2018 Annual Report

Home , Hamju County, Kaechon, Kumya County, North Hwanghae Province, Pyongwon County, Ryongchon County

2018 Annual Report

The Red Cross Society of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea

December 2018

Contents

Introduction

Activities according to Strategic Goals

Annex 1: Achievements of programme goals

Annex 2: Partners’ commitment made in CAS meeting in October 2018

Annex 3: Efficiency of 2018 activity

Annex 4: Inter-related Chart between 2016-2020 Strategic plans and UN sustainable

development goals

Analysis of situation

Analysis of external factor

Analysis of internal factor

Analysis of stakeholders

Fundamental Principles of RCRC Movement

2018 demonstrated that it is quite important to enhance the primary response capacity against various kinds of natural disasters as part of national society capacity building plan. DPRK Red Cross Society has concentrated all its efforts in accomplishing 2020 strategic plan and thus achieved good successes as well as precious experiences and lessons. One of the greatest successes lies in promotion of 3 county branches from non permanent to permanent ones through national society qualification process by focusing on organizational development for accomplishing goals put forth in its 2020 strategic plan. The number of permanent braches increased from 17 to 20 as of the end of 2018. Another important success is that the Society has implemented 4 consecutive emergency relief operations to cope with humanitarian needs in a nation wide scope. The first emergency relief operation started from the beginning of the year to respond to world spread flu and the others followed from July to September to respond to floods due to torrential rain in South Hamgyong, Kangwon, North and South Hwanghae Provinces and unprecedented heat wave and drought. During these days, it was demonstrated that the DPRK RCS is the leading humanitarian organization in the country that creditably performs its mission in whatever urgent and complicated circumstances. The solid material and technical foundations were laid out in strengthening the communication skill of the Society this year. One of the successes the Society has achieved is the completion of Safer Access guidelines in accordance with the realistic demand to protect the Red Cross staff and volunteers in emergencies and the improvement in the capacity and skills of RC branch staff and volunteers through intensive trainings. Summing up activities done in 2018, DPRK Red Cross Society extends sincere thanks to IFRC, ICRC and other partner national societies including Norwegian, Swedish, German, Italian, British, Finnish, and Danish Red Cross who actively supported the capacity building and the humanitarian endeavours of our Society.

1. Introduction The Red Cross Society of Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, founded on October 18, 1946 acceded to the IFRC on May 11, 1956. The following figures reflect the human resource and the branch network of the Society as of the end of 2018. The total number of RC members is 1,079,934; among them adult members 723 563, volunteers 105 609 and youth members 356 371. The headquarters is in Pyongyang with 20 permanent branches (of province, city and county level) and 190 non-permanent branches (of county level). The Society has accomplished its mission and role as a leading humanitarian organization in the country, consistently building its capacity after the two stages of institutional changes in 2000s in accordance with the changing situation. The Society paid special attention to strengthening its legal basis, as a result of which the Law of DPRK RCS was adopted in January 2007 and the Statutes of the Society was revised on the occasion of 2016 National Congress to meet the requirement of developing situation. The collapse of the Eastern European socialist market, severe natural disasters including recurrent floods and durable economic sanction from outsiders imposed on DPRK from 1990s brought about negative impact to national economic situation and livelihood of the people. It became the main cause of explosive increase of humanitarian needs in DPRK and the cooperation with IFRC has been initiated since 1995 to rapidly respond to the humanitarian situation, which was transferred to mid/long-term cooperation from 1998 combining the emergency relief and development. Giving priority to its organizational development and capacity building, DPRK RCS seperated the roles and responsibilities of the governance from the management in 2004, adjusted or reinforced its institutional structure by providing appropriate human resource and building capacity to ensure efficiency and sustainability in delivering humanitarian services. It helped DPRK RCS, as the auxiliary to the government, fulfill more successfully its mission and role in the humanitarian field. The improved leadership and coordination of the Society were properly applied to the implementation of main programmes such as disaster preparedness and response, WASH, and Health & care, which made a distinguished progress in delivering RC services. The RC messages including fundamental principles and humanitarian value of RCRC Movement were widely disseminated in combination with various kinds of activities to deliver RC service and this has helped improve the image of DPRK RCS and strengthen support to RC activities from the government and the public. 4

With the consistent progress in its capacity building, the programmatic areas of DPRK RCS were increased and diversified from dissemination on First Aid (FA), Health & Care and Sanitation, which were traditional programme areas, to Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR), livelihood, maternal and child health (MNCH), blood donation, WASH, and orthopedic service for physically handicapped people, etc, and the performance skills and roles of RC volunteers were enhanced. DPRK RCS has implemented integrated community resilience program (ICRP) targeting vulnerable communities as a pilot program since 2014, ensuring the effectiveness and efficiency of RC support at the maximum level. In a total, 92,940 households in 34 vulnerable communities were directly benefited from ICRP implementation as of the end of 2018. The following shows main successes that DPRK RCS achieved in 2018 operation. - Community resilience was regarded as the main direction of HQs/branch activities - Public awareness on disaster rik reduction and environmental protection was considerably increased - Prominent change in knowledge, attitude and practice (KAP) was achieved among the target population The successful implementation of ICRP in targeted vulnerable communities made them ensure sustainable development by themselves even after retiring from ICRP cycle. All the activities done in 2018 were aligned with the Strategic Plan 2016-2020 of National Society and will contribute to the achievement of the ojectives of IFRC Strategy 2020 and 1BC (1 billion coalition) for resilience as well as the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction and SDG (sustainable development goals) set out by UN.

2. Where are we on the road for implemention of Strategic Plan 2016-2020? Vision: building of safer, healthier and resilient communities by mobilizing power of humanity

Mission: To prevent and alleviate human sufferings and misfortunes without any discrimination and to improve their health and welfare, promoting the friendship, solidarity and cooperation among peoples, thus contributing to maintenance of world peace.

Strategic Goal 1: Contribute to building of resilient community.

Disaster Risk Reduction The DPRK Red Cross Society has greatly contributed to changing 35 disaster prone communities across the country with the risk of flood, landslide, typhoon, tidal wave and mountain fire into safe and resilient ones by reducing disaster risks and improving people’s livelihood.

