Page 4 - GDG Annual Report 2020 NZ_v3

Executive

Director’s Report

“As we look at this past year we see it in two halves, we started
a normal year with a full calendar of meetings, monitoring and
training. We saw some good achievements in the first part of the
year with monitoring of projects, training of partners and our
administration team was kept busy processing donations.
In October 2019, we held our New Zealand Annual General
Meeting and met with our accountant, we were busy planning
our international Conference to be held in May.”

Then in February, I was returning from Singapore and
Vietnam when we heard about the new coronavirus and
everyone’s plans changed. On the 26th of February, the Global
Development Group Board made the decision to postpone
our May 2020 Singapore Conference. We had about 130
delegates already booked in, so it’s been very disappointing
but the board will continue considering our options. This was
a disappointment, and soon after all travel was cancelled and
our countries went into lockdown.
It was a disconcerting time for everyone, and we saw new
challenges arising in our communities both for donors
and beneficiaries, but our donors rallied and our partners
in- country have been adjusting in response to the needs of
people in their communities. GDG staff have been going
Geoff and Betty Armstrong with Indian Representatives MV and Leena Thomas
the extra mile to process efficiently and quickly for all of our
existing partners and bringing on board new partners. As the
travel restrictions are still in place, we are finding new ways to
maintain contact with our partners, including the use of online
video communication for meetings and training.

We congratulate Dr Neil and Gwen Wetzig of J730N AusHEAL
Congo Project who received the Order of Australia (AO) for
their tireless work towards improving healthcare in Democratic
Republic of Congo.

In this past year, our records show that GDG’s international
network has impacted 1,846,416 direct beneficiaries and
3,862,892 indirect beneficiaries. We have much to be thankful
for and I wish to acknowledge the great work by our donors,
our excellent partners and all the GDG team.

Geoff Armstrong

Dr Neil and Gwen Wetzig recently received the Order of Australia
BSc, MBA, AFAMI, CMC, MAICD, MASQ
Executive Director

4 Annual Report 2020 Global Development Group NZ