The association
The Governing Board
Groupe URD is a non-profit association (as defined by the French law of 1901). The Governing Board, which is elected at the annual general meeting, meets quarterly to decide on the association’s strategy and main orientations, and to validate budgets and the annual accounts.
The current members of the Governing Board (since July 2023) are:
Charlotte DUFOUR – Joint President
Charlotte Dufour has been working on nutrition and food systems for 20 years. After 2 years working with Action contre la Faim in Afghanistan, at its headquarters and in Ethiopia, she joined Groupe URD as a researcher in 2002 and worked on the first Quality COMPASS and the Participation Handbook for humanitarian field workers. She subsequently worked for the FAO from 2005 to 2017, in Afghanistan and then at its headquarters on the relations between agriculture and nutrition. She has been working as an independent consultant since 2017 and is currently working with UNDP, with the secretariat of the Conscious Food Systems Alliance, and the 4SD Foundation, and contributes to the Territorial Food Project for the Cluny region and the European College of Cluny.
Charlotte is the co-founder of the Listening Inspires association, which promotes listening to oneself, to others and to Nature. With her husband, she has created a seminar centre in southern Burgundy (www.narayan-inspires.org). She wrote “Amitiés afghanes, dix ans de vies partagées”, published by Fayard in 2011.
Contact : charlotte.dufour@listening-inspires.world
Jacqueline FOUCARD – Treasurer
Jacqueline Foucard studied Marketing and Management Control at HEC International Business School (1980-1983). She has been Head of Competitive Intelligence within the M&A Department at Groupe SEB since 2016. Ms. Foucard has 25 years of experience in Strategic Marketing and Product Development. She is also a volunteer for the Institut Télémaque (tutoring a pupil for 4 years), and the BIIS programme.
Contact : jacquelinefoucard@gmail.com
François GRÜNEWALD – Honorary President
François Grünewald is an Agricultural Engineer, specialised in Rural Economics, and a graduate of the Institut National Agronomique Paris-Grignon. He has worked in the international aid sector for more than 35 years and became Groupe URD’s Executive Director in 1997 after working in different positions for the UN, the ICRC and NGOs. He oversees Groupe URD’s research activities and has carried out numerous evaluations of humanitarian and reconstruction programmes for donors, the ICRC, the UN and NGOs. A former Associate Professor at Paris XII University, he has given lectures in numerous institutions in Europe, as well as Canada and the United States. He has written many articles and co-written several books, such as “Entre Urgence et Développement”; “Bénéficiaires ou partenaires: quels rôles pour les populations dans l’action humanitaire?”, published by Éditions Karthala.
After thirty years in different positions within Groupe URD, which he co-founded with Claire Pirotte and Bernard Husson in 1993, François Grünewald has left his position as an employee to become an Honorary President while continuing his activity in the aid sector as an independent consultant.
Contact: fgrunewald@urd.org
Peggy Pascal – Joint President
Peggy Pascal has been working in the international aid sector for more than twenty years. She is an Agricultural Engineer, specialised in tropical regions, and worked for Groupe URD from 2002 to 2008. During this time, she managed our Afghanistan office for five years. She then worked for the NGO Solidarités International for five years, managing the team in charge of monitoring programme quality and training. In 2013, she joined Action contre la Faim, where she was responsible for advocacy, before becoming the head of advocacy for CCFD-Terre Solidaire. Peggy taught for several years at Sciences Po Paris in connection with the humanitarian master’s degree, and then at the French Institute for International and Strategic Affairs (IRIS).
In 2020, she began working as an independent consultant focusing on providing support to organisations in creating and evaluating advocacy projects. In 2021, she co-founded the collective, La Cause, in order to provide organisations from the social economy with support in implementing their influence and advocacy strategies.
Peggy has also been involved in the governance of several NGOs, including Solidarités International where she was a member of the Board for several years. She joined Groupe URD’s Governing Board in 2020 as a Secretary, before becoming Joint President in 2023. In her different positions, whether as an employee or a volunteer, she has taken part in numerous processes to change the way organisations are governed.
Contact : peggypascal@yahoo.fr
Nadine BAGUÉ – Administrator
Nadine is specialised in pedagogical design and coaches teams in cooperative methods, working with a variety of organisations. She is currently working part-time as a pedagogical manager for university courses in Switzerland and co-facilitates cooperative training in the Savoie region. She has also been involved in developing training courses with Groupe URD and provides change management support to organisations with a social vocation or who are involved in the transition. Her objective is to create environments that are conducive to collective and individual learning. She has 20 years of experience working for the ICRC, both in the field and at headquarters, mainly in Protection and Economic Security projects.
Contact : nbague@hotmail.com
Thierry BARTHELEMY – Administrator
After studying Management and Logistics and working in the private sector, Thierry worked for the NGO Solidarités International from 1997 to 2001: in Afghanistan as an Administrative and Financial Coordinator for water and sanitation projects; in Burundi, to open and coordinate a therapeutic nutrition centre; and at the organisation’s headquarters, as a Financial Controller. He then worked in the field with the World Health Organisation coordinating polio eradication programmes in Bangladesh and Indonesia. From 2003 to 2021, he worked as an Administrative and Financial Director for AIDES, Médecins du Monde and UNICEF France. He is currently doing an MBA in Management of Health and Solidarity Institutions with the aim of working in the Health and Medico-Social sector in France. He joined the Governing Board after volunteering at Groupe URD in 2021.
