From relief to resilience: ready to weather the storm

The British Red Cross has a blog: With the global population exceeding 7 billion, the earth’s resources are under increasing strain, resulting in more crises and people needing help than ever before. In response, the Red Cross has evolved its approach to providing aid.

As the numbers rise – more conflict over limited resources, more weather-related disasters, more poverty and food crises – the Red Cross is bridging relief aid and development for a more sustainable future.

Alyson Lewis, resilience team manager, says: “In the communities where we work overseas, people face extremely difficult situations, often made worse by underlying poverty. This makes it difficult to break away from dependency on aid.

“At the British Red Cross we are constantly reviewing the way we work, aiming to be more effective, and as a result we’ve developed a ‘resilience approach’ for international programmes. This means whether we’re working on emergency response, disaster recovery or a longer-term programme, the result will be a community better able to withstand future threats to their wellbeing.”

The resilience approach helps people identify risks ahead of time, reduce these risks, and be ready to respond after a crisis. As a result, lives are saved and people can recover quickly, with less need for emergency aid….