Province, city and county Red Cross branches, in close collaboration with local government authorities, conducted knowledge dissemination activites to the community people regarding the aftereffect of natural disasters and importance of disaster prevention and preparedness and the activities for RC volunteers and community people making disaster risk maps Photo: DPRK RCS disaster prevention and risk reduction. This has helped the community people acquire knowledge on disaster and let them actively participate in disaster prevention activities.

The Red Cross branches of all levels mobilized Red Cross volunteers on occasions of land management month, tree planting months and safety first month and conducted activities to raise the awareness of community people and youth on disaster and to let them voluntarily participate in activities such as elimination of disaster risk factors, river and road improvement, tree planting and environmental protection.

Phyongwon, Sunkchon, Sinyang Counties of South Phyongan Province, Tongrim, Kwaksan, Unsan Counties and Jongju City of North Phyongan Province, Hamju, Kumya and Hongwon Counties of South Hamgyong Province and Kyonghung County of North Hamgyong Province organized Youth Dissemination Teams with Red Cross youth volunteers and conducted dissemination activities through art performances and explanatory conversations targeting community people, youth and 6 children on several occasions and this has led to their voluntary participation in the disaster prevention activities such as establishment of early warning and evacuation systems, tree planting and disaster mitigation structure construction. They also organized demonstration activities for the RC branch staff of other cities and counties with high disaster risk and actively encouraged them to introduce the successes and experiences of the above mentioned counties.

Through the dissemination rooms laid out in cooperative farms and tree nurseries of South and North Phyongan Provinces and South and North Hamgyong Provinces, the Society has disseminated knowledge and skills of various fields like introduction of agro-forestry method, tree seedling production, manuring and cultivation of planted trees, disaster risk reduction and mitigation and environmental protection. This has rendered active contribution to reforestation and disaster prevention activities.

Province, city and county Red Cross branches, in close cooperation with local government authorities and People’s Security bureaus, conducted activities to revitalize early warning and evacuation systems in disaster prone areas.

In disaster prone areas, the information system on climate change has been improved and early warning and evacuation system has been established. Trainings targeting Red Cross branch staff and community people of disaster prone areas (2 000 in total) were conducted dealing with various topics like ensuring communication during emergency and establishment of emergency communication network and this has helped enhance their awareness on the importance of early warning system and let them improve the early warning systems established in the communities.

The Red Cross branches also organized early warning and evacuation simulation exercises twice annually and more than 110,000 people of communities concerned took part in the exercises.

4,000 copies of IEC materials related to disaster risk reduction such as “Community Based Early Warning and Early Action”, “Rural Dwelling Houses Safe to Natural Disasters” and “Design and Construction of Rural Dwelling House” have been printed and distributed and this has contributed to the enhancement of knowledge and skill of Red Cross volunteers and disaster management staff and improvement of awareness of community people on disaster management.

Province, city and county Red Cross branches and committees, in close cooperation with local government authorities, mass organizations and scientific research institutes, conducted activities

7 to prevent or mitigate possible disasters and to enhance technical knowledge of technical personnel concerned.

In close cooperation with the Ministry of Land and Environment Protection and the Academy of Forestry, the Society contributed to the prevention of forest denudation which is the main factor of natural disasters like flood and landslide and to the protection of land by actively supporting tree seedling production in mother tree nurseries of cities and counties concerned and encouraging project communities and neighbouring ones to plant trees.

Under the support of experts and researchers, technical trainings were conducted targeting more than 150 tree nursery staff and forest rangers on one hand and 1 000 copies of tree seedling production guidelines were printed and distributed on the other and this has helped them construct and operate tree nurseries and produce tree seedlings scientifically. This also contributed to the prevention of forest destruction such as forest fire and deforestation by enhancing the awareness of community people on forest protection.

Materials and equipment necessary for tree seedling production including construction of tree seedling greenhouse and installation of irrigation system in open-air cultivation field were provided to mother tree nurseries of 4 cities and counties. Tree seeds of good kinds like alder tree, larch and pine nut tree were also provided and this contributed to increasing tree seedling production capacity which is a solid basis for long-term reforestation activity.

During the Spring and Autumn Tree Planting Months in 2018, more than 200,000 Red Cross volunteers and youth members planted approximately 6,800,000 trees on thousands of hectares of mountains and riverside and thus made a great contribution to the prevention of natural disasters RC volunteer cultivating tree seedlings in tree nursery like flood and landslide and to the protection of environment.

Under the active support of local government authorities and scientific research institues, 150,000 people and Red Cross volunteers built various kinds of disaster mitigation structures such as river bank revetment, stone masonry and conducted river improvement activities.

Livelihood

In close collaboration with the local authorities and technical institutions under the State Academy of Science, RC branches of all levels have conducted various activities to improve the livelihood of the vulnerable people. The Society contributed to food security and livelihood of vulnerable people and environmental protection by actively supporting the introduction of agro-forestry in communities.

The Society conducted technical trainings on agro-forestry targeting more than 150 community engineers and slope land users and printed 900 copies of agro-forestry guideline to improve their knowledge and practice on agro-forestry and this helped them introduce agro-forestry according to their own local context.

In cooperation with MoLEP (Ministry of Land and Environment Protection) and IFRC, the Society applied agro-forestry approach to hundreds of hectares of slope land in 9 communities with the seedlings of fruit trees like chestnut, black chochberry and sea buckthorn, thus contributed to soil conservation and flood prevention as well as provision of additional food and firewood to the vulnerable people.

The Society has contributed to the improvement of food security and nutrition of the vulnerable people like the disabled, the elderly and the children by providing them fresh vegetables from the greenhouses constructed.

With the technical support from Natural Energy Research Institution and Vegetable Research Institution under the State Academy of Science, DPRK RCS has conducted technical trainings targeting 150 community vegetable growers to improve their technical knowledge and skills concerning the construction and management of vegetable greenhouse, crop rotation, irrigation, nutrition management and RC Volunteers distributing vegetable cultivated in the greenhouse insecticide.

