Re: Future of the Eritrea project (October 2008)

In recent years, our co-operation with the central office of the Women’s Union 
has become more and more difficult. Annual reports on the use of the donations 
transferred by us in the previous year arrived too late and were initially 
incomplete (this was eventually rectified). On several occasions, the Women’s 
Union cancelled project visits on short notice or failed to sufficiently prepare 
visits with the result that flights had to be cancelled. The oxen project which 
had been agreed upon in the autumn of 2006 was called off by the Women’s Union 
in spring 2007. In November 2007, the union asked for educational material for 
the midwives on genital mutilation. In May 2008, however, the union indicated 
that they did not need it after all. This increasing unreliability has burdened 
the co-operation considerably. We accepted these difficulties for several reasons:

The project provides tremendous assistance to single mothers and midwives. 
The Women’s Union is the only possible co-operation partner for this project 
in Eritrea. Also, union members at the provincial and village level work are 
very committed to the project. Until now, we could be certain that all your 
donations were used fort the project. 

However, the annual report from the Women’s Union we received this year is 
not consistent with reality as substantial figures are contradictory. The 
central office of the Women’s union has to date refused to recall the report 
and to supply an updated correct version once all data from the provinces have 
been included. We are not presuming that money has been embezzled; however, 
it is a fact that the document we received is not a report on a completed 
allocation of funds. Unfortunately, we cannot continue this project in Eritrea 
under these circumstances and without a co-operation partner we can trust. We, 
the managing committee, truly regret this. We worked very hard for a continuation, 
without avail. Thus, the managing committee decided on 1 Oct 2008 to inactivate the 
Eritrea project until the matter has been cleared up completely including a 
convincing explanation regarding the creation of this „report“, receipt and 
on-site control of a correct report and steps taken by the union administration 
to avoid a repeat of this scenario. 

Until that time, all donations will be used for the Nepal project which provides 
initial aid to single mothers with donkeys, water buffaloes, cows or naks and 
makes midwives more mobile with ponies. We hope that this will meet with your 
approval and will continue to inform you on further progress. We will stick to 
our rules, namely to use 100% of your donations for the projects, to verify 
allocation on location and to report back to you. 


The Managing Committee