Annual report

Congo
Brazzaville
developed its expertise in data collection with 
the technical support of the IFRC cluster. The 
National Society staff and volunteers developed 
skills in digital data collection tools, data literacy, 
information use and data-driven decision mak-
ing. As a result, they were able to integrate new 
technologies in their advocacy.
176
Annual Report 
2022

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SPOTLIGHT
RISK MANAGEMENT
Risk management is becoming an increasingly 
important part of the humanitarian process - for 
the IFRC’s members, partners and donors, and 
also for the IFRC itself.
In 2022, under the leadership of the Special 
Representative of the Secretary General, the 
IFRC worked with partners to align and improve 
our respective processes for risk management 
and risk reporting, with a view to integrating and 
strengthening these systems while still allowing 
opportunities to be explored and acted upon in 
an agile and risk-informed manner.
This work emerged as a 
legacy from the 
IFRC’s response to COVID-19
. The pandemic 
disrupted the international humanitarian sector 
and demanded entirely new approaches almost 
overnight, many with an increased level of risk.
The experience demonstrated the need for 
a fully integrated and comprehensive risk 
management system across the global IFRC, 
to embed a culture of risk-informed decision 
making, accountability and transparency in all 
offices worldwide.
A new solutions package for risk management 
was developed in the first half of 2022, including 
a Risk Management Policy, IFRC top strategic 
risks, a Country Risk Dashboard, delegation-level 
risk registers, and an annual report for 
Risk Management.
This was an important milestone to support 
management in taking a systematic and pro-
active approach to managing risks to the IFRC’s 
priorities and objectives.
The implementation of the policy will provide the 
IFRC’s Global Leadership Team with an overview 
of the most important risks in their respective 
areas and will inform the annual plans of the 
organization in the future.
Towards the end of 2022, the IFRC launched its 
Circles of Collaboration on risk management. 
This is a forum hosted by the IFRC with the objec-
tive of bringing together National Societies from 
across the world to exchange risk management 
experiences and perspectives for the benefit of 
the network.
Guidance on how the delegations embed risk 
management in the unified planning process 
was also developed and circulated. Through its 
Circles of Collaboration, the IFRC maintains its 
support to the National Societies in developing 
risk management policies and frameworks at 
their level and provision of training. Also, we were 
focused on building and reinforcing a global IFRC 
Risk Management team in the regions and for 
key programmes and operations.
Risk management has also been further embed-
ded in other IFRC strategic initiatives, including 
ForeSEE, the Supply Chain and Fleet Review, the 
evolution of the Disaster Response Emergency 
Fund, the implementation of the organization’s 
Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) initiative, and 
supported the COVID-19 Emergency Appeal until 
its closure.
The new approach to risk has boosted the IFRC’s 
capacity to provide National Societies with 
guidance to support their own integrity and 
risk management systems, making the entire 
network a stronger partner of choice for gov-
ernments, the private sector, and other potential 
collaborators.