19 sets of vegetable greenhouse with 11,400 m2 of total production space were constructed in the

9 communities of Sinyang, Pyongwon and Sukchoncounties in South Phyongan Province, Kumya and Hongwon counties in South Hamgyong Province and Tongrim, Unsan, Kwaksan and Jongju counties in North Phyongan Province and Kyonghung County in North Hamgyong Province.The communities produced high nutrition vegetable, mushroom and meat in greenhouse and distributedto 40,000 vulnerable people such as the elderly, pregnant women, children, the disabled and families with food insecurity.

500 copies of guidelines on vegetable production in greenhouse have been printed and distributed to community engineers and vegetable growers, which contributed to improving their technical skills and increasing the vegetable and meat production, thus helping the improvement of food security and nutrition of the vulnerable people.

The food processing machines such as rice husker and polisher, oil press, machine for soya bean milk and noodle maker have been installed in the communities of Tongrim County and Jongju City in North Phyongan Province, Kumya and Hamju counties in South Hamgyong Province, Sinyang County in South Phyongan Province and 29,000 people in those communities now have access to safe and processed food.

Community people and children drinking soya bean milk produced in the food processing facility

Many city and county RC branches, in close cooperation with health institutions and anti-epidemic stations, mobilized RC volunteers and conducted promotion activities to let community people have clear understanding of mutual relationship between hygiene, health and nutrition and to let them practice proper public and personal hygiene habits and effectively utilize the existing food as well as safely keep food.

More than 200 tons of mushroom were produced in the mushroom production facilities built in project communities of Sinyang, Phyongwon and Sukchon Counties in South Phyongan Province, Jongju City, Tongrim and Unsan counties in North Phyongan Province, Kumya and Hamju counties in South Hamgyong Province, and this contributed to nutritional improvement of the vulnerable people such as the children, elderly, pregnant, disabled people and others with food insecurity.

With the technical support from the Mushroom Research Centre, the Society has conducted the technical trainings targeting 120 mushroom growers to improve their theoretical and practical skills concerning the construction and management of mushroom production facility, mushroom spore production, extermination of harful insect, reuse of medium and this helped them improve their technical skills for the growth in the mushroom production.

550 copies of mushroom production guideline have been printed and distributed to mushroom technicians and growers to improve their technical skills. This led to the extermination of harmful insect and growth in the mushroom production which contributed to the improvement of food security of the community people.

Income generated from vegetable greenhouses, mushroom production facilities and food processing machines has enabled the communities to conduct activities to organize the extended reproduction and to help the vulnerable families as well as to establish the community early warning and evacuation system and to secure relief items for potential disasters.

Health

First Aid

First aid (FA) is the traditional and core activity of the Society. In general, FA programme has two main pillars, education and service. In the reporting period, FA program was further expanded on national level.

First of all, FA education with focus on quality and quantity was carried out actively. Through a RC youth peer to peer education on FA network of 16 RC FA training centers across the Pyongwon county, South Phyongan Province, July 2018 Photo : DPRK RCS country and local RC branches of different levels, 346 RC trainers received refresher courses on first aid while 5,153 RC volunteers were trained on basic life-saving FA. These trained RC volunteers went back to their communities and delivered key FA knowledge and skills including recovery position, cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) and FA actions for bleeding, suffocation and burns to more than 296,813 people.

In the recent yars, the Society has given top priority to the young people in the FA education. Children learn quickly at their early age of life and they are more vulnerable to accidents and injuries. In the meantime, FA education is compulsory in DPRK. In full consideration of these important elements, the Society has scaled up FA education for school children in close collaboration with the Commission of Education focusing on updating and improving the content and methods of FA education upon evidence based data, standard FA training for school teachers and school children and the supply of FA educational materials such as manikin, bandage, stretcher, FA kits and IEC materials. This year, with support from the Red Cross, a standard FA and road safety education room was established in three senior middle schools in the target communities of integrated program in the South Phyongan and the South Hamgyong provinces and the school teachers and staff from the neighboring communities visited these model classrooms to learn and replicate in their schools. In 2018, a total of 900 RC youth volunteers were trained on basic FA and in return, they covered 2,507 school children through peer to peer FA education.

On the occasion of WFAD 2018(World First Aid Day), 6,257 RC adult volunteers and 55,919 RC youth volunteers were mobilized nationally to conduct various FA activities under the theme “first response to road crashes.”

One of the big FA events was First Aid event of RC youth which took place in the Pyongyang Children’s Traffic Park on 19 September 2018. In all, 250 school children including school teachers participated in this particular event which was conducted in the form of theoretical lecture, practice, simulation and art performance. During the event, they consolidated and demonstrated WFAD event 2018 at Pyongyang Children’s Traffic Park Sept 19, 2018 Photo : DPRK RCS their FA knowledge and skills they had learnt through school curriculum and acquired deep understanding of the road safety regulations and importance of FA during traffic accident. They also became confident through simuation to serve basic FA to the injured they might come across.

The Society will continue to scale up FA and road safety education for young people who are the agents of behavior changes.

Secondly, FA service was expanded this year through a national network of 1,700 FA posts. To help these FA posts fully operational at any time, the Society, in close collaboration with the Ministry of Public Health (MoPH) and the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC), gave quality FA training to the first aiders and provided FA refill kits to the FA posts. These FA posts, usually established in the remote areas far from health institutions, were RC volunteer serving first aid in the field, Sinyang County, South Phyongan Province, August 2018 of great help to the community people, Photo : DPRK RCS particularly women, children, elderly, and the disabled. Trained first aiders in these FA posts played vital role in times of disasters such as flood, typhoon and landslide to offer prompt qualitative FA and psychosocial support to the injured and the disaster victims and thus saved many lives and promoted their health.

