The strong growth of our activity in 2021, a continuation of the uninterrupted rise seen over the last 15 years, is testimony to the good health of the IECD. This growth also reflects the growing needs of the populations and the efforts that the IECD, our partners and all of the teams are making in order to implement concrete responses, notably for young people who are seeking successful socio-professional integration.

The strategic roadmap ‘Horizon 2025’ that the IECD set out for itself in 2019 outlines the key ingredients to this growth: further improving the basics of what we do, patiently working to develop our methods based on our past experience, closely cooperating with those in the field and focusing on targeted geographic expansion. Longterm partnerships of various forms remain the cornerstone of the temple we are striving to build.

But the IECD’s work is one which depends on balance: notably the balance between striving for continuousi mprovement in our programmes vs the rising complexity of the issues and the need to widen the scope of our projects to include more beneficiaries. We struck this balance well in 2021 as a large majority of our projects reached the expected goals: young people with a trade at their fingertips, entrepreneurs with a more solid base and increased confidence, teenagers feeling happy and fulfilled.

Because what we are striving for, above all, is that every man and woman we come across in our work becomes more aware of the values of humanity, fraternity and solidarity. We strive for a real, comprehensive development of each individual in order to build a society that is in harmony with our world, where we respect the dignity of others, where we cooperate for the common good and where we all wish to live in peace.