Actions taken:
The meetings between the BRC and the Belgian authorities, both on the administrative (DGD) and the political (Ministerial cabinet) are frequent and fruitful and take place both on an individual level, as jointly between the two wings of the BRC, together with all other Belgian humanitarian NGO’s. Topics discussed include technical programmatic updates as well as more strategic conversations on topics as migration or how to concretize concepts as localization of aid. BRC has made big steps forward in jointly addressing the authorities during the last year, we aim to upscale these efforts in the years to come.
What concerns DREF and Appeals, the IFRC, BRC and Belgian Authorities have a long-standing practice of setting up quadripartite constructions in which each partner has its role to fulfill. This construction continues to run smooth and leads to a cooperative interaction between IFRC and BRC, allowing the latter to monitor closely the DREF-operations in our respective partner countries and to subsequently advise on operational decisions. Also, the BRC has an essential role in communication on achieved results and the pertinence of DREF/Appeal-structures towards the Belgian public. A recent example was the press release on forgotten disasters and how to fund them, a release which was jointly supported by the BRC and the Belgian authorities and which can be found in annex c of the BRC report.
In the future, the commitment of the BRC is high to continue our structural quadripartite relationship in which we maintain our role as bridgehead between the work of the IFRC versus the Belgian Authorities and public, and to extend this relationship beyond particular DREF and Appeals in order to bring it to higher, more strategic level.