Community Based Health and First Aid (CBHFA)

The Society is moving towards building safer, healthier and resilient communities through CBHFA program. CBHFA program includes FA, maternal and child health and nutrition, health in emergency, blood donation. The Society is constantly empowering RC volunteers and the community people to take charge of their health through simple CBHFA RC volunteer delivering key health messages to farmers approach and tools adapted to respective in the field, Pyongwon County, South Phyongan Province, July 2018, Photo : DPRK RCS local context. In 2018, various health awareness building activities targeting the RC volunteers and the community people took place in many parts of the country and more than 6,000 RC volunteers acquired comprehensive and specific knowledge on CBHFA, nutrition and epidemics. 7,445 copies of IEC materials including FA manual and flip chart, ECV manual and toolkits, nutrition manual and calendars were printed and Health worker and RC volunteer happy with the receipt of essential medicine from the RC, Kumya County, South Hamgyong Province, April distributed to the trained RC volunteers to 2018 Photo : DPRK RCS refresh them and to be used for health education and promotion for the public. According to the reports from the local RC branches, more than 31,047 RC volunteers were mobilized nationally to conduct health promotion for the local population in close cooperation with household doctors and the number of beneficiaries reached 1,900,076. As a consequence, health awareness among community people was enhanced and this led to behavior changes such as hand washing, private and public hygiene, breastfeeding and healthy life. This undoubtedly rendered great contribution to saving lives, promoting health and further preventing injuries. One of the highlight was every single CBHFA was implemented as an integrated approach with other programs such as CBDRR, WASH and PMER, and such an integration brought about greater impact and contributed towards building resilient communities and achieving 1 billion coalition for resilience and sustainable development goals(SDG).

Strengthening National Health System

In DPRK, universal free medical care system is enforced and the state is financing the health sector. In the last two decades, due to severe and frequent natural calamities, continued economic difficulties due to aggravated sanctions imposed by outside forces, the state investment to the health sector has decreased gradually. Consequently, many health institutions have suffered from lack of medicine, basic medical equipments and supplies. In response to the situation, DPRK RCS, as an auxiliary to the government, conducted a number of different activities such as building up capacity of human and material resources. In close cooperation with the Ministry of Public Health, DPRK RCS organized household doctors’ training and midwives’ training on several occasions and covered 300 and 200 health workers respectively. With support from the MoPH and the IFRC, RC also provided 500 health institutions in the South and North Phyongan, South and North Hamgyong provinces with 2,470 essential medicine kits and contributed to timely and proper treatment of serious illness and health promotion of the catchment population reaching more than 2.5 million. The focus was placed upon RC supply of delivery bed in Ponghung i clinic, Kumya County, North Phyongan Province, May 2018 strengthening the capacity of 10 target health Photo : DPRK RCS institutions in the communities of integrated program in the South and North Phyongan and the South Hamgyong provinces and with the RC supply of basic medicine, medical instruments & equipments and solar heating systems, the general conditions and environment of health institutions was fundamentally improved making tangible contributions to reducing morbidity and referral cases among community people.

WASH

The Society set WASH as one of its areas of focus and undertook several activites under the programme. At its HQs and branch levels, the Society mobilized its network of volunteers to keep the streets, Training of Volunteers on hygiene Hygiene promotion activities of RC promotion, July 2018 volunteers, Sambong-ri of Phyongwon villages, households and County, August 2018 workplaces in a hygiene and cultural way on the occasions of national spring and autumn campaigns.

In the RC branches of Kwaksan County and Jongju City of North Phyongan Province, Phyongwon and Sukchon counties of South Phyongan Province, Hongwon and Hamju counties of South Hamgyong Province, Kyonghung County of North Hamgyong Province and Kaesong City of North Hwanghae Province, the RC youth dissemination teams were organized and they disseminated hygiene messages to the community people to overcome the old lifestyle and establish hygiene behaviours bearing the importance of water, sanitation and hygiene in their normal lives.

WASH related printing materials Hygiene promotion activities of RC volunteers for community people, Sambong-ri of Phyongwon County, August 2018 The RC branches, in close cooperation with their local health institutions and anti-epidemic stations, mobilized RC volunteers to encourage the population voluntarily take part in spring and autumn cleaning campaigns and ensured that the RC volunteers took leads.

RC branches in Anju City, Sunchon City and Unsan County of South Phyongan Province, Tongrim County and Jongju City of North Phyongan Province, Kumya and Yonggwang County of South Hamgyong Province, Kaesong City and Koksan County of North Hwanghae Province, Pyoksong County and Yonan County of South Hwanghae Province showed good practices and during these periods a total of 32,000 volunteers were mobilized.

The RC branches also made sure that their volunteers are actively engaged in the nationwide campaigns to establish cultural conditions in production and life.

In Sinyang and Songchon Counties of South Phyongan Province, Jongpyong and Sinhung Counties of South Hamgyong Province, Munchon and Wonsan Cities of Kangwon Provinces, Hoeryong City and Musan County of North Hamgyong Province, the RC branches collaborated with local people’s committees to tidy up the garbage sections, ditches and rainwater pits by mobilizing 200-300 volunteers respectively.

In Ryongchon County and Kusong City of North Phyongan Province, Koksan and Phyongsan Counties of North Hwanghae Province, Paechon and Chongdan Counties of South Hwanghae Province, an average of 100 RC volunteers were mobilized to maintain 570 water sources and 320 distribution tanks, clean up 150 kms of ditch and to renovate 17,000 public and household latrines. Solar water heater installed in the kindergarten In Tokchon and Kaechon Cities of South Phyongan Province, Sinwon and Jaeryong Counties of South Hwanghae Provinces, Anbyon and Chonnae Counties of Kangwon Province, Sariwon City, Rinsan and Sohung Counties of North Hwanghae Provinces, Tongsin and Songwon Counties of Jagang Province, Yonggwang and Kumya Counties of South Hamgyong Province, Kyongsong County and Kimchaek City of North Hamgyong Province, the RC branches organized self and cross hygiene inspections in collaboration with local anti-epidemic stations which was followed by eliminating the shortcomings.

RC volunteers paid household visits to 9,700 families and helped some 4,300 vulnerable households with cleaning in hygienic way.

In collaboration with local government authorities, RC branches focused on seasonal hygiene promotion and education activities for the population and ensured that it is put into practice for the prevention of various water-borne diseases.

All branches, in close contact with the HQs, paid attention to hygiene promotion for prevention of water and vector borne diseases in wet and dry seasons.

