The Federation's vision is to strive, through voluntary action, for a world of empowered communities, better able to address human suffering and crises with hope, respect for dignity an d a concern for equity. Its mission is to improve the lives of vulnerable people by mobilizing the power of humanity. It is the world's largest humanitarian organization and its millions of volunteers are active in over 185 countries.
In Brief
Programme Update no. 1
This Programme Update revises the Appeal budget from CHF 4,951,000 to CHF 5,179,0 00 to include the regional food security programme.
Period covered: 2 January to 30 June 2006.
Original Appeal target: CHF 4,951,000 (USD 3,867,000 or EUR 3,204,000). Revised Appeal target: CHF 5,179,000 (USD 4,201,000 or EUR 3,293,000). Appeal coverage (Based on the revised budget): 44%.
Outstanding needs (Based on the revised budget): CHF 2,906,000 (USD 2,357,0 00 or EUR1 ,848,0 00).
Appeal 2006-2007: http://www.ifrc.org/docs/appeals/annual06/MAA64001.pdf
Related Emergency or Annual Appeals: http://www.ifrc.org/docs/appeals/06/MDR64001.pdf (East Africa: Regional Drought Response MDR64001).
The programmes herein are aligned with the Federation's Global Agenda, which sets out four broad goals to meet the Federation's mission to "improve the lives of vulnerable people by mobilizing the power of humanity":
- Reduce the numbers of deaths, injuries and impact from disasters.
- Reduce the number of deaths, illnesses and impact from diseases and public health emergencies.
- Increase local community, civil society and Red Cross Red Crescent capacity to address the most urgent situations of vulnerability.
- Reduce intolerance, discrimination and social exclusion and promote respect for diversity and human dignity.
Programme summary: The worsening drought situation in the Eastern and Horn of Africa prompted the convening of a consultative regional food security meeting in Nairobi on 19 January 2006, involving participants from the different Movement components; the Secretariat, the regional delegation, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), national societies working internationally (NSWI) and African national societies. The meeting endorsed the establishment of a new regional food security programme as the way forward long-term food security.
This food security programme supersedes the Horn of Africa food security programme under the Horn of Africa Sub-regional Appeal 2006/7 which has since been formally closed. The Eastern Africa regional programmes of health and care and disaster management recorded high implementation rates in comparison to the Humanitarian Values and organizational development programmes, which were severely constrained due to lack of funding and human resource capacity respectively.
Operational developments
The Eastern Africa region continued to experience major challenges in health, including the emergence of waterborne diseases in northern Kenya, Ethiopia, Southern Sudan, Zanzibar and Tanzania mainland. These were precipitated by the worsening of the drought situation in the Eastern and Horn of Africa. In an attempt to address the problem regionally, a regional food security meeting was held on 19 January bringing together representatives from all the affected national societies, partner national societies (PNSs) such as the Swedish, Norwegian, Danish, Netherlands, German, French, Spanish and the American Red Cross societies as well as other partners. Key outcomes of this meeting included the formation of a drafting committee, which later became the regional drought review committee. The committee which included representatives from the Red Cross/Red Crescent Network for East Africa (RC-Net) disaster management sub-group Rwanda, Sudan, Kenya, Norway, American national societies, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and the regional delegation, endorsed the establishment of a new regional food security programme as the way forward for long-te rm food security. This programme has been developed and is included in this update; it supersedes the Horn of Africa food security programme under the Horn of Africa 2006/7 sub-regional Appeal which has been formally closed.
During the reporting period, the Eastern Africa regional delegation's human resource capacities were boosted with the recruitment of a health and care delegate, within the health and care support unit, to fill the position that had been vacant for nine months. I n January, a sub-delegation was established in Juba and a head of sub-delegation was deployed. This decentralization process by the Sudan delegation has led to increased levels of support to the sub-delegation as well as the Sudanese Red Crescent Society's activities in Southern Sudan. The activities include responding to the acute watery diarrhoea (AWD) and cholera outbreaks in the early quarter of the year as well as building logistics capacity and disaster preparedness stocks.
In 2005, the implementation of the regional delegation's organizational development (OD) programme was largely constrained by the difficulties experienced in recruiting a qualified and bilingual (English-French) OD delegate. Halfway through the year, the regional delegation decided to reduce the required qualifications for the position, but with no yields so far.
From the regional delegation's perspective, there are at least three dimensions that probably coincide and reinforce each other negatively. Firstly, the large relief operations undertaken by the Federation in 2005 (Asian tsunami, hurricanes in Central-Asia, and the Pakistan earthquake) have engaged many experienced senior Federation and national society (NS) staff. Secondly, the ever increasing number of bilateral programmes implemented by PNSs that traditionally have provided senior delegates to the Federation multi-la teral programmes. Finally, the Secretariat's own difficulties in finding ways of securing an active support mechanism for effective, consistent and durable OD work in the field. However, the Secretariat has appointed a task force to deal with this OD crisis.
The Geneva-based tsunami committee tasked with the reprioritization and reallocation of resources for all Federation tsunami programmes met to discuss the way forward for implementing and resourcing these programmes. As a result, the regional tsunami programmes have not been considered among the immediate list of priorities for global tsunami operations. This development, where global ambitions do not match available resources, might impact planned activities supported using 'tsunami funds' in health, disaster management, Humanitarian Values and organizational development, albeit at different levels.
For further information specifically related to this operation please contact:
In Kenya: Anitta Underlin, Federation Head of East Africa Regional Delegation, Nairobi, Email: anitta.underlin@ifrc.org; Phone +254.20.283.50.00 ; Fax +254.20.271.27.77
In Kenya:G etachew Ta'a, Ag. Programme Coordinator, East Africa Regional Delegation, Nairobi, Email: getachew.taa@ifrc.org; Phone +254.20.283.52.55; Fax +254.20.271.27.77
In Geneva: Amna Al Ahmar, Federation Regional Officer for East Africa, Africa Department, Email: amna.alahmar@ifrc.org; Phone +41.22.730.44.27; Fax +41.22.733.03.95
All International Federation assistance seeks to adhere to the Code of Conduct and is committed to the Humanitarian Charter and Minimum Standards in Disaster Response in delivering quality and accountable assistance to the most vulnerable. For support to or for further information concerning Federation programmes or operations in this or other countries, or for a full description of the national society profile, please access the Federation's website at http://www.ifrc.org
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