This report covers the period 01/01/08 to 30/06/08.
In brief
Programme purpose: The purpose of the International Federation programmes in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) is to support the DPRK Red Cross to provide humanitarian services to more than eight million people in need of health services, safe water and sanitation systems, and to reduce their exposure to natural disasters such as floods and landslides by increased disaster management systems and to further the development of the DPRK Red Cross institutional capacity in the DPRK.
Programmes summary: The food situation in the DPRK deteriorated in 2008 and following a rapid food security assessment in 9 - 30 June, the World Food Programme (WFP) and five United States based NGOs commenced a major food aid programme which will last for a period of 15 months. The International Federation is supporting the food aid programme from a health point of view. Illness and malnutrition is closely linked and it is critically important to sustain the supply of essential drugs to the International Federation operational areas. Implementation of all International Federation supported programmes during the first half of 2008 progressed successfully and even ahead of plans in some areas. Despite the discontinuation of ECHO support from the large scale health programme in 2007, a generous supplementary contribution from the Swedish Red Cross/SIDA, Australian Red Cross/AusAid and other donors, enabled the Red Cross to continue the service delivery without disruption and thus alleviated further negative impact on vulnerable people.
Procurement for the 2008 drug distribution started early. The 2007 flood operations has been successfully concluded with substantial support to emergency health and refurbishment of over 235 destroyed health clinics in the operational area of 22 counties. The DPRK Red Cross carried out three important international missions: a visit to the Nepal Red Cross to study community development programmes and water quality; a high level meeting with the Australian Red Cross and the government which resulted in a substantial pledge of support in 2008; and a visit to the Swedish Red Cross to attend it's general assembly. Several high level visits to the DPRK Red Cross in Pyongyang, supported by the International Federation, were carried out during this time period: the Norwegian Red Cross secretary general and delegation, the German Red Cross president and delegation, the Chinese Red Cross made a return exchange visit to study the communitybased disaster preparedness programme in the DPRK, and the Swedish Red Cross health and organizational development advisor visited in April.
In the water and sanitation programme a participatory hygiene and sanitation transformation (PHAST) training was held early in the year, and a comprehensive emergency water and sanitation training was carried out in April on six units of water and sanitation equipment for deployment during future flood disasters. A review of the reforestation programme was carried out in late June 2008, as a technical part of a more comprehensive disaster management review to take place in November 2008. There was a change of the International Federation head of country office in February when the former successfully completed his mission after three and a half years. The new head of country office - a woman for the first time in the DPRK - is an International Federation secretariat staff member seconded to this position with support of the Swedish Red Cross, one of the main cooperative agreement strategy (CAS) partners of the DPRK Red Cross. An additional short term technical position - disaster management and logistics - is currently being recruited to reinforce the country office for 12 months. The International Federation country office was visited by the health logistics officer from Geneva as well as the logistics officer from the Asia Pacific zone office in Kuala Lumpur.
Financial situation: The original funding support plan budget for 2008 of CHF 9,781,592 has been increased to CHF 11,588,732. The increase is linked to higher costs for water and sanitation, an increase in reforestation activities, as well as costs for the disaster management/logistics delegate and emergency water and sanitation equipment. Based on the revised budget, the funding needs are 65 per cent covered, including soft pledges.
See also Emergency Appeal DPRK Floods 2007: MDRKP001
No. of people we help: The programmes of the DPRK Red Cross, supported by the International Federation in 2008-2009, will benefit 8.25 million people.
Our partners: The main partners of the DPRK Red Cross are the ten cooperative agreement strategy partners (the Red Cross Societies of Denmark, Finland, Germany, Norway, Sweden, Netherlands, Spain, Canada and Australia), International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), World Health Organization (WHO), United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), World Food Programme (WFP), European Commission's Humanitarian Aid Office (ECHO) and other organizations in the DPRK.