History
Since its founding in 1965 as the Foundation for the People of the South Pacific (FSP), Counterpart International (Counterpart) has prided itself on the ability to empower people to implement innovative and enduring solutions to social, economic and environmental challenges.
Its founders, Betty, an Australian actress, and Stanley, a Marist priest, ran FSP out of a New York City thrift shop, where Betty's film industry friends donated clothing to help raise money for the programs. In the island nations of the South Pacific, FSP provided local institutions with skills to rebuild infrastructure while offering sustainable solutions to poverty. FSP improved the capacity of local organizations and developed a model of international aid that would become generally accepted as the best practices in development. This form of capacity-building continues to be the framework for the work Counterpart does around the world.
In the early 1970s, FSP facilitated the economic growth of local communities when "profit-making" and "business strategies" were hardly commonplace notions among development organizations. In Samoa, for example, FSP took an age-old proverb seriously – "If you give a man a fish, he eats for a day. If you teach a man to fish, he eats for a lifetime;" instead of only giving Samoans food, FSP offered tools to expand the fishing industry to increase sustainability and profit for the local fishermen and their communities.
When the Soviet Union fell in early 1991, another opportunity emerged for FSP to develop the capacity of local institutions while building sustainable organizations. What began as a two million dollar niche organization focused on the South Pacific quickly evolved with the shifting cultural, political and economic global needs as Counterpart International.
The name "Counterpart" was chosen in 1992 as the new name for FSP because as Stanley Hosie noted it was a name that "seemed best to express our quintessential mission of identifying and training local leaders in local institutions in a spirit of partnership".
By its statement, the organization offers options and access to tools for sustained social, economic and environmental development and forges strategic partnerships in the public and private sectors.
Counterpart International has programs in the fields of civil society, economic development, environment and conservation, food security and sustainable agriculture, global health and child survival, humanitarian assistance.
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