Our brand new Organizational Management skills section gives the lowdown on all you need to know about running a good ship. Strategic planning… Human resource management… Office management… Financial management…

It's all covered in a clear overview and 10 key articles that contain the essential info, plus examples and links to the best materials on the web – to ensure you are building your NGO on the soundest principles.

What else is new?

• Flagship manuals in French: Our manual on incorporating Gender into your NGO is now available, as "Inclusion de la dimension genre dans votre ONG", from our library. And the translation of our core publication "How to Build a Good Small NGO" is already in its second edition: "Comment Construire une Bonne Petite ONG".
• More resources to alleviate Poverty: Our updated Poverty & income Generation section includes Value chain development, Microfinance and The Rural Finance Landscape. Read Nicolien Wassenaar's short overview of the subject.
• Tidbits: Last but not least, our chairperson and spider at the centre of the web Maeve Moynihan has started keeping a little 'blog' of items that prick her interest.

Can you translate English into Arabic and vice versa?

Networklearning is putting together a manual on “Human Rights in the Middle East and North Africa – a Guide for NGOs”. We need to work in both English and Arabic so we need volunteer translators – we tried to find a funder but failed. We do not need perfection because the text in both languages will be edited. If you have skills but limited time, do just one chapter, which will be about four pages – and you will get your name on the cover.
> Contact networklearning

Will you have the money for Windows 2012 or Apple SuperDuper? If you may not, think again about the no-cost alternatives.

The Word Programme that you already have includes functions that have been around for over 20 years and will be perfectly adequate for your lifetime. OR there are free, good quality Open Source programmes that you can download: for example, OpenOffice does everything Word can:

• Could you write a good-looking document? Yes.
• Could you send it to colleagues whatever programme they are using and have them open it? Yes.
• Could you open old documents? Almost certainly. But if there is a really old document that you need but cannot open, you could consult Jon, our technical expert at networklearning. > Contact

Do you get communications from ARROW in Malaysia? Their materials are great. And now they have some of their bulletins translated – in Thai, Mandarin, and Cebuano.

If you are interested in obtaining free print copies, giving feedback, or having an AFC issue translated into an Asia-Pacific language, they would love to hear from you. Email to This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it

We recently offered some printed materials to our registered users (the OXFAM Gender Training manual, Stepping Stones training package on HIV/AIDS, and a set of French flannelgraphs for health education). The three NGOs who received them were:

• CISS in Kisumu, Kenya, an NGO that works with communities, increasing their participation in the democratic process, in community-managed development etc.
• People in Need, An NGO in Trincomalee, Sri Lanka funded by the Czech Republic, working to rebuild physical and social structures after the Tsunami.
• The Pemba Island Relief Organisation (PIRO) Tanzania which has a small resource centre for local NGOs and supports CBOs working to strengthen Sexual Reproductive Health Information & Services.

Does your own NGO have materials that you really do not use? You could circulate a list to the members of NGO groups to which you belong, offering a loan or a swop. Unused Manuals and other materials are wasted resources.

The current worldwide hospice and palliative care online newsletter has a number of offers and resources even for small organisations.

Our comprehensive manual for startups, How to Build a Good Small NGO, is now available in French (Comment Construire une Bonne Petite ONG).

Colleagues in the Arab world have carried out a study into issues and useful approaches in the field of Domestic Violence. You can read their report, Arabic domestic violence.

Dear Friends and Colleagues,

Networklearning recently took the step to become a stichting – that is an officially registered body (in the Netherlands, where our core team is based) – with a written constitution: setting out our fundamental goals, the means we'll use to achieve them, and how our organisation will be managed.

Are any of you involved in the voluntary HIV testing of pregnant women followed by transmission prevention?

A call to all of us working in the South – in Africa, Asia, the ex-Soviet countries, the Asian Pacific etc. It is time for us to look again at the Earth and the big issues around sex and reproduction. It is not only the job of the Health NGOs – it is everybody’s job.

The International AIDS Conference took place in Mexico in August and Aidsmap has full reports plus downloadable resources developed specifically for this conference.

Consider 'Stepping Stones', a training package with a 240-page manual and a 70-minute workshop video.