New partnership with Australian Red Cross

Today I announce a new four year partnership with the Australian Red Cross to build on our close collaboration and provide a more targeted approach to reaching our region's most vulnerable people.

Australia has successfully worked with the Australian Red Cross for the past 40 years, including most recently in rapid and large-scale responses to humanitarian crises in Vanuatu and Nepal.

The new partnership will draw on our joint expertise and experience to address development issues and prepare for and better respond to humanitarian emergencies.

The $38.5 million in additional funding will be invested in programs that focus on women and girls, risk resilience in major cities, disaster preparedness and the prepositioning of humanitarian relief supplies in the Pacific.

The partnership will also allow the Australian Red Cross to continue its own community-based international volunteer programs in support of these outcomes.

Partnering with the Australian Red Cross provides a transparent and accountable means of supporting Red Cross National Societies in our region, which often have the greatest access to vulnerable communities. Since 2010, Australia has helped provide:

• sustainable and safe water to more than 25,000 people;
• health and hygiene support to over 50,000 people;
• first aid training for almost 3,000 people; and
• more than 150 technical specialists deployed to assist in disasters.