Programme purpose: To coordinate and add support to the International Federation's (i.e. secretariat and partner national societies) efforts at country level to assist host national societies scale up their work in line with the Global Agenda.

Summary: The Southeast Asia regional team based in Bangkok has continued to evolve its role as part of the new Secretariat zone support set-up across the entire Asia Pacific. In line with the zonal strategy, this work has been in the following directions:

- Strategic guidance to country-level secretariat teams;

- Provision of technical support to national societies with no secretariat country presence;

- Developing institutional memory and sharing good practices and lessons learnt;

- Developing a more proactive approach to Red Cross Red Crescent Movement coordination, including specific relationship management responsibility with partner national societies.

Progress has been positive; the needs of Southeast Asian national societies are being better understood and tailor-made support at country level is evident. Regional network capacities and partnership relations, both within and outside the Movement, have been consolidated to this end. Since 2 May, the work of the regional team has been dominated by the response to the devastating Cyclone Nargis in Myanmar. Support has been given to Myanmar Red Cross and all Movement partners engaged in the operation. To view more extensive operation reports on this, please click here.

Financial situation: The total appeal budget for 2008 is CHF 4,312,418 (USD or EUR), of which 57 per cent covered. Expenditure overall was 22.3 per cent for the same year.

No. of people we help: This regional programme principally supports the 11 national societies of Southeast Asia, who, in turn, work with millions of people.

Our partners: The International Federation regional team's primary partners are the 11 Southeast Asian national societies as well as relevant government ministries, such as health and disaster management bodies. Within the Movement, there has been strong and loyal support from multilateral supporters, which include: Australian Red Cross/Australian government, Austrian Red Cross, Finnish Red Cross, German Red Cross, Hong Kong branch of China Red Cross, Italian Red Cross, Japanese Red Cross, Norwegian Red Cross/Norwegian government, Netherlands Red Cross, New Zealand Red Cross, Swedish Red Cross/government, capacity building fund (CBF), and disaster relief emergency fund (DREF). Outside of the Movement, UN OCHA (through the Inter Agency Standing Committee), UNESCAP, WHO and several UN agencies are important partners in addition to non-government organizations, such as CARE and Oxfam.