The International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement on Thursday called on national societies in Asia and the Pacific region to strengthen cooperation to serve humanity effectively.

At the end of a four-day conference in Singapore, the secretary general of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies Markku Niskala, said that "scaling up our work and strategic partnership" was necessary to reduce the number of deaths and injuries caused by disease and disasters.

"The Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement is usually the first to respond to any emergency", he said. "But we also need to find new and better ways of working together, building strong partnerships and mobilizing resources in order to tackle vulnerability, especially in a disaster-prone area like Asia and the Pacific."

The 7th Asia and Pacific Regional Conference brought together more than 200 representatives from 60 Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies from the region, as well as other areas in the world, to discuss ways of making communities stronger and healthier.

Held once every four years, the conference resulted in the Singapore Declaration and outlined the Movement's agenda for the region until 2010.

The Singapore Declaration called for developing further regional cooperation mechanism in disaster management, preparedness, contingency planning and response.

On the topic of health and care, the Declaration said that it is timely and prudent for national societies to expand their response capacities to the challenges, such as avian flu, HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and dengue.

It called for boosting volunteer network, noting that the future of the Movement lies in enthusing youth and volunteers to contribute to the wide spectrum of services that meet the needs of the most vulnerable people.

It also deeply awared the importance of the role of national societies as auxiliaries to the governments, and call on the societies to scale up governance and accountability.

Source: Xinhua