About Us
COMMUNITY ORGANIZATION FOR RURAL DEVELOPMENT (CORD-GH)
About Us
COMMUNITY ORGANIZATION FOR RURAL DEVELOPMENT (CORD)
About Us
COMMUNITY ORGANIZATION FOR RURAL DEVELOPMENT (CORD) was established in April, 2018 by two young development oriented persons who have the passion in changing lives of vulnerable in most deprived communities in northern Ghana with the Upper West Region as the primary focus. The organization was registered under the Ghana’s company’s code as a rural non-profit making co-operate organization limited by guarantee in the year 2018.
It has an aim of empowering the vulnerable (women, children, and persons with disables), by reducing the ever-increasing rate of poverty, low participation in local governance, poor sanitation and unhygienic conditions along our communities and the upsurge of poverty evident within our operational areas in Ghana.
Its Head Office is situated at Nadowli in the Nadowli-Kaleo District of the Upper West Region of Ghana and operates within the Nadowli-Kaleo District in particular and within other districts in the Upper West Region and Northern Ghana in general.
Women, children and persons with disabilities are the main target for all program interventions in our effort to reduce poverty and giving hope to the hopeless.
Our Vision
To see women empowered in Ghana as the basis of sustainable development through realistic manifestation in their decent lives.
Our Mission
To create, find and support programs that directly improve the health and wellbeing of women, children and persons with disabilities in the society through the collaborative efforts of other likeminded organizations while operating under accountability and transparency as our guiding principle.
CORE VALUES OF CORD
The organization and it associates shall operate and abide by the following core values:
- MUTUAL RESPECT, requiring them to recognize the innate worth of all people and the value of diversity
- EQUITY AND JUSTICE, requiring them to work to ensure equal opportunity for everyone, irrespective of race, age, gender, sexual orientation, HIV status, color, class, ethnicity, disability, location or religion
- HONESTY AND TRANSPARENCY, being accountable at all levels for the effectiveness of their actions and open in their judgment and communications with others
- SOLIDARITY WITH THE POOR, POWERLESS AND VULNERABLE shall be the only bias in their commitment to the fight against poverty and injustice
- COURAGE OF CONVICTION, requiring them to be creative and radical, bold and innovative – without fear of failure – in pursuit of making the greatest possible impact on the life of the vulnerable in society to alleviate extreme poverty
- INDEPENDENCE from any religious or party-political affiliation
- HUMILITY in their presentation and behavior, recognizing that they are part of a wider alliance against poverty
ORGANIZATIONAL ‘SWOT’ ANALYSIS
Strength
The strengths of CORD and its experience are numerous and cannot be over emphasis:
- Over 6years of organisational and project management experience as one of the efficient and effective local-based non-governmental organisation in the upper west region.
- High-capacity staff. Organisation style is participatory and inclusive with shared responsibilities.
- Demand driven initiatives with communities
- All CORD staff has requisites training background as graduates with skill in human rights based approach to development.
- Strong willingness to collaborate with others
- Goodwill within the NGO community with the ability to influence, impact on others
- Institutional networking capacity for gathering and dissemination of information within and across communities with diverse cultural and linguistic background;
Weakness
Against these strengths, CORD has to meet the following internal challenges:
- Inadequate funding to cater for full staff and management cost.
- Over-dependence on external donors for funding.
Opportunities
Against the plan period, CORD is committed to sizing the following opportunities:
- The immense social demand for our programmes and activities and increasing district assemble involvement and commitment, leading to more stakeholders and partners participation.
- Development in information and communication technology for improve networking and partnership for more rapid response to changing circumstances, project funding, implementation and monitoring;
- Express interest on seasonal national and international non-governmental organizations as well as local government structures towards partnership for alleviating rural poverty;
- CORD interventions are in line with government policies and programmes in tackling phenomenal impact of poverty and enhancing citizen’s participation in local governance in northern Ghana.
Threats
In the contest of rural developments and poverty alleviation in Northern Ghana in particular, the following pose challenges to CORD, target groups and beneficiary communities:
- Inadequate national visibility hence do not give confidence to some stakeholders about our capacity to deliver;
- Insufficient logistics to efficiently implement and monitor projects;
- Weak financial commitment of financial partners; and
- High expectation and demand from key stakeholders, target groups and communities not matched by commensurate resource support from partners and donors.
PARTNERS, FUNDING/DONOR AGENCIES
- Self contributions
- Grant from Queens University Canada
- Cord-Ghana partnering with KNUST on WASH project