East Africa Region (MAA64003) Annual Report 2013

Overview

In January 2013, the IFRC East Africa Regional Office had a significant increase in the number of mandated countries to support. The countries increased from 6 to 15.This responsibility for an additional 9 countries, without a significant increase in staff and other resources has had impacts on implementation levels across all units in the regional office. In addition to the above increase in responsibility, there were also issues related to the hand-over and transition period for the transfer of responsibilities of the Indian Ocean Islands to the East Africa regional office. Ongoing communication and efforts are required to continue strengthening the relationship with Indian Ocean Regional Intervention Platform (PIROI).

The Regional Office supported the development a total of 15 DREFs and 5 Emergency Appeals in the reporting period, mainly in response to disease outbreaks, floods and population movements in Burundi, Ethiopia, Uganda, Kenya, Seychelles, Madagascar, Somalia, South Sudan, Somalia,
Tanzania and Sudan. In coordination with the Zone Disaster Management (DM) team, the IFRC Region’s Technical Support Unit (TSU) team provided technical feedback and input during the preparation of the DREFs and Appeals, and collaborated with IFRC Geneva office to secure timely approval. In order to boost the National Societies’ preparedness and response capacity, 5 National Societies received 1,000 kits each of prepositioned stock (Rwanda, Burundi, Djibouti, Sudan and Ethiopia).

IFRC continued to build on a regional collective voice of the strength of community and volunteer action to influence the wider EA humanitarian community, an advocacy report on the same was published in May 2013 ‘Investing in National Societies’ volunteers and partnerships: the road to strengthening community resilience in East Africa’. Throughout the reporting period a special focus was given to the use of technology in building community resilience, delivering better early warning, early action and emergency response and improving levels of accountability to beneficiaries. With support of the Communication team, 48 stories and 12 press releases were published on the IFRC website. Press releases were circulated to the international media working within the region, local media in-country, as well as to international media via Geneva.

In order to find out the needs, capacities and work going on in Planning, Monitoring, Evaluation and Reporting (PMER) in the 15 NS covered by the regional office the PMER unit conducted a mapping exercise at the beginning of the year. This mapping led to a prioritization of support to be provided to NS during the year