This report covers the period 1 July 2011 to 31 December 2011.
In brief
Programme outcome
To strengthen the Viet Nam Red Cross society's (VNRC) role as the leading humanitarian organization in Viet Nam.
Programme summary
The period from July to November saw significant progress on the planned activities. Being the disaster season, the national society implemented crucial emergency interventions while maintaining its efforts in annual projects. The focus on improved learning and capacity building was intensified.
Focus on climate change adaptation has been more strongly built into disaster management programming, particularly the community-based disaster risk reduction (CBDRR) programme. Having developed an understanding of local risks and options for improving resilience earlier in 2011, 51 (in addition to the five already reported) communes focused on how to feed that information into disaster risk reduction and socioeconomic development planning in those communes.
Still in the disaster management sector, VNRC also provided assistance to the people affected by the floods throughout the country, especially those in the Mekong delta. VNRC demonstrated a strong capacity in disaster response by quickly implementing relief distributions and deploying national disaster response team members to carry out needs assessments in one of the worst floods the southern part of Viet Nam has seen in more than a decade.
In the health and care sector, trained volunteers were engaged in several community-based interventions for prevention of hand, foot, and mouth disease and dengue fever, two of the largest health hazards this year, that have been aggravated by the floods in the Mekong delta region. Climate change was a focus in the communication materials used for educating beneficiaries about the diseases and their prevention.
In organizational development, the focus has been on finalizing the VNRC national headquarters external audit for year 2009 and 2010 and enhancing planning, monitoring, evaluation and reporting (PMER) skills of VNRC staff and volunteers. Some significant steps were taken towards building the information and communication technology (ICT) skills at VNRC, aimed towards the larger goal of building a sound ICT platform that is appropriate for the national society‟s future needs.