Experts-Solidaires was born of the desire to bring together the worlds of international solidarity and expertise. It was on this basis that the founders laid the foundations for the association, and that new experts are now joining.
Our association, and the experts who make it up, enable local authorities, associations and cooperatives that would otherwise be unable to afford to call in experts to have access to high-quality advice and guidance on solidarity projects specifically dedicated to populations in precarious situations.
Experts-Solidaires intervenes primarily in support of development actors who do not have the resources to call on international expertise; our volunteer experts are not intended to replace consultants or professionals in the sector. This is why our association does not respond to calls for tenders and lives mainly on project grants. It has an office, employees, operating costs that are covered by a share of the financing of the projects it supports.
Expert missions generally last 1 to 2 weeks in the field, with the aim of training and transferring skills to our partners.
The association’s experts donate their days of service, either on a voluntary basis or in the form of skills sponsorship. The enhancement of these days represents the participation of experts-solidarity in the projects we support. In the field, they are reimbursed for living expenses and travel costs according to the project’s means.
By working with our association on a voluntary basis, our experts not only help to improve the quality of our projects, but also enable us to gain a foothold in new countries and new networks.
In this way, our organization builds a bridge between two worlds – international solidarity organizations on the one hand, and the private sector on the other – which know little about each other, and often see each other as antagonistic.
Experts-Solidaires does not carry out projects locally, nor does it have offices or registrations in the countries where it operates, because we have chosen not to take the place of local dynamics, but to support and guide them when necessary.
Experts-Solidaires therefore establishes partnerships for each project, defining the nature of our intervention and its limits in terms of responsibility and duration. However, we are fully committed to every action, with our partners, until the final result of the action. We share with them the technical, time and financial constraints of the project to which we have committed ourselves.
We select projects on the basis of their technical relevance, their interest for the target populations, and their potential for innovation and sustainability.
Experts-solidarity is not a funding body, but many local actors do not have the means to fully finance their projects, and they need a boost for this, which is why we accept, alongside our partners, and in a concerted way, to participate in the search for funds.