Due to the prolonged heatwave and dry spells, quite many parts of South and North Phyongan Provinces, South Hamgyong Province, South and North Hwanghae Provinces experienced shortage of drinking water and population had to Education of hand-washing for children of kindergarten use contaminated water sources for drinking purposes. Under these circumstances, the RC HQs made sure that its local branches mobilized the RC volunteers in dissemination of proper water treatment and storage messages to every household.

On the occasions of “World Water Day”, “Global Handwashing Day” and “World Toilet Day”, various events were organized by RC province, city and county branches to raise the awareness of the population on the importance of WASH activities. RC branches in Phyongsong City and Yangdok County of South Phyongan Province, Unsan County and Sinuiju City of North Phyongan Province, Yonggwang and Hongwon Counties of South Hamgyong Provinces, Pyoksong and Yontan Counties of North Hamgyong Provinces were particularly active in mobilizing their volunteers for delivering hygiene promotion messages to more than 120,000 people.

The Society, in collaboration with IFRC Country Office, has achieved considerable successes in providing the disaster affected and vulnerable population with safe and clean drinking water and hygiene living conditions through emergency WASH response and development WASH projects.

In line with the Society’s ICRP (Integreted Community Resilience Programme), water supply systems and sanitation Solar water heater installed in the public bath of community facilities were newly constructed or rehabilitated in 6 communites of South and North Phyongan Provinces and South and North Hamgyong Provinces thus providing the vulnerable population with safe and clean drinking water and hygiene living conditions.

The beneficiaries of the WASH intervention are as follows;

Total number of beneficiaries from water supply: 15,385 people in 4,185 households in 6 local

18 communities

Waste water soak pits: 1500 units

Household and communal latrines: 692 units

Solar water heaters: 11 sets

8 rounds of various technical trainings were organized targeting RC branch staff and volunteers for their capacity building on hygiene awareness and on construction, operation and maintenance of community WASH facilities.

A total of 4,890 copies of water and sanitation technical manuals and IEC materials for hygiene promotion were printed and distributed to RC branch staff, technicians and volunteers to help them enhance their technical capacity and hygiene awareness.

Social inclusion

The Society disseminated the fundamental principles of IFRC and the value of humanitarianism among the RC staff and volunteers on occasions of trainings, massive events and distribution of printed materials and ensured that they render services the people without discrimination according to the principle of neutrality, independence and impartiality.

The Society rendered great contribution to social cohesion by ensuring the RC staff and volunteers to keep the people-centered principle in their activities and inspiring people with moral traits of helping and leading each other.

The Society paid special attention to RC support for the vulnerable people including the elderly, solo women leading family, orphans and and the disabled while encouraging them to participate in dicision making and voluntary services.

Following the decision adopted in IFRC general assembly to ensure 50 % of female proportion in composition of governance-level, the Society paid attention to raise the voice of women in the public, while prohibiting sexual discrimination and encouraging females’ participation in dicision making and voluntary activities.

5 female RC volunteers were promoted to paid staff of RC branches which is an increase of 10 % in proportion of female staff in composition of 20 RC branches in 2018 and it resulted in a total of 37 female staff among 132 paid staff in the permanent branches.

In addition, the Society provided prosthesis for 2,000 physically disabled people through physical recovery and treatment service in Songrim and Rakrang Physical Rehabilitation Centers.

Strategic Goal 2: Strengthen institutional preparedness and build resilient organization to respond to a variety of natural disasters.

Strategic aims Cumulative total Plan of 2018 Achievements Increase 10 permanent RC branches. 6 3 3 Increase 4,000 RC memberships. 2,813 1,000 716 Preposition emergency response NFIs 15,000 5,000 1,350 (for 25,000 families).

Disaster Response

In 2018, the Society conducted operations to respond to nationwide heat wave, typhoon in Kangwon and South Hamgyong Provinces, and flood in North and South Hwanghae Provinces and achieved success in the reduction of damage due to natural disaster and in stabilization of the livelihood of the people.

In July, 2018, the Society, concerning the sustaining

unprecedented heat wave and severe drought, RC volunteer irrigating drought affected field using mobile water pump mobilized the Red Cross branches at all levels and conducted operation in cities and counties of South Phyongan and South Hamgyong Provinces to reduce loss of life due to heat wave and damage to crops due to drought. This operation was conducted for 15 days with the participation of 50 odd staff of Red Cross headquarters and branches and over 300 Red Cross volunteers. Irrigation equipment like mobile water pumps and sprinklers and transportation means like tiller and tractors were mobilized. The Red Cross staff, in close cooperation with the local government authority staff and community people, took measures to secure water

20 sources and irrigate the most severely affected fields and to let community people avoid the damage due to heat wave.

In August, 2018, the Society, concerning the disaster in Kangwon and South Hamgyong Provinces due to typhoon and the flood in South and North Hwanghae Provinces due to torrential rain, mobilized some 80 Red Cross staff and 4 100 Community people and RC volunteer doing arrangement work in the volunteers to conduct emergency response destroyed house operation such as early warning and evacuation, search and rescue, transportation of wounded, first aid and hygiene promotion and at the same time conducted damage and need assessment. The distribution of non food items followed and it has helped stabilize the livelihood of the disaster affected people. Together with this, hygiene promotion trainings, first aid and ECV trainings were conducted and measures to avoid secondary damage among the disaster affected people were taken. After the emergency response operation, the Red Cross branches at all levels are rendering active cooperation to the effort of the government to remove all the traces of disaster and to rehabilitate or reconstruct public buildings, dwelling houses and infrastructure.

It also replenished the NFIs distributed during the three emergency operations.

Through various trainings, workshops and practical exercises, it let NDRT and PDRT members, Red Cross members and volunteers, and disaster management staff numbering more than 900 possess capability to satisfactorily conduct emergency relief, WASH, Health and rescue activities during disasters.

In close cooperation with IFRC, it revised flood contingency plan and let the provincial branches revise the existing flood contingency plans.

The Society strengthened the coordination with stakeholders like SCEDM, CSB, SHMA and Ministry of People’s Security during emergency and enhanced rapidness and efficiency of emergency relief operation by organizing pre-disaster meeting and discussing the issues on strengthening relationship and cooperation with government stakeholders during emergencies and allotment of responsibility of government stakeholders and the Red Cross Society in disaster prevention and emergency relief operations. 21

Health in Emergency

This year, the Society experienced severe and frequent natural and man made disasters such as flood, drought, typhoon, landslide and influenza caused by climate change.

