The World Stroke Organization (WSO) is the world’s only global stroke NGO. It has more than 4,000 direct members and over 40,000 national society members in 85 countries, covering every global region. Members represent international, regional and national scientific, medical and stroke support organizations. Stroke Association (SA) is the UK’s leading charity dedicated to conquering stroke, one of the world’s leading SSOs, and a member of WSO. SA provides emotional, practical and social support for over 60,000 people annually.

WSO views SSOs as essential in reducing the negative impact of stroke for survivors and carers, and with Stroke Association (SA) UK has invested resources to support their growth. A dedicated staff role; International Development Management, has been jointly funded by WSO and SA since 2017.

The International Development Manager delivers three key areas of activity in an SSO Development Programme: support the establishment and sustainability of SSOs; enable SSO knowledge and skills development; and facilitate SSO networking.

The theory of change for the SSO Development Programme includes three intermediate outcomes: increased ability of SSOs to start up, and to access and manage resources to sustain themselves; increased SSO knowledge, skills and confidence to deliver support and campaigning and influencing; SSOs actively engage in sharing ideas, insight and skills, and campaign and advocate jointly on stroke.

This presentation will give an overview of progress in achieving these intermediate outcomes.

ESTABLISHING, SUPPORTING AND STRENGTHENING A GLOBAL NETWORK OF STROKE SUPPORT ORGANIZATIONS (SSO).