From 17-18 July 2019, the IFRC Asia Pacific Regional Director Xavier Castellanos paid a visit to Viet Nam Red Cross Society (VNRC) to discuss with the VNRC’s Leadership on opportunities and challenges in humanitarian landscape. During the meeting, Mdm Nguyen Thi Xuan Thu- VNRC President repeatedly stressed that the support from the RCRC Movement partners becomes more crucial than ever before due to the significant reduction of donor funding toward the NSD and development interventions except disaster response operations due to the country has escaped from low income to middle income nation. In the meantime, both VNRC HQs and branches have also faced significant cut in terms of budget leading to scaling down number of staffs which impacts on the capacity to reach out and deliver humanitarian work. Therefore, it is crucial for VNRC to redirect its focuses and priorities to be relevant and a partner of choice in Viet Nam taking into consideration of above challenges.

The VNRC President highlighted some key directions which VNRC would like to operationalize in the years to come such as (i) Climate change adaptation and DRR; (ii) NSD through OCAC and BOCA; (iii) Communications and Resource Mobilisation; (iv) New forms of volunteering engagement and development; and (v) RCRC Movement values, power and inclusion.

In this connection, the IFRC AP Regional Director also expressed his support toward the above mentioned directions of the VNRC and committed that IFRC will be doing all it could to tag along with VNRC in pursuing our vision of “Everywhere for Everyone”.

In the meantime, the IFRC AP Regional Director used this opportunity to update VNRC and Movement Partners in Viet Nam of the IFRC Strategic Plan 2030 development and discuss with VNRC on how best the Movement Partners could support VNRC toward the development and alignment of the VNRC Strategic Plan 2030 and vision 2045.