Red Cross/Red Crescent set region's priorities

Malaria, diarrhoea and vaccine-preventable diseases are among the top priorities Red Cross and Red Crescent (RC/RC) societies in West Africa set themselves for the coming decade at an 11-14 July planning meeting in Abidjan. Other top priorities for RC/RC intervention in the subregion, based partly on information received from health ministries, include acute respiratory infections and malnutrition. The others are accidents and injuries, STDs/HIV/AIDS, pregnancy-related issues, illiteracy, non-transmissible diseases, schistosomiasis, leprosy, eye diseases, substance abuse and sickle cell anaemia. The meeting, attended by RC officials from 16 West African countries, was part of a process of developing an African Red Cross and Red Crescent Health Initiative (ARCHI 2010), a proposed health strategy for Africa. ARCHI 2000 aims to improve the impact of RC/RC basic health support on the most vulnerable, and to strengthen the capacity of national RC societies to respond to the basic health needs of their populations in 2000-2010, according to a background document from the International Federation of the Red Cross/Red Crescent (IFRC). National societies "should give priority to those health issues where RC/RC action could have a significant impact with clearly defined and agreed areas of intervention with a process and methodology that guarantees quality activities on behalf of the more vulnerable," the meeting recommended. They also recommended the development of a potential partnership with ministries of health, UN agencies and other actors. That partnership, they said, "should respect our identity and independence and help to achieve our objectives". Inputs from this week's meeting and similar ones in other African subregions will be used by a committee of experts to define, at a meeting in Geneva by the end of 1999, a proposed health strategy for the continent's RC societies. ARCHI 2010 will come up for adoption at a meeting in September 2000 in Ouagadougou to which Africa's 53 national RC societies and ministers of health will be invited.