Our annual reports describe the objectives and outcomes achieved by our programmes and advocacy activities, our governing structure and processes, and our financial statements audited by a qualified independent public accountant.
A Word from the President, by Mary Christine Lizarza
Dear friends,
We are pleased to present our Activity Report, as we do every year. The numbers are different, but the questions and challenges remain the same. 2023 is no exception. It has been a challenging time for all of us.
From the lasting effects of the pandemic to the social and economic consequences of the various conflicts that have turned into real humanitarian disasters, the world has witnessed an unprecedented series of events.
Despite all these obstacles, Dianova has once again demonstrated its capacity for adaptation and resilience by continuing to transform itself to meet current and future challenges.
This year marks our 25th anniversary and we can be proud of our contribution to building a fairer world. Once again, the 2023 Report reflects the extraordinary efforts of all the Network’s member organizations, from our work at the local level to our active participation in international organizations, to provide solutions for the most vulnerable and least protected.
Every page is a story, every achievement a chapter and every challenge a testament to our strength. Our 25 years of history are just the beginning; it is the future that will be the shape of our continued action for a fairer world where dignity, equality and social justice are a reality for all.
I would like to thank all our member organizations, staff, partners and volunteers for their commitment, dedication and hard work. We are the result of the choices we make. We will continue to work together to meet the challenges and seize the opportunities to ensure a prosperous future.
A Word from the President, by Mary Christine Lizarza
2022 has not been an easy year. After a deeply disruptive period marked by the COVID-19 pandemic, we’ve had to face an armed conflict in Europe whose effects have impacted and continue to impact the global economy and the economic forecasts of most institutions, deteriorating the social conditions for many people who were already in a situation of vulnerability. In this context, social and humanitarian organizations have obviously been seriously affected.
For the member associations and foundations of the Organisation Internationale Dianova (OID), recovery has been difficult, especially in a sector such as addiction and addictive behaviour care, which often lacks the attention and financial support required. This complex environment has posed many challenges to our teams. However, they have all worked hard to do their best to continue to support people in vulnerable situations, those who suffer the most from these conditions (…)
Letter from the President, by Mary Christine Lizarza
In 2021, we’ve all learned and we’ve raised the bar repeatedly. We have experienced moments of improvisation and regeneration. All these moments have put our capabilities and our capacity for perseverance to the test, as individuals, as organizations and as a society.
Throughout the year, we’ve been confronted with the different phases of an ever-changing pandemic and had to adapt to these changes to ensure the continuity of our activities and projects.
Each and every member organization of the Dianova Network has had to face enormous challenges but managed to achieve tremendous results all the same, driven by their common ambition to build a better, more equitable and sustainable future (…)
Letter from the President, by Mary Christine Lizarza
Dear readers,
We cannot take stock of 2020 without talking about COVID-19: the virus that quickly crossed borders, ravaging every corner of the world when we least expected it. By the end of 2020, nearly two million people in the world had died from this pandemic and almost 84 million were infected.
It started with a minor scare on the other side of the world. One year on, it has substantially changed our life as we knew it before then. Almost all of us have been affected in some way: by the illness itself, by having lost a loved one or just by having been confined at home, which has forced us to find new ways of working and interacting with others (…)
A Word from the President, by Mary Christine Lizarza
Dear readers,
At the time I write these lines, we find ourselves facing a singular crisis that will leave deep marks on our society, on organizations and on the lives of each one of us. The only certainty is that the future will surely be different, but the commitment, professionalism, and excellence with which we perform our functions will be the guarantee that we will continue on a path guided by quality, efficiency, and above all by the added value that we contribute to society. For this, we have a team of professionals and a network of organizations, prepared to respond to the challenges and opportunities that will arise in the coming years (…)
A Word from the President, by Mary-Christine Lizarza
Dear friends, colleagues and partners,
2018 marked Dianova’s twentieth anniversary, an event that celebrated as many years of labour during which Dianova International has provided material aid, advice and expertise to its member organizations.
To mark this anniversary, a symposium was organized in Lisbon (Portugal), attended by around 100 colleagues and guests on the theme of “Network learning: trends and challenges for NGOs in the 21st century”. This event allowed us to share knowledge, exchange thoughts and above all increase the visibility of the work that we have been doing for all these years in the areas of health, education, equality, social support and socio-professional reintegration, to name but a few. We’ve travelled through the past whilst making plans for Dianova’s future and as a result, we have been able to gain a better understanding, not only of what we have accomplished, but also of the problems that we still have left to overcome (…)
Dianova’s work complements sustainable development goals, by Mary-Christine Lizara
In 2007, the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) granted Dianova International special consultative status. In keeping with the spirit of this statute that ensures institutional quality and transparency, we have taken to building ties with international organizations and other NGOs in order to increase awareness of Dianova’s work, promote partnerships among NGOs, and enhance civil society’s involvement in the decision-making processes that concern it. Over the past ten years our representatives have maintained an active presence in the largest international forums—American and European (and occasionally beyond)—in keeping with our commitments.
