- Executive summary
Overall Project/Programme Status:
The second half of 2013, July to December, was a period where the Myanmar Red Cross Society (MRCS), supported by its partners, capped the period with significant milestones.
It was during this period that MRCS had a mid-term review of its Strategic Plan 2011 to 2015 to capture the key progress and achievements and identify constraints experienced as well as challenges and opportunities for the future. While still awaiting for the approval by the Government of the Union of Myanmar of its revised Legal Act, but at the same time in preparation for its implementation, MRCS subjected itself to an organizational capacity assessment and certification (OCAC) process as a deliberate strategy to deepen its internal analysis of organizational strengths and challenges. MRCS also undertook a core structure and core cost analysis in order to be more self-sufficient for the future.
It was also during this period that MRCS hosted a Partnership meeting in October where it shared its programme approaches and priorities, the initial results of the OCAC process and its corresponding plan of action for 2014 to 2015, the review of MRCS Strategy 2015, and expected support for the initial rolling out of its core structure vis-à-vis core costs. It was in the same meeting that MRCS introduced its aim to undertake a second cooperation agreement strategy (CAS2) process in order to achieve a more harmonized coordination modality for Red Cross Red Crescent Partners to support the humanitarian and development priorities of MRCS.
During this period MRCS received visitors from the Red Cross Movement on separate occasions, in addition to those who attended the October partnership meeting. This included the under secretary general of the IFRC and the head of operations of the IFRC Asia Pacific zone office, whose respective visits was a good way of encouraging more productive coordination to support MRCS in positioning itself in the humanitarian space. A separate visit was also done by the secretary general of the British Red Cross in order to strengthen partnership with MRCS. There were other visitors from partner National Societies who were not able to attend the Partnership meeting with the aim of assessing further support and achievements of MRCS programmes.
MRCS successfully conducted a two-day 2014 planning and budgeting workshop during the month of November. This is the first time that the National Society had conducted the process in a coordinated and integrated way with a budgeting component. The first one was in 2012 which was a consolidated mapping of the MRCS plan for that year. The 2014 plan is based on the MRCS revised Strategic Plan 2011 to 2015. Participants were MRCS secretary general, heads and deputy heads of divisions and programme coordinators. The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), partner National Societies and IFRC delegates were also participants during the first topic in the agenda which was to present commitments for 2014, and during the presentation of the draft plan and budget to MRCS leadership which was the last part of the agenda.