Avina Americas Inc

Working hand-in-hand with Fundación Avina, Avina Americas’ goals are centered on the economic, social, and environmental pillars of sustainable development. These goals stem from our mission and are part of our 5-year Strategic Plan:
Climate Action: While local communities face the worst impacts of climate change, they rarely have a voice in the decisions that most affect them. To this end, our climate action work is focused on shifting current top-down approaches to a new model where local actors have greater power and resources to adapt and combat climate change. Our goal is to accelerate progress towards a decarbonized society that is resilient to climate change and that promotes the sustainable use of natural resources and the reduction of social inequalities. We will work towards this goal by increasing South-South collaboration through programs, alliances, and platforms, and promote climate financing that reaches local level communities. Examples of our work in this area include It’s Now, Impulsouth, Voices for Climate Action, and BASE, a new initiative to promote the financing of locally-led climate solutions.

Just and Regenerative Economy: Latin America is a region of contrasts where the gap between rich and poor is one of the largest in the world, and this situation has only been exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. For this reason, we’ve redoubled our efforts to foster a just and regenerative economy throughout the region. Our goal is to accelerate transformations in strategic sectors of economic activity to impact value creation and wealth generation that encourages care for and regeneration of natural ecosystems, as well as inclusion, justice, and respect for human rights and dignity. To this end, we promote public policies and initiatives that combat wage theft and other labor abuses, involving affected workers so that they are aware of their rights and develop a basic understanding of the legal procedures to defend them. Examples of our work in this area include initiatives such as Sumatoria, Banca Etica, the Resilient Cities Network, Arropa, PERIPLO, and Latitud R.

Democratic Innovation: From authoritarian entrenchment and widespread corruption to human-rights abuses, Latin America’s democratic ecosystem is fragile. It’s urgent that we support new and innovative models for civic participation that can foster more open and just societies. To this end, our strategic priorities include strengthening digital rights and the ecosystem that supports them, protecting and expanding civic space to ensure that all citizens can participate in the decisions that impact their lives, and promoting accountability through new social pacts. Our goal is to support the construction of new democratic models by strengthening organizations and collective action. To this end, we will work to expand civic space and build narratives that reactivate citizen participation in defense of human rights through initiatives such as Indela and Pulsante.

Avina Americas works with Fundación Avina to advance sustainable development in Latin America by fostering collaborative processes among leaders from different sectors, thereby contributing toward the UN Sustainable Development Goals. To do this, we coordinate, finance, and serve as a technical assistance resource for our partners in the areas of Climate Action, Just and Regenerative Economy, and Democratic Innovation.

Collaborative change processes are the core of our implementation strategy and guiding vision. Recognizing that it takes a diverse coalition of actors to drive the kind of systematic change that advances sustainability, we foster collaborative processes among our partners to promote large-scale impact that no one sector, government, or organization could achieve alone. In this way, we promote shared agendas and effective cooperation among entrepreneurs, companies, civil society organizations, academia, and governmental institutions so that, together, they can amplify and coordinate their efforts to tackle some of the toughest challenges facing Latin America and the world. We have identified five key components that are integral to our collaborative process framework:

1. Social capital, which we identify as the diverse assemblage of groups, institutions, leaders, and communities that are working to produce change;
2. Unifying vision, or a shared vision for change, around which the diverse social capital associated with the collaborative process can be brought together;
3. Shared action agendas are the actions, projects, or initiatives—centered on the unifying vision—that make up the collaborative change process;
4. Innovation refers to a new element, not previously present, that improves the landscape for systematic change to occur;
5. Incidence, or the measurable systematic change that advances sustainability.

Avina Americas (Fundación Avina’s 501c3 legal entity) serves as a bridge to build alliances, networks, and partnerships with US-based foundations, NGOs, academic institutions, and businesses in order to mobilize new resources that can help scale social change. With Avina Americas’ support, Fundación Avina has become a key organization in Latin America, as it combines a global perspective and reach with a regional presence that extends to the local level. Working in 19 countries with 70 staff members and a network of over 8,000 partners (ranging from leading NGOs, grassroots organizations, local and national governments, regional cooperation agencies, and businesses) the organization serves as a multisectoral convener, facilitator, policy advocate, fund mobilizer, and innovation driver. In this way, we support our partners throughout the region to achieve their sustainable development goals by promoting greater alignment and collaboration.

Since 2009, Fundación Avina and Avina Americas have mobilized over $108 million from 107 funders, which range from large philanthropic organizations, national governments, and development banks to local and global companies that share a common vision for sustainable development. We ensure compliance with all donor requirements and global standards throughout the design, implementation, and monitoring phases of all of our national and regional projects. In 2016, we became the first regional civil society organization accredited by the Green Climate Fund (GCF), based on a thorough evaluation process. In addition to our technical capacities, this accreditation was based on demonstrated high-level management capabilities and practices, including compliance with Environmental & Social Risks Procedures, as well as organizational policies on Gender Equality & Equity, Money Laundering and Anti-Terrorism Prevention, and our Ethical Conduct Code.

Using our framework of collaborative processes, we have achieved the following results over the last 10 years:

• Strengthened Circular Economy through Inclusive Recycling: 35,000 grassroots recyclers formally included in their cities’ recycling systems;
• Increased access to safe water in Latin America: Helped bring clean water to 3.4 million people by supporting community water and sanitation organizations;
• Strengthened Democracy: Worked with Latin American cities to increase citizen participation among 35,000,000 inhabitants; launched the Social Progress Index in Latin America, which measures a country’s social and environmental performance that is independent of economic factors, and serves as a complement to economic measures like GDP to understand the true state of a society.
• Increased climate resilience: Protected over 9 million square kilometers of land in the biomes of the Amazon and Grand Chaco Americano through flood monitoring and early warning systems.

Looking ahead, we have outlined the following expected results for the period 2018-2022:

1. Latin American cities develop policies to advance the circular economy, highlighting the importance of the social and economic inclusion of women, youth, recyclers, migrants, and indigenous and rural populations.
2. Latin American financial institutions incorporate ethical banking standards (environmental, social, and economic) into commercial banking practices, thereby increasing financial inclusion and economic development among diverse populations.
3. Private sector actors in Latin America shift practices and procedures towards circularity, environmental sustainability, and social and economic inclusion.
4. Innovative models of civic participation that are based on civic technology help open civic space and dialogue between civil society and governments, contributing to more transparent and accountable governments.
5. Diverse social movements in the region are more actively collaborating and participating in decision-making arenas and shaping laws and regulatory frameworks towards sustainability and the exercise of rights.
6. Large-scale climate action solutions, aligned with the Nationally Determinate Contributions (NDCs), are implemented in the region with the active participation of diverse stakeholders.