Contact : thierrybarthelemy@hotmail.com
Monique CARDOT – Administrator
Having begun her career as a pharmacist-biologist at the Institut Pasteur in Lyon, Monique joined Bioforce in 1983, working initially as a Trainer and then as a Tutor. In parallel, she actively took part in creating and running the NGO, “Comité pour Léré”, which has since become “Santé Mali Rhône-Alpes”, and “Action Nord Sud”. Since leaving Bioforce in 2005, she has worked as an independent consultant, supervising staff in the medical and social sectors, providing around twenty teams per month with regular support. Monique has been a member of Groupe URD’s Governing Board since the creation of the association. Having been our President for six years (2017-2023), she became an Administrator in July 2023.
Contact : mcardot@urd.org
Béatrice GODEFROY – Administrator
Béatrice GODEFROY has a Master’s degree in Public Policy from the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University, is a graduate of Sciences Po Paris and has a certificate in High Performance Leadership from the IMD Business School in Lausanne. As Director of the newly created Europe Program, Ms. Godefroy oversees CIVIC’s activities in Ukraine, while engaging European Governments, the European Union, and NATO – in view of strengthening the European leadership in the protection of civilians & civilian harm mitigation. Ms. Godefroy has 15 years’ experience in the humanitarian sector. She served as the Deputy Executive Director at Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), where she piloted MSF Switzerland’s institutional and international development. More recently, she headed the MSF humanitarian diplomacy team in charge of carrying MSF’s representation and advocacy efforts vis-a-vis states, multilateral organizations, non-state actors, and civil society networks. Ms. Godefroy has managed emergency operations in a number of conflict areas, including Burundi, Darfur, Chad and Sierra Leone. She has been deployed on some of the most complex humanitarian crises of the past decades, such as the 2005 Tsunami, the 2010 Haiti earthquake, and the 2014 Ebola outbreak, where she worked with the World Health Organization (WHO).
Contact: beatricegodefroy777@gmail.com
Domitille KAUFFMANN – Administrator
Domitille Kauffmann is a Nutrition, Food Systems and Resilience expert with a Master’s degree in Agronomy and Food Sciences (with a specialisation in Nutrition) from the Ecole National Superieure Agronomique de Montpellier (SupAgro) in France. Since graduating in 1999, she has taken part in project implementation, research, training and evaluations in the fields of Nutrition, Food Security, Livelihoods and Cash Transfer programmes in numerous crisis contexts. She coordinated projects in Mongolia and Sudan for Action Contre la Faim, and conducted numerous studies for a wide variety of aid organisations (donors, UN agencies, NGOs, and Red Cross societies) as a researcher for Groupe URD for 7 years. Since 2013, she has worked with the FAO’s Nutrition and Food Systems Division supporting efforts to integrate nutrition into food and agricultural policies and programmes, including emergency relief and resilience programmes.
Contact : domitillek@gmail.com
Carole MARTIN DE CHAMPS – Administrator
Carole Martin de Champs initially studied Business, and then obtained a postgraduate degree in International Humanitarian Aid from the Faculty of Law and Political Science in Aix en Provence, and a diploma (DU) in Public Health. She then worked for twelve years as a Head of Mission for Médecins du Monde in Ecuador, Mexico (Chiapas), Haiti and Palestine. She subsequently was responsible for MDM’s activities in France for four years, working with vulnerable people. For the past 8 years, Carole has been the Director of the Observatoire Régional de la Santé Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes (Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes Regional Health Observatory), where, in addition to her management activities, she conducts studies, needs analyses and evaluations related to health.
Contact : carolemartindechamps@yahoo.fr
Anne-Marie MOUNIER – Administrator
After a career in banking and Information and Communication Technology, Anne-Marie Mounier became a consultant in Change Management, combining her interest in human organisations and the public interest. A graduate of both Sciences Po Paris and HEC, she worked closely with the top management of both public institutions (health sector and local government) and businesses of all sizes: designing and adapting operational models based on specific challenges and objectives, and making strategic and organisational adjustments. In 2017, she was asked by the President to support her and the Groupe URD team as Vice-President until July 2022, when she became administrator
Contact: ammounier@gmail.com
Jean-Bernard VÉRON – Administrator
Jean-Bernard Véron studied Economics and Anthropology, then spent his whole career at the French Development Agency. After working as a field officer in various countries, he held several positions at headquarters, such as in the Macroeconomic Studies Division and in various geographical departments, before becoming an advisor to the Director of Strategy, and then creating and running the Crisis Prevention and Post-Conflict Unit. He is currently a member of two associations: a Franco-Laotian NGO, the CCL (Comité de Coopération avec le Laos) and a Franco-Afghan NGO, AFRANE. He is also editor-in-chief of the Afrique Contemporaine review. He joined the Governing Board in July 2022.
Contact : jean-bernard.veron@wanadoo.fr
The Offices
The choice was made to set up Groupe URD’s headquarters in the heart of the Drôme Provençale region in the South of France. Here, we have facilities to accommodate visitors in the tranquillity of a rural “retreat”. Every year, groups come for training courses, work sessions, conferences or other events.
We have made certain choices to reduce our environmental impact. Our buildings have ecological features such as solar energy, natural insulation materials, rain-water harvesting, wood-chip heating and dry toilets. We also try to be coherent in our actions, through activities such as recycling, tree planting and car-sharing.
Groupe URD’s environmental approach is reflected in the choice of a 100% renewable electricity supplier, a carbon footprint and carbon offsetting at the Centrale Villageoise du Sud Baronnies.
Are you disabled? Yes/No. If you have any questions about your disability, please contact our disability advisor: cmarion@urd.org
Annual reports
Below you will find the annual reports (low definition) of the last few years: