Health Poverty Action (HPA) is a global NGO founded in 1984 by a team of health professionals. HPA provides health interventions to marginalised people and those often neglected by governments and other sources of aid. Their work is focused around border territories, with ethnic minorities and with other mobile and marginalised groups. HPA is part of the People’s Health Movement (PHM) which rallies global health workers and policy makers for positive change. In their East Asia office, they are supporting the communities in the China-Myanmar border who have been internally displaced and affected by armed conflicts. HPA’s programmes on the China-Myanmar border provide support to a conflict affected and isolated region, where there is no banking and other financial institutions, meaning funds cannot be transferred from Yangon. It is a difficult region to operate in. They have a coordination office in Yangon but the majority of funds are coming from their Kunming office. Foreign funds are changed into Chinese Yuan and then transferred into staff’s personal accounts, cash is then withdrawn from the bank to bring across the border for project use. The office has developed controls overtime to mitigate risks but have requested support from us to review and strengthen financial procedures, systems and controls. 

We have supported HPA in their Cambodian office in 2018 but this will be our first time working in their China office.

For more information, please visit their website.