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Red Cross positions on development issues
Health
The Red Cross and Red Crescent key advantage is the capacity to undertake direct action at community and household level whilst having also access to policy-makers.
National Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies engage in disease prevention, mitigation and response. Volunteers trained in community-based first aid are the entry point for health education activities at community and household level. National Societies also respond to outbreaks to support government structures. Volunteers are active in relief distribution, identifying an access to basic health structures in case of outbreak. Areas of action include: community first aid, blood collection, polio immunization, measles vaccination, HIV programmes, menengitis preparedness, tuberculosis treatment, water and sanitation programmes, distribution of bed nets to prevent malaria. Red Cross Red Crescent publications on health and development
Disaster Risk Reduction / Preparedness and Climate Change
Disaster preparedness provides a platform to design effective, realistic and coordinated planning, reduces duplication of efforts and increase the overall effectiveness of National Societies, household and community members disaster preparedness and response efforts. Disaster preparedness activities embeded with risk reduction measures can prevent disaster situations and also result in saving maximum lives and livelihoods during any disaster situation, enabling the affected population to get back to normalcy within a short time period.
Red Cross Red Crescent publications on disaster risk reduction
The Red Cross/Red Crescent Climate Centre
The Climate Centre supports the Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement and its partners in reducing the impacts of climate change and extreme weather events on vulnerable people. The Climate Centre is based in the Netherlands but serves the whole Red Cross / Red Crescent Movement, in particular in developing countries. There is a close co-operation with the secretariat of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies in Geneva. Food Security
The Red Cross Red Crescent promotes a global and coordinated food security strategy with a view to avoiding future food crises, reducing hunger and eradicating poverty in line with the Millennium Development Goals.
Sub-Saharan Africa is not on track to achieve a single Millennium Development Goal. It is the only region in the world where malnutrition, a product of food insecurity, is on the rise. Food insecurity in Africa has many complex causes, including HIV/AIDS, climate change, environmental degradation, conflict, a huge increase in population size, and debt.
These factors have had a profound impact on traditional livelihoods, making them unsustainable and, for many people in constant crisis, restricting their ability to access sufficient food. Coping strategies used in response to crisis further contribute to the erosion of livelihoods. The International Federation is focusing its support on food security in Africa in response to such particularly high level needs in the continent. Since 2000, a large number of African National Societies have been actively engaged in initiatives to reduce food insecurity. Around half of the sub-Saharan African National Societies have so far implemented food security programmes, designed to improve the availability, access and utilization of food in communities. The International Federation regards these three components as interrelated and essential for achieving food security.
Red Cross Red Crescent publications on food security
Water and Sanitation
The Red Cross EU Office advocates to the EU for scaling up on existing capacities and Red Cross Red Crescent developmental water and sanitation programmes to achieve the Millennium Development Goals.
Global Water and Sanitation Initiative (GWSI) - Over the last ten years, the International Federation (IFRC) has established and consolidated a water and sanitation vision, policy and capacity to better address two principle global challenges.
1. Acute water and sanitation challenges, mostly related to crises and disasters, where there is the urgency to provide basic needs to save lives, contain or reduce health threats and restore dignity. 2. Chronic water and sanitation challenges, mostly related to the fact that still a large proportion of the world’s poor do not have access to adequate safe water and sanitation, causing death, disease and loss of productivity. Around four million people die every year as a result of poor water and sanitation access; many are children under five years of age.
Red Cross Red Crescent publications on water and sanitation
European Commission: ACP-EU Water Facility
For more information contact:
Aude Galli (Health)
+32 (0)2 235 09 11
Catherine Olier (Health)
+32 (0)2 235 06 16
Pytrik Oosterhof (DRR, Climate Change)
+32 (0)2 235 06 95
Martin Krottmayer (Food Security, Water and Sanitation)
+32 (0)2 235 06 81
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