Diakonia has several mainstreamed areas that permeate all relevant parts of our work. The areas are the human rights perspective, the gender perspective, an HIV and aids perspective, a conflict perspective, an environmental perspective. We also have a pro-active work on anti-corruption mainstreamed into all parts of our actions.

A rights based approach and human rights perspective

Diakonia believes that a rights based approach is highly conducive to socially sustainable development as it recognises the discriminated individuals or groups and victims of violations as right holders. By putting focus on empowering people to demand what is rightfully theirs and on the duty bearers’ obligation to grant the rights, the approach not only provides the legal framework and tools to pursue change. It also seeks to empower the rights holders to be the protagonists of change and to be owners of this process.

Gender perspective

Men and women experience poverty differently and ignoring these differences risks further entrenching poverty and the subordination of women. All Diakonia’s work shall include a gender perspective, which takes women’s and men’s different conditions of life and positions in society into consideration. A central dimension of a gender perspective is to make the unequal distribution of power between women and men visible and contribute to change it.

A gender perspective is today quite visible in all programmes as the result of a number of years of capacity building of partners and staff. All regions have focal persons and task forces for this purpose.

HIV and AIDS perspective

To mainstream HIV and AIDS related issues means to revise each theme and prioritised area and identify the relation between the theme and HIV and AIDS. In many of the contexts where Diakonia operates this is an absolute necessity as HIV and AIDS are so widespread that they are having impact on everything in society, not least on the rights holders’ ability to participate. This is a process which leads to changing attitudes and increasing understanding of a very complex subject area.

Today there are focal persons in every region and during the next three years they will be linked to regional task forces. Drawing from our experience of mainstreaming gender, further efforts are needed before mainstreaming can be considered consolidated.

Conflict perspective

The strengthening of civil society organisations’ capacity to mobilise and define concrete political proposals will, if successfully done, imply an alteration of the current balance of power. The empowerment of one group will scarcely come about without other social groups feeling challenged or even threatened. The possible unintentional escalation of such a conflict into a destructive or even violent one will depend on the actions and reactions of both parties. Therefore it is necessary that Diakonia and partners, regardless of thematic orientation, always show awareness and sensitivity to such risks, and take the proper measures to minimise them through a conflict analysis, identifying all relevant stakeholders in the process.

Environmental perspective

Diakonia does not focus specifically on environmental issues, but has begun to make efforts for incorporating an environmental perspective as well as a climate perspective in our analysis and activities.

Working pro-actively on anti-corruption

Diakonia has a history of acting swift and decisively in cases where corruption such as embezzlement or fraud has been discovered in our programs. Such considerations are crucial when choosing partners, and when building their capacity with regards to democratic practices, financial transparency, administrative routines, and an active involvement of both poor women and men in decision-making.

Working from a rights-based approach (including human rights and democratic core values) the aim is to develop pro-active strategies with our partners. These strategies include the active empowerment of poor women and men to be able to gain influence and to keep their organisations, politicians and local government officials accountable for their decisions and provision of public services.

Diakonia has through our PME Handbook developed practical routines for how our staff shall act and report when financial or administrative irregularities are discovered. Diakonia has a zero-tolerance level for misuse of funds or abuse of entrusted powers.