Today the Dianova network as a whole is reaping the fruit of this decade-long effort. The name Dianova is well known and is widely recognized to stand for professionalism and transparency in the eyes of many renowned institutions, including the Organization of American States (OAS), UNESCO, the Vienna NGO Committee on Drugs (VNGOC), the Conference of NGOs in Consultative Relationship with the United Nations (CoNGO), and the World and European Federations of Therapeutic Communities (WFTC and EFTC) (…)
A Word from the President, by Mary-Christine Lizarza
Today, Dianova is in an exemplary position thanks to the skills and commitment of our teams, which remain dedicated to providing quality service to all our beneficiaries. As the new president, I am proud of Dianova. Proud of an organization that was able to professionalize itself and adapt to the challenges of our times while staying attentive to what we do best: contributing to the development of people, communities and organizations in the social and humanitarian spheres.
We need to keep up this work, day after day. We need to reinforce our position while remaining united and committed to our mission. At the same time, we must keep in mind that our organization does not exist on its own, but through the interaction and integration of the people who are part of it. It is our reason for being: people. Those that we are committed to helping. Those who trust us, who support and fund us. And last but not least, all those who are the arms, legs, head and heart of our organization: our employees and collaborators around the world (…)
Letter from the President, by Luca Franceschi
Dear readers, and dear friends,
This year I would like to begin the traditional letter from the president by quoting a paragraph from the Dianova Network’s Accountability Charter:
“Organizations can supplement, but under no circumstances substitute, the principal role and primary responsibility governments have regarding the promotion of fair human development and the well-being of the people, the defence of human rights and the protection of ecosystems”.
From our point of view the crisis that persists in many areas of the countries where we are present highlights some important points in addressing the future of our organization and the third sector in general, which is like a family we form part of (…)
Letter from the President, by Luca Franceschi
All of us have heard this fashionable but all too true statement: all organizations must innovate for reasons of basic efficiency, whether economically, socially or ecologically. In a global environment marked by uncontrolled evolutions, commercial enterprises, institutions and NGOs must improve their performance on an ongoing basis to successfully cope with these changes. Innovation has become a necessity.
In the case of the Dianova Network, our organizations have had to quickly adapt to the effects of the crisis, especially to the cutbacks in public funding. At the same time, they have had to take up a new challenge: that of providing adequate responses to the emerging needs arising from the crisis. To make it short: they had to do more with less.
To resolve this paradox, Dianova organizations have responded withinnovation in services thus diversifying and offering projects adapted to the needs of increasingly vulnerable and marginalized populations. They have managed to implement internal and external partnerships which have enabled them to develop activities that they would have been unable to carry out by themselves, while taking advantage of new opportunities (…)
2013, an International Year, by Luca Franceschi
To carry out its mission, an NGO such as ours not only has to face complex problems, it also has to take an interest in decisions and policies that could have an influence on it. It is because of this that we have to develop strategies for influencing political leaders at a regional, national and international level.
The Dianova organization has two essential advantages in this respect. Firstly, it has the benefit of a well-established, transnational network which enables it to have a presence in, and be active in, the principal international forums. The second advantage relates to the fact that all the members of this network are united around a common vision, philosophy and position, that our members strive to promote as widely as possible.
In relation to this, after receiving Special Consultative Status to the United Nations Economic and Social Council in 2007, Dianova International began to focus on opportunities offered by international organizations and to concentrate on working through a network with other NGOs. Before being able to define what the objectives of this new international relations activity would be, we spent the first years concentrating on gaining an understanding of the complex functioning of international institutions, in particular the United Nations (…)
Promoting Human Development through the Third Sector, by Luca Franceschi
“Human development, as an approach, is concerned with what I take to be the basic development idea: namely, advancing the richness of human life, rather than the richness of the economy in which human beings live, which is only a part of it.”
Prof. Amartya Sen – Nobel Laureate in Economics, 1998
Reduce unemployment, boost the economy, retrieve growth, we always hear such a mantra from most South European leaders, while at the same time, they enviously eye on most of emerging countries’ economic growth curve. Neverthe- less, one could bet that even if we could manage to raise our growth rate by one or two-tenths, this growth would only be short-lived.
