The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies: Human Preparedness to Pandemics in Geneva

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The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies is the world's largest humanitarian organization, providing assistance without discrimination as to nationality, race, religious beliefs, class or political opinions.

The Federation carries out relief operations to assist victims of disasters, and combines this with development work to strengthen the capacities of its member National Societies. The Federation's work focuses on four core areas: promoting humanitarian values, disaster response, disaster preparedness, and health and community care.
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The IFRC and the Constellation adapt the ACP to Human Preparedness to Pandemics

Experts agree that the next influenza pandemic will erupt in the near future. The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) saw the huge potential in adapting the ACP to the issue of Human Preparedness to Pandemics. The first step is to adapt the self-assessment on HIV to influenza pandemics and to test it in three countries.

Each century two to three pandemics strike in the world. The last pandemic occurred in the 60s and experts agree that the next one will erupt in the next ten years. Given the high level of global traffic, the pandemic virus may spread rapidly, leaving little or no time to prepare. Currently, countries and communities are far from ready for the pandemic.

USAID has contracted the IFRC to coordinate support for 25 countries to develop their preparedness. Therefore, the IFRC and the Constellation will adapt the ACP to the issue of Human Preparedness to Pandemics. The experience of the Constellation points out that success can be achieved when communities take ownership of a certain threat or issue, whether it is for HIV, malaria or influenza pandemics.

In May 2008, a variety of experts of the IFRC and academics will build a draft self-assessment with the support of Constellation coaches. This self-assessment will then be tested in three countries (in three districts) with community representatives. Once the framework is finalized, the Human Preparedness Competence Process could be facilitated at large scale.

“This is a great challenge from the point of view of facilitation. We are new to this topic just like most communities. Intensive support of facilitation teams will be essential to stimulate local ownership at community level,” explains Gaston Schmitz, Constellation secretariat, Thailand.