In the shorter term, we do know what Christian Aid are planning for the next five years, because they’ve just told us.

They have released what they call a strategic framework for 2005-2010, which for your benefit, dear reader, I have had a good look at and I’m relieved to say it’s not nearly as boring as it sounds.

In fact it’s quite exciting to take a sneak preview of what’s happening in the next five years. Just think what’s happened in the last five: the launch of the trade justice movement, debt cancellation, the explosion of fair trade, the start of the Make Poverty History Campaign.

Five years is hardly a long time in international development sadly, as the wills of governments turn slowly. But still we live in exciting times, when aid is no longer about flying supplies out to the latest famine zone, but about taking on the very foundations of world poverty, pulling injustice up by the roots.

The programme the Christian Aid has set out is built around three central strands:

1. to deliver benefits directly to people in need;
2. to enable them to change the systems that keep them poor;

3. to campaign against the structures of injustice and poverty.

One area of work that has come to the forefront of Christian Aid’s programme is HIV. It has a prominence there that it never had five years ago.

The disease claims 14,000 new victims a day, and rising. 95 precent of sufferers are in the developing world. Christian Aid’s plans include aiming for a 30% increase in the number of local partner organisations providing either care or prevention.

It will be aiming to challenge the stigma attached to HIV sufferers, and change the behaviour of vulnerable communities. And it will be increasing HIV-related fundraising, so watch out for that.

The first is making people’s livelihood’s more secure. One new area here is climate change, which is threatening to devastate some of the poorest societies. Christian Aid will be responding to that and campaigning for greater international action.

More generally, it aims to make sure that poorer people have better access to the resources they need, and are equipped to withstand disaster. If this succeeds, then when famine or earthquake do strike, they should claim fewer lives.

The second is economic justice. Here Christian Aid is aiming for nothing less than what it calls ‘a major transfer of wealth and resources from the rich North to the poor South.’

As well as talking about greater quantities of international aid than ever before, the campaign to change trade rules continues, of course, and gathers momentum. So-called ‘free trade’, beloved of western governments and financiers, forces poor nations to let multinational corporations barge into their countries and run local business into the ground. In answer to this, Christian Aid is continuing to mobilise popular protest movement, which is where you and I come in.

Enabling

The third area of action is political engagement. As well as getting you and me lobbying western governments and institutions to change policies that damage and deprive the poorest people, this is about enabling poor people themselves to local politics, ending conflicts and abuse.

Another one is bolstering the popular campaign for international justice, while increasing Christian Aid’s own profile and income. In 2003-04, Christian Aid enjoyed its highest level of income ever, £60.2 million. By 2010, it aims to make that £100 million a year, so keep your bank card handy.

The last area of action is internal, Christian Aid making commitments about the kind of organisation it is. If you don’t work for them, these are not - to be brutally honest - unusually fascinating, but then if you’re giving it your money it’s reassuring to know that it’s being used efficiently and responsibly.

• Click here to read the strategic framework