On Wednesday 20 November 2019, the French Red Cross delegation in the Comoros and the French Development Agency (AFD) signed an agreement strengthening their community healthcare partnership.

Comoros Red Crescent (CoRC) works actively in the Union of the Comoros in the fields of youth, first aid, health, water & sanitation, disaster risk management, vulnerability assessment and community capacity building.

On 22 July, France and the Union of the Comoros renewed their cooperation through an ambitious €150 million development plan that includes a significant health component (€44 million).

As part of this initiative, Director of Operations at AFD Paris Jean-Pierre Marcelli, and the French Red Cross delegation head in Comoros, David Boisson, signed on Wednesday 20 November a €1 million financing agreement that will help strengthen the quality of healthcare provision in the Union of Comoros. This project is in line with the actions carried out by the French Red Cross and Comoros Red Crescent, in particular the Programme to Support and Strengthen Public and Community Healthcare Systems (PASCO3), funded by AFD over the past three years.

FRC will be able to count on CoRC to implement this project, and the latter will develop the following actions:

  • community-level promotion of first aid and changing hygiene behaviour
  • improving provision of primary healthcare in the health districts of Mrémani and Pomoni on Anjouan, and Mbadjini-Est on Grande Comore.

These actions are scheduled to start in January 2020. Through its implementation of first aid training and awareness-raising actions on the issue of hospital hygiene and biomedical maintenance, the programme will reach 148,000 beneficiaries.

As member of the PIROI programme, the French Red Cross also supports CoRC through prevention, preparedness, and emergency response programmes, in particular for cyclone KENNETH which struck in April 2019.