International Federation of Red Cross & Red Cross Societies

The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) is a membership organisation, consisting of the world’s 192 National Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, acting through more than 160,000 local branches or offices and with 14 million community-based volunteers. They are supported by the IFRC Secretariat, which works to support, coordinate and represent the action of National Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies worldwide. Together, the members and their Secretariat are known as the “IFRC network”. 

Each National Red Cross and Red Crescent Society is an independent national organisation dedicated to saving lives, promoting community health, safety resilience and well-being, and building inclusive societies. As auxiliaries to the public authorities in the humanitarian field, National Societies support their authorities to reduce risks, protect human dignity, delivery assistance and improve the lives of vulnerable people, while always acting in conformity with the Fundamental Principles. 

Their unparalleled local presence, combined with the IFRC Secretariat’s role in global coordination and response, brokering knowledge, strengthening capacities, mobilising resources and representation, form the world’s largest and most effective humanitarian network. 

In the Americas, the IFRC Secretariat is organized through a group of support services and technical functions, and geographical configurations of Country Cluster Delegations and Country Delegations. The Country Cluster Delegation (CCD) in Port of Spain (POS) covers 13 countries in the Dutch- and English-speaking Caribbean. Three main teams assist, support, and advise national red cross societies: programmes, operations and CADRIM. In turn, these teams are supported by ancillary services such as human resources, finance, and administration.