Case Study: Community-based surveillance in Indonesia (Bahasa)
Recent large-scale epidemics and pandemics have demonstrated that it takes an inclusive and collaborative effort engaging communities to effectively prevent, detect, and respond to significant infectious disease threats and minimize their effects.
Indonesia is prone to hazards such as floods, earthquakes, and tsunamis. A vast and highly-populated archipelago is also at risk for epidemic and pandemic diseases due to its natural hazard profile, large population and density, high movement of people, limited healthcare capacities and coverage, and low level of health literacy in many communities, among other factors. These characteristics increase the risk of disease outbreaks in communities.
Community members are usually the first to know when a suspicious or unusual health event has occurred in their community – so enabling, empowering, and equipping communities to recognize and respond to public health threats in their midst not only makes sense but also forms an essential foundation for the concept of community-based surveillance (CBS).
To operationalize this approach and strengthen community-level readiness in Indonesia, the IFRC and the Indonesia Red Cross have undertaken theCommunity Epidemic and Pandemic Preparedness Programme (CP3).
This Case Study is also available in English and French.
Data protection: overview and best practices
A set of principles and practices to ensure that personal data is collected, used and protected in a way that considers individuals’ privacy and any risks that may come to them from not adequately safeguarding their data.
Drowning just below the surface: The socioeconomic consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic
The COVID-19 pandemic has had major economic, as well as health, impacts on every nation in the world. It has amplified existing inequalities, created new ones, and destabilized communities—reversing development gains made in recent decades.
The enormous socioeconomic impacts of COVID-19 are wide-ranging and have not affected everyone equally.Throughout this pandemic, those facing the greatest vulnerabilities have been the people and groups most neglected by society—those who were already drowning just below the surface.
This report, featuring brand new research from Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies around the world, sheds light on who has been most impacted by the pandemic and how.It also examines how Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies have adapted their responses to support newly and increasingly vulnerable communities—many of whom have also been affected by large-scale disasters and other complex humanitarian crises.
DREF Mid-year Report 2021
During the first six months of 2021, the Disaster Response Emergency Fund (DREF) and Forecast-based Action (FbA) by the DREF allocated more than 17 million Swiss francs across 58 disasters, supporting more than 11 million people. Learn more in this mid-year report.
Technical Guidelines for National Society Programming Against Child Marriage
This technical guide can be used by the IFRC and National Societies when designing and delivering programming to prevent or respond to child marriage, either in humanitarian settings or in longer-term development settings. It can also assist in developing protection, gender and inclusion (PGI) programming focused specifically on child marriage prevention or response.
Tip Sheet: Maintaining confidential digital dialogue during humanitarian emergencies
Maintaining the confidentiality, integrity and authenticity of communications with the people we support is of fundamental importance in humanitarian settings. This tip sheet, produced jointly by IOM, OCHA, The Centre for Humanitarian Data, IFRC and ICRC, offers:
An overview of the threats to confidentiality associated with digital communications in higher risk humanitarian contexts, including physical and covert surveillance, metadata, interception and hacking
Recommendations to mitigate those threats, including communication protocols, countermeasures, digital security, choice of application and digital hygiene
A set of resources that can be used to help identify suitable communications tools
OIAI Final Internal Audit Report: Myanmar Country Office, 2018
Assurance review of Myanmar Country Office, 2018.
OIAI Final Internal Audit Report – Hurricane Dorian, Bahamas, 2019
Assurance review of Hurricane Dorian, Bahamas, 2019.
IFRC Framework for Evaluation
The purpose of this Framework for Evaluation is to guide how the IFRC's evaluations are planned, managed, conducted, and utilized. It aims to promote reliable, useful, ethical evaluations that contribute to organizational learning, accountability, and our mission to best serve those in need.
The compound impact of extreme weather events and COVID-19
From the start of the COVID-19 pandemic until August 2021, extreme weather events affected at least 139.2 million people and killed at least 17,242 people in at least 433 unique events. These figures are certainly an underestimate, as they do not include estimates of numbers of people affected by extreme temperatures, or mortality during drought events.
This research, commissioned by the IFRC and the Red Cross Red Crescent Climate Centre, offers a preliminary analysis of the compound impacts of extreme weather events and COVID-19. It follows a first scan of these overlapping impacts conducted in September 2020, available to read here.
World Disasters Report 2018
In recent years, Governments and aid organisations have made various commitments about ensuring that the world’s most vulnerable people are not “left behind”.
But those commitments are not being reached. We estimate in the 2018 World Disasters Report that millions of people living in crisis are not receiving the humanitarian assistance they desperately need.
The report identifies five mistakes that can lead to international humanitarian actors inadvertently leaving people behind. It also includes clear and compelling recommendations to overcome these structural problems.
Contingency planning guide
This guide, and accompanying practical tools, provide an overview of the key elements of contingency planning. They aimed at assisting National Societies, IFRC staff and partners who are responsible for developing contingency plans at the local, national, regional or global levels.
Environment Policy
Humanitarian efforts can have negative impacts on the environment, harming the people they are intended to help and underminingpeople's resilience. Local environmental degradation can increase the vulnerability of communities to disasters and the impacts of climate change and have other negative effects on affected communities (including on health and livelihoods).
The purpose of this policy is to ensure that IFRC Secretariat:
expands its commitment to a “do no harm” approach to the protection of the environment;
strives to fulfil its environmental obligations; establishes and meets its environmental goals and objectives;
and commits to continual improvement of its environmental performance.
It may also be useful as a reference for National Societies in their environmental policy development.
Preparedness for Effective Response Leaflet (Russian)
This short leaflet provides a summary of the IFRC's Preparedness for Effective Response (PER) approach. It explains the key principles, phases and activities of the PER process.
Ukraine Plan 2021
IFRC Country Plan for Ukraine in 2021.