NEF (Near East Foundation) -- 2007 Annual Report -- Introduction

One of this country's earliest philanthropies and one of only a few chartered by Congress, NEF (Near East Foundation) was founded in 1915 in response to the Armenian Genocide. By 1930, we had raised more than $110 million--$1.25 billion in current dollars--for humanitarian relief, saving the lives of one million people, feeding 12 million, and caring for 135,000 orphans.

Increasingly attentive to the education these refugees needed to start new lives, NEF evolved after 1930 into the first international development organization in the United States. Our approaches became the model for the post-World War II Marshall Plan and President Truman's Point Four Program, and later for the United Nations Development Program and the Kennedy administration's Peace Corps and US Agency for International Development (USAID).

NEF and the American University of Beirut had a particularly close collaboration, providing education, economic development and health care throughout the Middle East. In 1990, we established the Center for Development Services in Cairo, which has become the leading development assistance organization serving the Arab world. NEF began working with newly-independent African countries in 1964, and continues this work today.

WHERE WE WORK/WHAT WE DO

NEF currently is registered as a US development agency in Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, the West Bank, Sudan, Mali and Ethiopia; with a staff of more than 100 experienced and dedicated professionals in our network of affiliates. They are nationals of these countries , able to implement our programs in places they know best. We provide training, technical assistance, and project management in a wide range of economic and social specialties, including, but not limited to:

civil society development;
institutional development/capacity building;
small & micro-enterprise and micro-finance ;
employment and income generation;
urban development and rehabilitation;
agriculture & rural development;
poverty assessment and alleviation;
environmental management & awareness;
health and population;
learning resources & information technology.

Funding for this work comes from governments, multilateral organizations, foundations, groups and individuals; we also participate in workplace giving programs and Internet donating. NEF has met all standards of the Better Business Bureau's Wise Giving Alliance and is a member of InterAction, the alliance of US-based international development and humanitarian organizations. In 2004--our 89th year of operation--NEF won the prestigious AGFUND International Prize for Pioneering Development Projects in competition with 83 other organizations from 32 countries.

For 91years, in select Arab and African countries, NEF has invested in people and built institutions, demonstrating a firm grasp of regional issues and respect for local knowledge and culture. We have helped communities facing deep poverty and the challenges of conflict, migration and climate change define their priorities and take meaningful steps toward participatory and sustainable change; this work has encouraged governments and other institutions to replicate our programs on a larger scale. We are particularly proud of our history of long-term collaboration with both rural and urban communities, local and national governments, and regional associations.