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      • “Reducing vulnerability, improving capacities and building resilience of the communities”
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Provisional agenda item 18
A66/27
Strengthening national health emergency and disaster management capacities and
the resilience of health systems (resolution WHA64.10)
Committee A

Statement by Amanda McClelland, Health Department
International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies

Mr Chairman, Distinguished Delegates,

The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies appreciates the opportunity to address the Assembly on this agenda item.

The need for strengthening national health emergency and disaster management capacities is vital in the ongoing battle to reduce mortality and morbidity in disasters.  The International Federation of Red Cross Red Crescent (IFRC) commend the WHO and partners on the work done in this area to date.  However with nearly 1 in every 10 children in sub-Saharan Africa under the age of 5 currently suffering from wasted, and suffering from continuing cyclic disasters exacerbated by high incidents of communicable disease, low immunization rates and inadequate caring practices, more needs to be done in linking nutrition interventions with health systems strengthening.

The IFRC responds to health emergencies on a daily basis across the globe.  A network of more than 13 million volunteers reach 150 million disaster effect people per year.  Local capacity to prepare and respond to disaster is one of the core components of our response.  This community based prevention and response capacity is called upon heavily in malnutrition crisis.  The recent regional disasters in the Horn of Africa and Sahel resulted in emergency appeals of over 347 million CHF with 1000s of volunteers involved in a range of activities focused on prevention and response to malnutrition.

This community response capacity is vital to ensure coverage of clinical interventions, disease prevention and sustainable behavior change, however efforts to improve coverage and effectiveness of community based interventions need to be matched by funding for strong health systems, consisting of local health workforces, strong coordination structures, comprehensive surveillance systems and reliable logistics supply chains.

With one third of under 5 mortality attributable to under-nutrition, the IFRC recommitments to improving community interventions to reduce root causes of malnutrition and continue its focus on disaster preparedness and response.  We call on WHO and member states to take advantage of this significant community based resource and leverage RCRC ability to provide community interface in tackling the challenge of malnutrition crisis by ensuring strong, capable health systems are available for referral and coordination in slow on set disasters.