Vietnam Red Cross effectively supporting disaster prevention

31/10/2023 - 05:10

On May 19, the Central Committee of the VNRC organized a conference on 2020 disaster prevention and response to review the VNRC’s performance in 2019, launch tasks to respond to disasters in 2020 and mobilize resources to ensure the natural disaster response and prediction in the last 6 months.


The VNRC identifies disaster prevention and response as one of its strategic focus.

The meeting was attended by Mr. Nguyen Hai Anh, Vice President and General Secretary of the VRCS Central Committee; Mr. Nguyen Truong Son, Deputy General Director, Deputy Head of the Office of the Central Steering Committee for Natural Disaster Prevention and Control together with representatives of the National Committee for Incident, Disaster Response, Search and Rescue, concerned ministries and branches; the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement, international and domestic partners, businesses and provincial Red Cross.
The 2020 conference on disaster prevention and response was organized at the right time of the National week of disaster prevention under the theme “Disaster Prevention – Be proactive and effective from local initiative forces”.
The conference is also in a series of events in the Humanitarian Month – an annual activity that the Party Central Committee Secretariat assigns the VNRC to organize.


Deputy Head of the Office of the Central Steering Committee for Natural Disaster Prevention and Control Nguyen Truong Son stated at the meeting

Speaking at the meeting, the Deputy Director General, Deputy Head of the Office of the Central Steering Committee for Natural Disaster Prevention and Control Nguyen Truong Son said that Vietnam has weathered more extreme, irregular, and record-breaking disasters in recent years.
In the three years from 2017 to 2019, despite a gradual decrease in the number and severity of natural disasters, its irregularity increased. Since the beginning of 2020, a series of unusual natural disasters have occurred. On the first day of the Lunar year, there were whirlwinds, thunderstorms, and hail storms and 104 consecutive incidents in 31 localities afterwards, even in places that had never experienced such things in the past. And on the last days of April, in the “Nang Ban” coldness, Hanoi’s temperature experienced a drop to below 16.5 degrees Celsius, the lowest over the past 50 years. In the Mekong Delta, drought intrusion is more severe than the historic saltwater wave in 2015 and 2016. According to National Centre for Hydro-Meteorological Forecasting, from now till the end of the year, natural disasters continue to be complicated and irregular. As of August 15, the natural disasters have left 15 people dead, 85 injured, 1685 houses completely destroyed and 54265 houses damaged, more than 100 thousand hectares of rice and crops damaged. An estimated economic loss is over 3200 billion VND.
On March 24th 2020, the Party Central Committee Secretariat issued the Directive No. 42-CT/TW on strengthening the Partys leadership on prevention. response and overcome consequences of natural disasters. This Directive aims at requiring the total political systems to thoroughly grasp and implement seriously and effectively a number of central tasks, solution in new situation. 
Mr. Son emphasized that over the past years, the VNRC with its operational principles has effectively supported the prevention of natural disasters, especially in response to disaster recovery. With its professionalism and international experiences, the VNRC has been working closely with the General Department of Disaster Prevention to implement many practical activities including training and building up initiative forces at localities, contributing to the effective implementation of the 4-point motto in natural disaster prevention. 
“With the organization of this meaningful meeting, the VNRC is the first organization to implement the Prime Ministers directions on disaster preparedness for the year 2020 as well as the plans for the following years” said Mr. Son.


Mr. Nguyen Hai Anh – Vice President, General Secretary of the VNRC spoke at the conference.

On behalf of the VNRC’s Central Committee, Mr. Nguyen Hai Anh, sent his sincere thanks to the leadership and direction of the Party and State leaders; the support and coordination of the ministries and branches, Vietnam Fatherland Front and mass organizations; the trust, accompaniment, sharing and support of the business community, partners in the movement, organizations and individuals domestically and internationally that have supported the VNRC’s activities in general and its disaster prevention and response in particular. The VNRC hopes to continue to receive the attention in the coming time so that the VNRC will increasingly develop and successfully carry out the tasks assigned by the Party, State and people.
Mr. Nguyen Hai Anh said that the VNRC is a member of the International Red Cross, Red Crescent Movement, a member of the Central Steering Committee for Disaster Prevention. The VNRC has identified disaster prevention and response as one of the strategic focus tasks, one of the seven red cross activities defined in the Red Cross Operation Law.
For many years, the VNRCs disaster prevention and response activities have shifted strongly to prevention and its participation in building safe communities. The VNRC has completed and transferred effective models of community-based natural disaster prevention and control. It has built and strengthened the National Disaster Response Team every year; completing the emergency relief process; regulations on supporting disaster recovery; calling on domestic and international forces to support people affected by natural disasters and epidemics. Since the beginning of 2020, the total value of money and supporting goods for the response to natural disasters and epidemics of all levels of the VNRC have reached over 100 billion VND. In particular, disaster response activities worth 3.08 billion VND, helping over 42,000 people affected by drought, saltwater intrusion, hail, thunderstorms in localities across the country.


At the conference, the VRCS signed cooperation agreements with the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, the International Committee of the Red Cross and the National Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies in coping with natural disasters and diseases.

The VNRC has promoted the effective application of information technology and financial investment model based on forecasting in disaster response, encouraging active participation of the private sector; communication activities to attract and mobilize resources. The Central Committee of the Vietnam Red Cross has supported over 45,000 natural disaster victims with a total value of 8 billion VND.
In order to well implement natural disaster prevention and control, especially in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic in the first months of 2020, the VNRC has prepared contingency resources throughout the whole system; developing, disseminating and communicating standard procedures and guidance in natural disaster and disaster response, cash allocation, Humanitarian charter and minimum standards in humanitarian relief; use of information technology in emergency response; forecast-based financial investment (FbF); timely and effectively providing relief activities to the right subjects when natural disasters or disasters occur; building logistics supply chains to ensure timely and effective response; synchronously deploying communication activities from the central to local levels and being ready to respond to the highest proactive spirit when natural disasters occur under the motto “Disaster Prevention – Be proactive and effective from local initiative forces”.
From now to the end of the year, the VRCS will focus on developing tools for natural disaster response such as disaster management documents, applying information technology to the management of beneficiary households, monitoring and evaluating money allocation, collecting information and sending warning information in emergency. The VNRC implements support for communities in the four fields of clean water, safe housing, livelihoods and health care. For disease, the VNRC deploys supportive resources to support early restoration, livelihood for people who have suffered from income loss.
At the conference the VRCS signed cooperation agreements with the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, the International Committee of the Red Cross and the National Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies in coping with natural disasters and diseases.

La Hang

In response to the Covid-19 pandemic, the VNRC has made a disease

prevention and control plan which focuses on communication activities and direct support of people in the community. The VNRC has supported the community and medical force, doctors to prevent and combat epidemic through providing 4.352.749 masks, 643.164 bottles of hand soap and disinfectant, 6,540 medical protective clothing.
As a member of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement, the VNRC has promptly supported countries affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. It has donated 420,000 medical masks to American people, 100,000 medical masks and 1,000 liters of antibacterial hand sanitizer to Chinese people, 60,000 medical masks and 300 personal protective equipment (PPE) protective to Cambodian people, contributing 30.000 US dollars to the International Association of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies.

 

 

 

 

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