Sri Lanka Red Cross > Who We Are > Five Year Development Plan

Five Year Development Plan

Sri Lanka Red Cross Society (SLRCS) has consolidated and positioned its unique services within the scope of reliefand recovery during the past seven decades and the shift of paradigm prompted SLRCS to think broader to step in to the development arena since the 2004 Tsunami. It has 26 branches covering 25 districts. SLRCS has significant lessons learned and recognises the environmental challenges with global changes as well as continuous changes in social, political, economic, legal, environmental and technological contexts in Sri Lanka.

Since the outbreak of violence in Sri Lanka in 1983, the SLRCS has reasonably expanded its capacity to deliver humanitarian services to conflict- affected people in the North and East and in other areas where the conflict situation prevailed. Subsequently, in the late eighties (1989-90), it expanded its structure throughout the country by establishing 25 district branches with specific focus on the emerged conflict situation.

The branch capacities especially in the North and East rapidly increased since 1990. With its establishment, the branches delivered quality humanitarian services to those Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) as a result of the conflict situation which prevailed from time to time in the North and East and in the neighbouring districts. With regard to the deliverability, the capacity of the branches in the North and East even before the Tsunami remained at a strong level. The preparedness level of the other branches which are prone to natural disasters such as floods, cyclones, droughts, landslides, and fire etc. after year 2000 with an increased trend and frequency of natural disasters was at a reasonable level.

The Tsunami of 2004 had a major impact on Sri Lanka. SLRCS responded together with the Movement partners with other stakeholders to make a major contribution to the Tsunami rebuilding programme by scaling-up capacity of the National Society with special focus on 13 branches of the Tsunami- affected districts.

Sri Lanka is now faced with another humanitarian crisis. More than a quarter of a million people, who have been internally displaced by armed conflict, find themselves in welfare centres and welfare villages. At present, there are hundreds of thousands of conflict affected victims who are not displaced but living in their place of origin and are deprived of basic facilities due to adversities of conflict. On 19th May 2009,His Excellency the President declared an end to Sri Lanka’s 30 year raged conflict. Now, major challenges present themselves with regard to relief, recovery and development in Sri Lanka.

The SLRCS is confident and committed in tackling these challenges together with Movement partners and other stakeholders. In this crucial moment and turning point, SLRCS realises its mission toreduce risk, build capacities and promote principles and values by mobilizing resources, creating universal access to services through volunteerism and partnershipsthrough its core programmes comprising of Disaster Management(DM), Health and Care (HC), Organisational Development (OD) and Principles and Values (P&V). SLRCS continues its collaborative work with the Partner National Societies (PNSs),the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), Government of Sri Lanka, private sector and other national and international organizations and individuals, to execute its humanitarian mission.

 

1.2 The Purpose of theFive Year Development Plan

The purpose of formulating the Five Year Development Plan (FYDP) is to assure long term sustainable core programmes giving due prominence to Integrated Programme Approach (IPA) through a common and coherent manner in order to operationalise the SLRCS strategic plan together with its partners in order to address vulnerabilities. This will facilitate effective cooperation and coordination with partners while enhancing cost efficiency and common understanding on programme needs, Priority Risks and Vulnerabilities (PRV).This plan emphasises the strengthening of community structures and divisions, branches and the NHQ in order to deliver sustainable services and to build community resilience.

The FYDP is aimed to support SLRCS to plan, implement and monitor core Programmes. The consistency in information provided by the FYDP is important for performance and accountability in reporting, for ensuring the relevance of lessons learnt, for optimizing continuous Programme improvement and organizational development for the SLRCS. The FYDP aims to provide greater clarity to partners to encourage longer-term sustainable programming,bearing in mind PRV in the Sri Lankan context and the strategic goals and objectives of the SLRCS.

This FYDP is also an operational plan to guide to achieve the macro goals and objectives of the revised ‘SLRCS Strategic Plan 2009 – 2013,’ and it lays the foundation for the next five years, during which time the National Society (NS) plans to be more cost effective. This in turn entails forming longer term part-nerships with movement partners and other key stakeholders in working ‘to-gether for humanity.

 

The SLRCS FYDP serves to:

  1. Operationalise the revised Strategic Plan 2009-13
  2. Guide SLRCS while consolidating its position from the pre-Tsunami situation, the transition from Tsunami response model to sustainable model
  3. Implement core Programmes through special focus on Integrated Pro-gramme Approach (IPA) to ensure addressing PRV in an efficient and effective manner
  4. Strengthen the human, physical and financial capacities of divisions, branches and the NHQ and facilitate strengthened capacity of the com-munity and community organization
  5. Advance the planning, implementation, monitoring, evaluating and re-porting process towards achieving positive programme impacts
  6. Incorporate key cross-cutting issues drawn up in the strategic planning process which have been central in informing the development of the OD programme approach
  7. Ensure a strong and sustainable approach of resource mobilization pro-gramme to promote safer and resilient communities, self reliance and inter-dependent divisions, branches and the NHQ
  8. Ensure good governance and management norms through results- based performance, commitment and dedication with a higher level of management ethics, values and practices to meet transparency and ac-countability
  9. Endeavour to be a learning organization through succeeding in opera-tionalising the FYDP and sharing its lessons with other interested na-tional and international organizations

Read more on the   Five Year Development Plan