The seven areas of focus are the causes Rotary International concentrates its projects on, to maximize their impact. The areas are:
- Promoting peace
- Fighting disease
- Providing clean water, sanitation and hygiene
- Saving mothers and children
- Supporting basic education and literacy
- Growing local economies
- Protecting the environment
One of the requirements for accessing global grants is that the service project include activities aligned with the goals of one of the areas of focus.
Peacebuilding
As a humanitarian service organization, Rotary regards peace as a cornerstone of its mission. Rotary does not consider peace an abstract concept, but a dynamic expression of human development.
Rotary supports training, education and practices related to peacebuilding and conflict prevention.
Members focus on prevention and transformation, meaning identifying and working with existing conditions. This focus on transformation helps ensure a sustainable, lasting peace.
Fighting disease
Disease can cause suffering and push millions of people into poverty worldwide, which is why treating and preventing it is essential for Rotary International. Rotary supports activities aimed at reducing the causes and effects of disease, enabling members to promote projects that limit the spread of communicable diseases, reduce the incidence and impact of non-communicable ones, and strengthen health systems. All of this in order to prevent and treat disease, but also to promote health in general.
Providing clean water, sanitation and hygiene
Clean water, sanitation and personal hygiene are essential to everyone's health and wellbeing. Drinking unsafe water can cause illness, while untreated human waste can contaminate water supplies. Poor service quality is linked to the transmission of diseases such as cholera, hepatitis and typhoid. Rotary's approach is aligned with the UN's Sustainable Development Goal 6, to ensure everyone has access to safe drinking water and to water and sanitation resource management by 2030.
Saving mothers and children
According to the World Health Organization's 2020 report, in 2019 around 5.2 million children under 5 died, most from treatable causes. In 2017 around 214 million women had an unmet need for modern contraceptives. Deaths from complications arising during and after pregnancy can be prevented through access to specialized care and treatment before, during and in the weeks after childbirth. Access to contraception methods brings benefits such as greater educational opportunities and women's economic development. Other benefits include the prevention of the spread of sexually transmitted diseases.
Supporting basic education and literacy
Education is a fundamental right, even though it is not always guaranteed. In 2018 around 258 million children were not attending school for various reasons, mostly due to lack of access to schools, income inequality, child marriage, natural disasters and war. Girls are particularly vulnerable. If parents are educated, they are more likely to send their own children to school — this is one of the many reasons why Rotary considers education important at every age.
Rotarians work to identify barriers to education and find solutions to increase learning outcomes, giving people around the world greater dignity.
Growing local economies
Eradicating poverty remains one of humanity's greatest challenges. The number of people living in extreme poverty fell from 1.9 billion to 836 million between 1990 and 2015; even so, many people still struggle today to meet their basic needs. Globally, over 800 million people live on less than $1.25 a day. Women face a disproportionately higher risk of living in poverty due to inequalities in access to paid work, education and property. Persistent inequality and exclusion is the cause of stalled progress toward the UN's Sustainable Development Goals.
Protecting the environment
All countries face environmental challenges. Rotary empowers people to take measurable action to protect the environment, with informed, sustainable, community-based solutions that help prevent the causes and counter the effects of climate change.
This area of focus was approved in 2020, but Rotarians have been involved in environmental projects for years, including through the previous areas of focus.
Rotary has allocated more than $18 million in global grants to make a positive environmental impact, in line with the UN's Sustainable Development Goals.