In many parts of the country, the temperature dropped down to - 30 ℃in winter and recorded 40 ℃ in summer. This unusual and abnormal weather patterns brought about negative impact on health sector and the most vulnerable people were the elderly, pregnant and lactating women, children, disabled and the sick people.

Influenza A (H1N1) response

Early this year, there was an outbreak of Influenza A (H1N1) throughout the country due to severe cold weather and the state of emergency was declared. The Ministry of Public Health (MoPH) officially informed that a total of 126,574 influenza like illness (ILI) cases were reported from 1 December 2017 to 16 January RC volunteer conducting surveillance through household visit 2018 and 81,640 cases among them were Ponghung ri, Kumya county, South Hamgyong Province, Jan 2018 Photo ; DPRK RCS confirmed as Influenza A (H1N1) with 4 cases dead.

The Society with technical support from the IFRC and in close collaboration with the MoPH, conducted emergency health activities to combat the spread of influenza and to protect the helath of the people. 550 RC volunteers were newly trained on influenza and epidemic control and they conducted health and hygiene promotion activities among the population to let them be aware of the symptoms of influenza and take prevention measures themselves.

In South and North Phyongand Provinces and South Hamgyong Province which are of highest risk, a total of 800 RC volunteers, with support from the community health workers, reached out 143, 137

22 population from January to June, 2018 and delivered key messages for simple prevention and cure of influenza. The core activities of RC volunteers went beyond health promotion and covered surveillance, early detection, disinfection and referral. Recognizing the need to scale up protection and prevention, the Society provided RC volunteers stretching out to the remote communities for health front line health workers and RC volunteers with promotion on influenza, Suhung-ri, Hamju County, South Hamgyong Province Jan, 2018 Photo : DPRK RCS the personal protective equipments (PPE) and supplied means of communication and transport such as bicycles, loudspeakers and IEC materials to the active RC volunteers for expanded health education. Considering that children were most vulnerable to influenza, the Society also put emphasis on educational facilities including nurseries, kindergartens and schools and provided 6,000 cakes of soap for frequent and proper hand washing.

As a result, 605,174 local population directly benefited by emergency health interventions and the role of the RC rendered great contribution to the prevention of spread of influenza and was highly appreciated by the government and the public.

Heat wave and drought response

DPRK was badly affected by heatwave from 11 July, 2018 and the health consequences including sunstroke, heatstroke, cardiovascular and skin diseases increased. In accordance with the emergency response plan developed in close collaboration with the IFRC, the Society made health RC volunteer delivering simple preventive messages for sunstroke in the focus group discussion, Onjong ri, Songchon County, South interventions in four target communities which were Phyongan Province, July 2018 Photo : DPRK RCS heavily affected by the disaster. 60 RC volunteers and 30 community health workers were trained on prevention and cure of sunstroke and 185 RC volunteers were mobilized from August to October and reached out 11, 867 local population for health education. With technical support from the MoPH, the Society developed a new IEC material “Let’s prevent sunstroke and heatstroke”. 800 copies were printed and distributed to the RC volunteers for health promotion.

13, 768 people directly benefited from the RC health interventions in this particular operation.

Typhoon response

Heatwave was followed by Typhoon Soulik at the end of August 2018. Kowon County of South Hamgyong Province and Munchon City of Kangwon Province were the most heavily affected areas.

The Society, in close collaboration with the MoPH and the IFRC made various health interventions.

At the early stage of emergency response, 190 RC volunteers were immediately mobilized for search and rescue, FA with psychological support, ECV and evacuation. In order to enhance the capacity of the RC branches and communities concerned, the Society gave trainings to 60 RC volunteers on FA including psychological support, nutrition and epidemic control. To help RC volunteers refresh their RC volunteer delivering health messages on prevention of epidemic, Munchon City, Kangwon Province, August 2018, knowledge and ensure qualitative health promotion, Photo : DPRK RCS

250 copies of IEC materials were printed and distributed to the RC volunteers in the target communities. The RC volunteers transmitted key health messages including FA, epidemic control and nutrition to more than 9,769 local population from August to November, 2018.

Bearing in mind that the role of the FA posts is crucial in times of natural disasters as well as in daily accidents, FA refill kits including FA kits, stretcher, FA backpack were distributed to 12 FA posts in the two target communities and the refresher training on FA was given to the first aiders.

More than 13,529 local people directly benefited from health interventions in typhoon operation.

Flood and landslide response

Before the country was fully recovered from the aftereffects of heatwave and typhoon, DPRK was again badly affected by flood and landslide. Among many affected areas, the Society, in its emergency response, focused on Kumchon County, South Hwanghae Province, one of the most affected areas in the country. RC volunteer offering basic FA service to the injured person in time of landslide, Kumchon County, North Hwanghae Province, Sept 2018 Photo : DPRK RCS Based on the experiences acquired and the lessons learnt from the previous disasters, the Society together with the IFRC made immediate and prompt health interventions. FA kits were provided to 165 RC volunteers in all, 75 RC volunteers who were mobilized at the early stage of the response and 90 newly trained RC volunteers. FA refill kits A grandma and her grandson visiting RC FA post for service, and 165 sets of various printed materials were Kumchon County,North Hwanghae Province, Sept 2018 Photo : DPRK RCS provided to 6 FA posts. As a result, the capacity of the RC volunteers was enhanced and 10 650 people benefited from health interventions.

It is likely that climate change will continue to occur and thus its impact on the health sector is anticipated to grow further. In order to better cope with the possible disasters due to climate change, the Society will continue to give priority to building up the health in emergency capacity.

Emergency WASH response

The Society operated 2 mobile water treatment units in Munchon City, Kangwon Province for 2 weeks between August 27 and September 11, 2018 and provided 80,000 literes of safe water to flood victims after the Typhoon Soulik hit the eastern coast of the country.

At the same time, the Society installed 50 temporary latrines for the flood victims living in temporary shelters.

