This report covers the period 1 January to 31 December 2011 Programme outcome
The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) Asia Pacific zone office continues to support its regional and country offices as well as the 37 national societies in the zone in building stronger and more resilient communities, improving and assisting in preparedness, knowledge-sharing and response to disasters as well as health and care challenges.
In 2011, heavy monsoon rains, coupled with typhoons have produced higher than average hydrological events over Asia, resulting in a number of supporting actions from IFRC and Movement partners. Support for recovery programming was provided to a number of countries while operation procedures, manuals and contingency planning actions were further developed in China, Fiji, Indonesia, Mongolia, Philippines, Sri Lanka. Longer-term initiatives include the further development and piloting of the resource mapping system (RMS) as well as the assessment data analysis tool (ADAT) is expected to improve information management, planning and implementation for both national societies and IFRC in the future. The health and care unit continues to provide support to national societies through regional and country offices in emergency health (EH) in close collaboration with DMU and in public health programmes, including water and sanitation and hygiene promotion. Efforts to further strengthen emergency health preparedness and response capacity in the zone through technical inputs and facilitation support in basic health care emergency response unit (ERU) trainings in the zone. Feedback was also consolidated based on the piloting and review of community-based health and first aid (CBHFA) manuals and trainings used in the field, and shared for further fine-tuning and revision at global level.
To continue to build the capacity of national societies in water and sanitation response, support was provided by the Asia Pacific zone to five water and sanitation emergency response trainings, four at national level and one at the regional level. A report on the suitability of the NORIT water treatment unit in emergencies was finalized following the experience of these trainings as well as plans for supporting three national societies to continue to increase their capacity in water and sanitation in emergencies and what equipment is suitable for these contexts.
Meanwhile, the Asia Pacific zone organizational development (OD), volunteering and youth unit continues to meet demand-driven support requests from the Asia Pacific membership while also meeting the new targets for the zone set under the “flagship deliverables” of the National Society Knowledge Development (NSKD) department. In this reporting period, a wide range of activities has led to measurable new capacities in national societies as set out under the unit’s original 2011 objectives. In the run up to the General Assembly, the unit actively encouraged volunteering focal points from national societies to submit applications for the 2011 Volunteering Development Awards, of which two were awarded to national societies in the Asia Pacific zone. In addition, the Asia Pacific Youth Network completed some activities as per their action plan developed in the Asia Pacific Youth Summit in November 2010 such as circulation of the outcome of the Asia Pacific Youth Summit in 2010, refining its structure, and supporting YABC implementation. Furthermore, the Asia Pacific mentoring programme has been launched with the invitation to 12 prospective mentors from nine national societies in a number of areas for increased peer-sharing in the zone.
Collectively the work of the Asia Pacific national societies, assists millions of people each year. While the most visible part of this work is the numerous and extensive disaster response related activities under emergency appeals, equally important are the countless longer-term risk reduction, public health, and humanitarian programmes that are implemented on an ongoing basis by national society volunteers and staff working at community level across the entire zone.