Program goal:  Healthy people in resilient communities Objective 1: Health 1.1. Integrated Health Program: Contribute to improved WASH, nutrition and access to and quality of Primary Health Care (PHC) at the district and provincial levels in Luang Prabang through tackling key determinants of health. The SRC supported project is implemented by two partners, namely the Provincial Health Department of Luang Prabang and the Lao Red Cross. The project applies a Life-Course approach encompassing pregnancy, birth, newborns, infancy, children, adolescents and adulthood, in order to recognize critical periods in life. It also includes a health education package targeted at adolescents and builds on the successful implementation approaches and behavior change components of the earlier projects in schools, communities, and health centers. 1.2. Contribution to Universal Health Coverage and social health protection The SRC continues to contribute to improvements in access to health services, in Lao PDR, through its support of the Government’s strategy of Universal Health Coverage (UHC) and by strengthening the health system. Its support to UHC includes:

• contributing to health sector reform with focus on the health financing and governance & management pillars, and developing, innovative approaches to social health protection schemes with a focus on services for the poor and vulnerable
• improving quality assurance of the social health protection schemes countrywide through policy support, subsidies for services by poor and vulnerable people, technical assistance with monitoring, analysis and verification
• empowering communities to define their health needs and to claim access to health services and
• linking those communities with the public health services.

The SRC continues to work at the national level with the Ministry of Health and the National Health Insurance Bureau (NHIB) and with the Provincial and District Health Insurance Bureau’s (PHIB & DHIB) in all provinces of the country. 1.3. Blood Safety and Availability The SRC supports the Lao Red Cross’ national blood transfusion service to strengthen the blood collection, processing, and transfusion services. The support project is fully implemented by the LRC National Blood Transfusion Institute (LRC NBTI). Specifically, the project focuses on 1) increasing coverage and improve the quality and quantity of blood collected, processed, and issued through the blood transfusion service in line with national standards and international guidelines, and 2) changing people’s attitudes and behavior towards blood donation to be more active and voluntary, particularly among female donors and employees of private enterprises. Objective 2: Disasters Risk Management The DRM program focuses on supporting disaster response efforts of the Lao Red Cross to assist disaster affected populations. Besides an overall support at LRC Headquarters and in the Luang Prabang province, the focus is initially on Khammuan and Champassak provinces due to existing needs (poverty, risk and incidence of disasters). Main focus: WASH, Health in Emergencies, Emergency Response Objective 3: National Society Development (Lao Red Cross) Lao Red Cross National Society Development (NSD) takes a prominent role in close collaboration with the IFRC. Main thematics: Institutional Preparedness; Project Cycle Management; Financial Management; Volunteer Management Institutional Preparedness: As an initial support, the SRC seeks to strengthen existing capacity of LRC at the central level, through support to Disaster Risk Management (DRM) strategic planning, procedures and contingency planning, as well as National Disaster Response Team (NDRT) training and capacity development in Khammuan and Champassak provinces, and in Luang Prabang. In its program, SRC, together with its partners, will ensure Gender & Diversity, Conflict Sensitivity, Nexus and Leaving No One Behind through careful needs analysis, sound decision making based on facts and figures and through an empowering, inclusive and accountable implementation approach recognizing human and environmental realities. Transversal Go Green Initiative The SRC Lao program aims at institutionalizing and embedding climate and environmental concerns in the way SRC and LRC Laos works (‘institutional greening’) and in SRC supported activities (“green response’). The SRC/LRC Go Green pilot initiative is implemented in both Vientiane and Luang Prabang offices, and partner organizations (LRC and MOH). The initiatives focuses on 1) Green office & green policies and regular self-monitoring and audit (low waste and carbon footprint reducing practices in office and monthly monitoring to check the compliance and progress), 2) Greening of SRC response activities and specific awareness and sensitization with LRC and MOH partners, and local communities, 3) Small grants to local associations and companies that lead green initiatives in Laos.