B) Plan d’action
The primary pillar to ensure the sustainability of the Lebanese Red Cross in the coming years is cost-recovery, primarily for the key national services: pre-hospital emergency care, blood transfusion services and primary healthcare:
– Blood transfusion services: today the Lebanese Red Cross operates the only blood transfusion system in the world that is purely based on donations to cover the costs. This is an absurd system given that hospitals are billing patients/insurance companies for the cost of blood units. The key stakeholders all accept the concept of cost-recovery from hospitals which would allow the Lebanese RC to stop relying on donations and international aid to sustain a vital public service in Lebanon. There is a good chance that this will be implemented within the next two years.
– Pre-hospital emergency care: typically, national authorities, local authorities, and/or insurance companies cover all or some of the costs of ambulance services. In Lebanon it is currently only based on donations and international aid. LRC aims to lobby with the relevant stakeholders to build a cost-recovery system for its ambulance service.
– Primary healthcare: LRC already has a tradition of cost-recovery based on voluntary minimal contributions from patients, for its primary healthcare services. As part of the ongoing scale-up in primary healthcare, LRC is seeking to standardize and improve the cost-recovery system, which could cover about 30% of costs, and to obtain accreditation which could ensure provision of medications from the Lebanese Ministry of Health in the future, thus covering more than 35% of costs.
The second pillar of sustainability is the fundraising capacity of the LRC, which includes:
– Corporate partnerships and donations
– Individual giving
– Diaspora giving
– Emergency fundraising
LRC is currently building its corporate fundraising capacities and investing in individual giving with the aim of raising at least 2.5 million USD per year from local and diaspora fundraising by 2026.
The third pillar of sustainability is institutional funding which LRC is constantly striving to secure through its Movement partners and through bilateral agreements with 3rd party institutions. Due to the economic crisis, there is currently an over-reliance on this pillar.
C) Indicateurs permettant de mesurer les avancées:
– Number of individual giving donors
– Increased funds
– Sustainability of the NS
D) Ressources nécessaires:
– support of the NS
– sharing experiences and others