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through voluntary action, for a world of empowered communities, better
able to address human suffering and crises with hope, respect for dignity
and 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 183 countries.
In Brief
Period covered: January to June 2006;
Appeal target for 2006-2007: CHF 8 million (USD 6.5 million or EUR 5.2 million) - revised from CHF 7.4 million due to budget revision of disaster management programme and implementation and coordination activities.
Appeal coverage: 30%;
Outstanding needs: CHF 5.7 million (USD 4.6 million or EUR 3.6 million)
Related Appeals: Revised Tsunami Plan of Action 2005-2010 (28/2004)
Programme summary:
The regional delegation, in partnership with country delegations in Southeast Asia, has concentrated work around strengthening implementation of Federation's Strategy 2010 and Global Agenda. Programmes are set to be revised later in the year in light of the major revision of the tsunami operation as well as emerging programmatic realities of the Federation of the Future. The regional delegation has scaled up its coordination activities considerably during this reporting period especially in support of regionally active PNS operating bilaterally. Integration Agreements have been concluded this year with American Red Cross, Finnish Red Cross and French Red Cross in addition to German Red Cross with whom a similar agreement was concluded last year, and Australian Red Cross with whom there has been a long-standing partnership in the field of HIV/AIDS networking.
Operational developments
Each of the region's 11 countries remain vulnerable to a variety of ongoing disasters, such as the HIV/AIDS pandemic, recent violent storms in Timor-Leste and a devastating landslide in Philippines, as well as new vulnerabilities, such as renewed armed conflict in Timor-Leste. The devastating earthquake in Java in May follows on from a series of major disasters in Indonesia, of course including the tsunami in December 2004.
Ongoing preparedness for a potential avian influenza pandemic continued to gather pace at a regional level, in harmony with country-level initiatives. The tsunami operation continued to dominate the work of those national societies affected. The Federation and partner national society engagement in this also remained a priority. National society leaders met in April to discuss common priorities and better approaches to working together. This was followed by a partnership meeting, which was attended by more than 80 participants, including various internal Movement partners as well as representatives from other organizations.
One of the main discussions centred on the final report of the regional review, which was commissioned by the region's national societies. The review's recommendations were presented to the leadership and the partners and are proving to be an ongoing resource to revisit respective national society priorities and feeding into future revisions. The upcoming November Asia and Pacific conference in Singapore will be an important event to locate and reference the work of Southeast Asian national societies' work vis-à-vis the whole of the Asia Pacific region. The national societies are now in the process of forming a working group to analyse how individually and collectively they can take issues forward within Federation of the Future.
The regional delegation in partnership with country delegations in Southeast Asia (SEA) have also been heavily involved with work around strengthening implementation of Strategy 2010/Global Agenda, following decisions made by the Federation's governance to move ahead in this respect to realise more fully the potential of the Federation to scale up to address existing and emerging vulnerabilities.
Programmes are set to be revised later in the year in light of the current revision of the tsunami operation as well as emerging programmatic realities of Federation of the Future.
Health and care
Overview
During the first half of 2006, the regional health unit (RHU) has been responding to health emergencies: avian influenza, psychosocial, water and sanitation, and providing on-going support to HIV/AIDS and first aid programmes. Coordination and strengthening national society (NS) capacity has been a primary emphasis, in line with the RHU 2006 action plan. A variety of technical assistance was provided to nine national societies. This technical, funding support and coordinating service enables a pro-active and cohesive regional approach that is better prepared to deal with, and respond to, different types of health needs in the future
The public health in emergency working group met twice and successfully developed a guiding framework for NS actions and a regional plan on avian influenza - 10 out of 11 NS in Southeast Asia together with Chinese Red Cross now have a one-year avian influenza plan. Further proposals, plans, and future actions are currently under development with close technical support. The regional health unit has taken the lead in improving regional external coordination and functions as a de facto secretariat for regular monthly inter-agency/government cooperation meetings in Bangkok on avian influenza.
At present there are five NS (Indonesia, Philippines, Thailand, Myanmar, and Malaysia who have started integrating psychosocial support (PSP) into their existing services as a holistic approach to helping people during emergency situations. The region has increased the awareness level of PSP and at least 60% of NS within the region now have moved forward by addressing the problem of a lack of trained facilitators and technical persons to promote PSP via building their capacity to organize and conduct trainer of trainers (ToT) workshops. In 2006 the regional delegation's water and sanitation team provided technical support to NS, and initiated better cooperation between the different Movement partners, mainly at country level for: the flooding in Timor-Leste; the Leyte landslide in the Philippines; the Damrey typhoon in Vietnam, and flooding in northern Thailand. The participatory hygiene and sanitation transformation (PHAST) approach to water and sanitation was highlighted during the water and sanitation (watsan) forum as was cross-NS-PNS-Federation learning on reducing exposure to communicable and vector-related diseases, and breaking transmission routes through sufficient and/or proper use of water for personal and domestic hygiene. This was a first for the region.
The 2006 regional health unit action plan is a guiding force in supporting national societies to meet their health needs however in the last half of the reporting period the regional health unit has been faced with the loss of two major donor sources. The RHU continues to maintain activity level for the moment, but is urgently appealing for donor support to maintain the planned activities for the next half of 2006. The regional health programmes play an integral role in strengthening NS capacity to effectively address health impacts, thus contributing to the Federation's global and regional strategy of improving health and care, while integrating with disaster risk reduction. If high quality health and care regional assistance is to continue, funding support is necessary.
For further information:
- Mr Bekele Geleta, Federation Head of Regional Delegation, Bangkok, Phone: +66 2661 8201 ext 100, Email: bekele.geleta@ifrc.org
- In Geneva: Southeast Asia Regional Officer, Charles Evans, Asia Pacific Department, Geneva, Email: charles.evans@ifrc.org; phone +41 22 730 4320; fax 41 22 733 0395; or Sabine Feuglet, Email: sabine.feuglet@ifrc.org phone+41 22 730 4349; ; fax 41 22 733 0395
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