Regional Office for North Africa

What is its history? The Federation office for North Africa is based in Tunis and covers five countries: Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya and Egypt. North Africa is one of the three sub-regions of the MENA region - the other two being the Middle East and the Gulf. The office is reporting to the Secretariat (regional Head of MENA Department)

What is its mission? The office represents the Federation in the sub-Region. It supports, advises, and helps to fund the activities of the four neighbouring societies.

What does it do? Following priorities highlighted through regular Consultation Meetings of North African National Society leaders, the Federation strengthened its office in Tunis to provide the necessary technical expertise to follow-up and support various program initiatives started in North Africa during the last two years, especially in Disaster Management, Health and Care (HIV/AIDS) and Organizational Development (Youth, Branch Development, Gender). Its delegates organise training, help North African Red Crescent Societies to build capacity, support emergency operations and liase with other international, national and voluntary organizations in the sub-Region.

How is it structured? It currently consists of one Head of Delegation, one Disaster Management Delegate two local staff based in Tunis and one Project Coordinator based in Algiers to support Algerian RC after the devastating earthquake in May 2003. The Tunis Office is working closely with other Federation Regional Offices/delegations sharing resources (Middle East Regional Office (Anglophones countries), West Africa Regional Delegation (Francophone countries) but also National Societies operating bilaterally in the region) in the areas of Organizational Development, Health & Care, Communication /Information, Finance and Reporting. When needed, additional expertise is used through hiring short term consultants for specific tasks.

Does it have partners? The Regional Office works closely with other RC/RC Partners (ICRC and PNS operating bilaterally, mainly French, Spanish Swiss RC) as well with other entities, including ministries (Ministry of Health, Civil Defence, Ministry of Environment, Ministry of Education) , UN agencies (UNDP, UNICEF, WHO, UNAIDS, UNFPA), regional organizations (EMRO, Mediterranean Centre for Reduction of Vulnerability, ALESCO), other humanitarian organizations and embassies. The Private sector has been recently approached (Ericsson, DHL, State Oil Companies). Positive developments are followed up.