Secretariat
The secretariat assures ACORD's overall strategic leadership and
implementation of the Africa wide agenda. The Pan African programme on
food sovereignty is coordinated and implemented from the Secretariat.
The secretariat also provides strategic guidance and technical support
to the decentralised country offices in 17 countries across Africa, in
thematic alignment, advocacy and programme management issues. Another
key function of the secretariat is in facilitating knowledge management
and learning across the four themes of conflict, livelihoods, gender
and HIV/AIDS and between the country programmes.
In addition to the programming side, the secretariat provides the
strategic and administrative leadership in terms of overall financial
management, human resource management, funding and communication.
Programme Support Teams consisting of Secretariat staff from the
different management functions have been set up to assure coordinated
capacity building support to country offices. Mechanisms and procedures
are also in place for monitoring and quality control to ensure
consistent adherence to the highest management standards across the
organisation.
Since 2003, ACORD's secretariat is constituted of a primarily African leadership team and is based in Nairobi, Kenya. The office in London is an integral part of the secretariat with a particular role to build stronger strategic relations with traditional Northern donors and allies, through information sharing and discussion fora on problems and issues concerning Africa. The London office will also facilitate linkages between ACORD and its local African partners and Northern social movement for incorporation of the African Agenda in debate, dialogue and influencing on European policies.