RC volunteers conducting emergency WASH relief activities in Munchon City, Kangwon Province, September 2018 9 월 Furthermore, the Society distributed non food items consisting of 1 300 family hygiene boxes, 8600 jerrycans, 58 000 water purification tablets, 4 tons of cholorine powder and 20 000 cakes of body soaps to flood and landslide victims in Kowon County of South Hamgyong Province, Munchon City of Kangwon Province, Phyongsan County and Kumchon County of North Hwanghae Province to stabilize the livelihood of the victims and to prevent disease and improve their health status.

Strategical Gaol 3: Red Cross Soceity to be developed as the main humanitarian entity

1. Reinforcement of its legal base

The working group, which was organized at the headquarters in June, 2017 to enhance the capacity of the Society in accordance with requirements of the developing situation, has continued to subdivide the articles of Law on Red Cross Society. An advisory group consisted of one member from Central Committee of Red Cross Society and another one from the Standing Committee of the Supreme People’s Assembly is running from October, 2018.

2. Capacity building of Communication

The Society, recognizing the importance of communication in improving the Red Cross dissemination and ensuring sustainability of Red Cross services, has paid deep attendtion to it and made great efforts to improve the general communication capacity of the headquarters and branch staff.

The Society has updated its communication strategy and organized communication workshops to improve the general understanding of Red Cross branch staff on communication activities and its 26 importance.

The Society organized meaningful events on several occasions including the World Red Cross and Red Crescent Day, the foundation day of the DPRK Red Cross Society and the World First Aid Day and the mass media were invited to take part in it. These events became important opportunity to promote the Red Cross activities to the public and to raise social attention on the Red Cross.

The Society has promoted the Geneva Convention and its additional protocols, and raised the awareness on the Red Cross by distributing the Red Cross souvenirs and publications.

The Society has set up its website to promote its activities and strengthen the relationship with other national societies.

3. Organizational development and capacity building

Volunteer management

In 2018, the Society printed and distributed 500 copies of newly developed guideline “Personal Protection in Emergencies” to RC staff and volunteers through branch network. It trained 100 RC branch staff and volunteer leaders on safer access and provided 250 sets of personal protection equipment to RC staff and volunteers to ensure their safety in emergency operation.

46 150 RC staff and volunteers across the country were newly trained or refreshed through various training opportunities including the experience sharing workshop for the ICRP target communities, technical training for the RC governance body and branch staff and the volunteer management training. 147 professional staff from disaster management departments of local governments actively cooperated with the Society for the training of the RC volunteers.

2 provincial level and 5 county level RC branches were provided with equipment and IEC materials necessary for volunteer training and annual reviews on the activities of RC volunteer were conducted in the RC branches at all levels.

The following shows the county-level RC branches promoted into permenant ones.

● Hongwon County RC branch in South Hamgyong Province

● Unsan County RC branch in North Phyongan Province

● Tongrim County RC branch in North phyongan Province

As a result, the organizational structure and human resource of the Society were strengthened, with an increase in the number of the permenant branches from 17 to 20 and the paid staff from 173 to 188.

Red Cross branch staff and volunteers of 7 counties and cities of 4 provinces, namely Kowon County of South Hamgyong Province, Munchon City of Kangwon Province, Haeju City of South Hwanghae Province, Kaesong City, Phyongsan County, Jangpung County and Kumchon County of North Hwanghae Province took part in the trainings on emergency response and improved their skills to rapidly respond to natural disasters.

Youth engagement

12 RC youth dissemination teams were organized in 12 senior middle schools in South Hamgyong Province and North and South Phyongan Provinces and were provided with musical instruments, RC youth uniforms. Trainings were given to the members of the dissemination teams. They contributed to raising public awareness on Red Cross through dissemination activities targeting 85,230 population.

In a total, 36,850 of RC youth members were trained on First Aid and some 6,800,000 trees were planted on mountains by 45,300 RC youth members.

26,400 of RC youth members were mobilized for hygiene promotion, road safety dissemination and awareness raising of the community people through art performances.

Strengthened International Cooperation

The Society has contributed to enhancing the solidarity within the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement and its consolidation through closer partnership and exchange with the IFRC, ICRC and Red Cross and Red Crescent Socities across the world.

The delegations from the DPRK RCS have attended EA 5+ RC Leadership Meeting convened in HongKong in March and the 10th IFRC AP Conference in Manila, Philipines in November 2018.

In 2018, the Society has continuously built up the collaboration with traditional partner national societies like Swedish RC, Norwegian RC, German RC, British RC and Danish RC and expanded the

28 bilateral exchange and cooperation with Italian RC and Spanish RC to implement the respective MoUs on mutual cooperation signed in 2017.

The MoU on sistering relationship between Toscana Chapter of Italian RC and South Hamgyong Provincial Branch, DPRK RCS has been updated so as to ensure the closer tie of two national socieitesthroughout this year.

The DPRK RCS CAS meeting held in Berlin, Germany in October 2018 was of a great significance to further strengthen the partnership with the CAS member national societies and other national socities in bilateral relations.

The presidents from Norwegian RC and Swedish RC made visits to the DPRK in 2018 and their visits helped enhance the future sisterhood relations with the DPRK RCS.

New Zealand RC delegation led by Ms. Jennifer McMahon, former president of NZRC, paid a visit to Pyongyang in July, 2018. During the visit, matters of mutual interests were discussed and the partnership framework was signed between the two national societies.

The cooperation between the DPRK RCS and ICRC has progressed one step forward this year.

Two organizations have made efforts to broaden the cooperation for humanitarian operations in DPRK based on the legitimate grounds of “MoU on Partnership Framework between the DPRK RCS and ICRC” signed last November.

The Physical Rehabiliation Centres of Songrim and Rakrang have been supported with interventions necessary for infrastructure renovation, and the production and fitting of prosthetic and orthotic devices and physiotherapy for around 2000 disabled people were carried out successfully.

Two digital X-ray machines imported by the ICRC were donated respectively to South Hamgyong Provincial People’s Hospital and Kaesong Municipal People’s Hospital to step up the technical inputs into incredible improvement of diagnostic and curative services for patients.

