This report covers the period 1 January – 31 December 2011
Program summary The year of 2011 was comparatively mild with no severe winter (Dzud) thus no major losses of livestock and devastating impact on the herder community. With this favourable weather, Mongolian Red Cross Society (MRCS) focused on scaling up its community-based development programmes across the country.
Meanwhile, the National Society has been taking significant steps towards building its capacity to provide timely response to vulnerable and disaster affected populations.
This report focuses on programmes supported through the IFRC.
Disaster Management:
The year 2011 saw the formation of a National Disaster Response Team (NDRT) which will enable greater and a more effective delivery of assistance and support to affected populations. To that effect the MRCS has been working on the development of a comprehensive policy framework and strategy to ensure that the NDRT can perform and continue to improve its performance over the coming 24 months.
Eventually, with the support of partner organizations within and outside the Red Cross Red Crescent Movement, it was planned to train and equip at least 200 personnel – primarily volunteers to be mobilized in response to major disasters such as earthquake. An induction course of NDRT was held for five days in September.
A total of 27 staff and volunteers of MRCS headquarters and branches participated. This was the first step of a foundation process which will be continued throughout 2012 and beyond, aiming at establishing specialized teams to complement the NDRT with the delivery of emergency relief, emergency health psycho social support (PSS), first aid, and water and sanitation.
Also, the National Society has launched a community-based disaster risk reduction project in nine locations both in rural and urban settings. An initial training was conducted covering important topics such as how to facilitate vulnerability and capacity assessments, how to develop community plans of action as well as follow up actions. In addition, the MRCS commenced the second phase of its earthquake preparedness project which incljuded a drastic enhancement of its original activities and has seen a significant progress in the implementation of planned activities. The primary focus has been on educating school-aged children in selected 43 schools in Ulaanbaatar and helping six hospitals to be better prepared for an earthquake.