After the first oil crisis and the end of the great Keynesian Boom, and the “Thirty Glorious Years”, our rosy future started to look a lot darker than previously believed – a future made of high unemployment for us and for our children. Most of our countries have suffered for years of economic ups and downs, despair and lack of hope, with stock market or real estate bubbles bursting one after the other. Directly deriving from uncontrolled liberalization, this cyclical economic malaise continues to undermine our societies (…)
Another Look at the Future, by Luca Franceschi
“We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we
used when we created them”
Albert Einstein
2011 is ending the same way as it started, in the turmoil of a global crisis of unprecedented magnitude. However, the economic crisis at least could bring to light an essential truth: without institutional safeguards and regulations, without appropriate governmental measures to support those of us who were left behind an unfettered liberalism, no country can aspire to develop stable and sustainable living conditions for its citizens. The state appears therefore to play a crucial role in providing appeasement and balance, in particular through state-third sector relationships.
With a growing number of voluntary associations, charities, foundations and cooperative societies focused on much different objectives, third sector organizations operate throughout common principles, grounded in social justice, community empowerment and solidarity. This common basis could eventually become the new founding principles of our society, in the same way as other principles which have now reached their limits: competition, free market and liberal economic thought… It is too early to tell which path we will take, however we must pursue our work and make ourselves heard (…)
A Word from the President, by Luca Franceschi
At the end of 2009, during the celebration of their annual general assembly, the Dianova network member organizations have examined the network’s global commitment as well as its future and sustainability. They all agreed that the Network was on the verge of meeting the challenge of service diversification, in order to offer new esponses to the growing needs of a much wider range of people in difficulty beyond the sole addiction problem, including: homeless individuals, street youth, addicted women with their dependent children, unaccompanied migrant children and adolescents, etc.
In addition, the network’s service diversification had to be consistent with the broadening of the purpose of the Network, the objective of which being not only to provide people with the means to change, but also to society as a whole. Our wish was to become at the same time an actor and a promoter of social change, in the broader sense of the term, i.e. one of the actors of a global evolution towards a sustainable human development – an objective achievable only within a close partnership from all sectors, including the business world, public services and the third sector (…)
Dianova’s Role in Promoting Social Change, by Luca Franceschi
“We want to build a society that is responsible, inclusive and united, which incorporates the complex and plural reality”
In the last few years, the world has faced the greatest crisis since the end of World War II. Originally portrayed as a financial crisis, it has now affected all sectors including the economy itself, businesses, public administrations and other institutions, which in turn has led to millions being unemployed, changes in migratory movements and other consequences that are difficult to evaluate at this time.
It is believed that this crisis has brought to light different failures that were forewarned to a greater or lesser degree and which probably had one common denominator: disproportion. Disproportion between real needs and the overproduction of goods, between development and sustainability, between quality and lifestyle and the real possibilities for achieving them (…)
“Crossroads”, by José Ángel Muñiz
2008 should leave an imprint in history as the year which saw the surge of a world-wide crisis which remains complex in its analysis and in the many facets of its consequences and, I daresay, opportunities.
2008 was also the year celebrating the 10th anniversary of Dianova. This is the anniversary of an experience of change, of renewal, of risk-taking, an experience of which the foundations are grounded in a thirty-year history made of struggles and claims, ignited by the huge courage that men and women can have when led by the will to help others. The capacity for resilience which has become specific to our organization actually originates from this experience(…)
Letter from the President, by José Ángel Muñiz Rivero
Dear Friends,
2007 has been an important year for the Dianova Network, a year full of meaning.
First of all, we were granted Special Consultative Status to the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations. This is an achievement we are proud of, because it affords us opportunities to play a role at the highest international level, to reinforce the positioning of the Dianova network and to work with other NGO’s.
Sharing and learning were the main threads of first international conference organized by Dianova in Lisbon, the theme of which was, “Networking, Cooperation and Innovation in the Non-Profit Sector”. The event was an unquestioned success, and saw the signing by all Dianova members of a landmark agreement of cooperation which will make the network more efficient, allow a better sharing of best practices and ensure that we all move forward in the same direction and for the greatest benefit of all those who take advantage of our services. Coincidentally, on the same day we were honored by Mrs. Michelle Bachelet, president of the Republic of Chile, who visited our therapeutic center in San Bernardo, Chile!
Letter from the President, by José Ángel Muñiz Rivero
For a number of reasons we are extremely satisfied with what was done during 2006.
The common characteristic of this year has been the dissemination of, and raising awareness about, our values, which have circulated throughout the entire network as a result of the intensive training that was carried out with the attendance of delegates from each country. A trickle down effect was utilised so that the information reached every member of our broad organisation.
In addition, one of our most valuable assets being our personnel, we have directed our energy towards the careful and fluid management of technical and theoretical training activities. Discussion groups were organised in order to stimulate motivation and commitment to the tasks and to consolidate a strong institutional identity, where the mission, vision and values of Dianova all converge.
Furthermore, besides to continuing with all of our health care programmes, we have designed and implemented new projects, as a response to the new care needs that we identified. Some have been promoted within the scope of national associations, and others were able to be established thanks to the transfer of technology, of personnel and of know-how between organisations in different countries.