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Asia Pacific Zone Office Annual Report 2014 (MAA5001)

Countries
World
+ 12 more
Sources
IFRC
Publication date

Overview

The Asia Pacific zone (APZ) of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) comprises the zone office in Kuala Lumpur, four regional offices in Suva (Pacific), Bangkok (Southeast Asia), Delhi (South Asia) and Beijing (East Asia) and 12 country offices, adopting a “best-positioned” strategy to support the national societies (NSs) in the zone according to their needs. Through this decentralized management structure, the Asia Pacific zone office directs the work of the regional and country offices.

The 37 national Red Cross and Red Crescent societies in Asia Pacific work to help the most vulnerable groups in their respective countries who are most affected by these disasters and socio-economic and health crises. With their widespread network of grassroots members and volunteers, they seek to address the needs of the most vulnerable people in both disaster, and non-disaster, situations.

The mission of the APZ office is to promote and facilitate the development of strong Asia Pacific NSs with quality disaster response/recovery and development programmes addressing priority humanitarian needs in their countries in line with Strategy 2020 as articulated by the Amman Commitment from the 8th Asia Pacific Regional Red Cross Red Crescent Conference held in October 2010 and the ‘Beijing Call for Innovation’ as per 9th Asia Pacific Regional Conference held in October 2014.

A major milestone for IFRC APZ has been its involvement in the 9th Asia Pacific Regional Conference and the pre-conference Youth Summit in Beijing. The Asia Pacific Regional Conference highlighted the importance of embracing innovation in terms of attitudes, technologies, approaches in building partnerships to support vulnerable people. The conference concluded with the ‘Beijing Call for Innovation’, 10 key action points to guide the IFRC’s humanitarian action in the coming years, including a commitment to establish a Red Cross Red Crescent Innovation Fund to pilot new and creative ways to work with communities through peer support platforms. The Beijing Call for Innovation will be a guiding document for East Asia NSs for the next 4 years.

The Youth Summit culminated in the ‘Beijing Youth Commitments 2014’ where 49 Red Cross Red Crescent youth delegates from 35 countries in Asia Pacific and the Middle East declared their determination to do more, do better, and reach further as they respond to disasters.

The launch of the IFRC annual flagship publication – The World Disasters Report (WDR 2014) – on 17 December 2014, in collaboration with the the Harun M. Hashim Law Centre of the International Islamic University Malaysia (IIUM) in which offering a platform for engagement between Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement members, faculty member and students of IIUM, representatives from the diplomatic community, international organisations and local NGOs