Amidst a global pandemic and overwhelming economic crisis, the recent murders of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, and Breonna Taylor have left us heart broken and grief stricken. These brutal acts of racial violence and the disproportionate number of African Americans, Latinxs and Hispanics falling sick and dying from COVID-19 remind us that systemic racism is real, pervasive, and deadly. Collectively, we are falling woefully short in our efforts to create a just and equitable world.
We at Global Partnerships acknowledge the unique history of oppression of Black people in the United States, and we stand with all Black, Indigenous, and People of Color – in the United States and around the world – who for too long have endured discrimination and oppression, violence and injustice, economic and political exclusion.
We affirm this moment as an invitation to transformation, and we commit to doing our part. We will:
- Launch research to understand the intersectionality of poverty with race and ethnicity in each of the more than 20 countries where we invest
- Broaden our impact-first investing strategy to deepen inclusion of people living in poverty who are further marginalized by race or ethnicity
- Evaluate our recruiting and hiring processes to foster deeper inclusion and diversity on the GP team
- Further increase representation on our Board of Directors by Black, Latinx and/or Hispanic members who bring experience from sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America or the Caribbean
Global Partnerships was founded with a mission to expand opportunity for people living in poverty, and for more than 25 years we have worked to serve this purpose in Latin America, the Caribbean, and sub-Saharan Africa. More deeply, our existence is rooted in a belief in the inherent dignity and equal worth of every human being and in the conviction that every person deserves respect, safety, health, and opportunity.
It is this conviction that guides us in this moment.