300 women the new methods, and together the women set up 253 composting units in Côte d’Ivoire to provide fertility to 85 hectares of land. One of Inter Pares’ counterparts in Burma developed recommendations to change discriminatory customary laws. Consequently, authorities agreed to fairer conditions surrounding inheritance and family law, which will help approximately 25,000 Zotung women.

Financial Review:

Inter Pares is a Medium-sized charity, with donations of $2.2m in F2017. Its administrative costs are 3% of revenues, and its fundraising costs are 18% of donations. For every dollar donated to the charity, 79 cents go to the cause, falling within Ci’s reasonable range for overhead spending. The charity’s funding reserves of $8.3m include $148k in donor-endowed funds. Funding reserves can cover 1.4 years of program costs.

This charity report is an update that has been sent to Inter Pares for review. Changes and edits may be forthcoming.

Updated on August 2, 2018 by Joeyanne Cheung.