The water and habitat project at Unhak-dong, Kaesong City has completed and reached out a total of 3500 families and it brought about remarkable reduction of water-borne disease morbidities among benefeciary population. A similar project targeting 12000 households has begun at Up-town of Jongpyong County of South Hamgyong Province and significant progress was achieved.

The ICRC has provided the technical and material support to Ministry of People’s Security for working out and publishing the visual aid for public promotion on first aid to blast injuries caused by explosive devices, creating a big step ahead for safer and more effective disposal of explosive ordnances.

The ICRC intiative has been successfully undertaken to build up the capacities of national society in areas of organizational development, emergency response, communication and resource mobilization as indicated in the MoU on partnership framework between two organizations.

The HQs staff and experts from other technical institutions in DPRK have been invited to local and oversease trainings and study tours on such topics as IHL, PRP, health, WEC, tracing and dead body management for their improved technical skills at large.

The DPRK RCS and ICRC have made the detailed discussions to further enhance the cooperation in the field of IHL and conducted the preparatory work to initiate the EcoSec project next year.

The tangible advance has been created on the way of strengthening the partnership between the DPRK RCS and GO Medical, its traditional partner, as an important opportunity for consolidating the material and technical bases of various health institutions in cities of Pyongyang, Nampo and Anju.

2018 DPRK RC CAS meeting was held in Berlin, Germany from 23rd to 24th Oct. 2018. Present in the meeting were the CAS partners like Norweigian RC, German RC, Danish RC, Swedish RC, British RC, Italian RC, Finnish RC, South Korean RC, IFRC and the DPRK RCS. Netherland RC, Janpanese RC, Russian RC and Qatar RC also participated in the meeting with their due attention on the cooperations with the DPRK RCS. Present there were also the Director and Deputy Director of IFRC Asia Pacific Regional Office and some representatives from ICRC. The 2018 annual operation and emergency relief operation which contributed to the implementation of the DPRK RCS 2016-2020 Strategy were reviewed in the meeting. The participants had the open and in-depth discussions on the experiences and lessons learnt while implementing the 2018 annual plan in the participatory and sectoral meetings. The CAS partners and other participating NSs expressed their willingness to continue the cooperation and support to the ICRP, OD, Communication 30

and RM next year too. The highlight of this CAS meeting was the discussion on the UN sanctions imposed on the DPRK which have created negative impacts on the humanitarian activities in the country. Every participant agreed to join the efforts for advocating to lift the unjust sanctions which hurdle the humanitarian works in DPRK.

Key co-workers with DPRK RCS during 2018 Local partners –State Committee for Emergency and Disaster Management, Minitry of Public Health, Commission of Education, Ministry of People’s Security, Ministry of Land and Environment Protection, Ministry of Urban Management, State Hydrometeorological Agency, Central Bureau of Statistics, Ministry of Finance, Youth League, Women’s Union, State Academy of Science International partners – IFRC, ICRC, CAS members (Norwegian RC, Swedish RC, Danish RC, British RC, German RC, Italian RC, Spanish RC, Canadian RC, South Korean RC), Australian RC, New Zealand RC.

Efficiency of 2018 activity

UN Sustainable Development Goal

1 Billion Coalition for Resilience

DPRK RCS Strategic Plan 2020

NS Annual Operational Plan

Inter-related Chart between 2016-2020 Strategic plan and

UN sustainable development goal

2. Analysis of the situation 2.1 SWOT analysis - external threats and opportunities Opportunities Threats Government concern and investments for Natural disasters such as flood, typhoon, tidal waves, improvement of people’s livelihood has ever landslides, heavy rains and heatwave are increasing increased. due to climate change. Government prioritized on development of Political-military environment surrounding Korean national economy and took measures for it. Peninsula is unstable and extreme sanctions on economy and finance by external bodies ever deteriorates people’s livelihood and the economic development. Law on Disaster Prevention, Relief and The national economy has not yet fully recovered Recovery was revised and state institution for affected by the chronic shortage of food and energy DRR was established putting land and and the climate change. environment protection including the reforestation on the first government agenda. 2.2: SWOT analysis – internal strength and weakness S- Strength • Strong legal base and full support from authorities and communities • Committed leadership and well-recognized organizational and operational capacity • Integrated community based activities and committed volunteer management and youth W- Weakness • High dependency on external funds for major programmes due to shortfalls of fund raising capacity • Low public relation and communications capacity. • Imbalanced branch capacity and volunteer management between different areas. 2.3: Stakeholder analysis (the below table represents the collaborative relationship with key stakeholders per programmes .) Communi Internation Key stakeholders DRM Health WASH OD cation al and RM State Committee for emergency and / Disaster Management Ministry for land and environment / / protection Ministry of Public / Health State Academy of / Sciences Ministry of City / Management Education / / Commission

Ministry of / Agriculture Agriculture Research / Institute Hydrometeorological / Bureau Central Bureau of / Statistics Ministry of People’s / Security Women’s League / Youth League /

The Fundamental Principles of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement

Humanity The International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement, born of a desire to bring assistance without discrimination to the wounded on the battlefield, endeavours, in its international and national capacity, to prevent and alleviate human suffering wherever it may be found. Its purpose is to protect life and health and to ensure respect for the human being. It promotes mutual understanding, friendship, cooperation and lasting peace amongst all peoples.

Impartiality It makes no discrimination as to nationality, race, religious beliefs, class or political opinions. It endeavours to relieve the suffering of individuals, being guided solely by their needs, and to give priority to the most urgent cases of distress.

Neutrality In order to enjoy the confidence of all, the Movement may not take sides in hostilities or engage at any time in controversies of a political, racial, religious or ideological nature.

Independence The Movement is independent. The National Societies, while auxiliaries in the humanitarian services of their governments and subject to the laws of their respective countries, must always maintain their autonomy so that they may be able at all times to act in accordance with the principles of the Movement.

Voluntary service It is a voluntary relief movement not prompted in any manner by desire for gain.

Unity There can be only one Red Cross or Red Crescent Society in any one country. It must be open to all. It must carry on its humanitarian work throughout its territory.

Universality The International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement, in which all societies have equal status and share equal responsibilities and duties in helping each other, is worldwide