The Seville Agreement --
formally known as "The Agreement on the Organization of the International Activites on the Components of the international Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement".

PREAMBLE

The mission of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement is "to prevent and alleviate human suffering wherever it may be found, to protect life and health, and ensure respect for the human being, in particular in times of armed conflict and other emergencies, to work for the prevention of disease and for the promotion of health and social welfare, to encourage voluntary service and a constant readiness to give help by the members of the Movement, and a universal sense of solidarity towards all those in need of its protection and assistance".

The accomplishment of this common mission calls for the combined efforts and participation of all the components of the Movement. To respond with speed, flexibility and creativity to the needs of all those calling for impartial humanitarian protection and assistance, the components must join their forces and capitalize on their diversity. To achieve that goal through effective collaboration in a spirit of mutual trust, to ensure an efficient mobilization of resources, the components must therefore, based on a clear sense of purpose and their common mission, organize their international activities on a sound and predictable basis. This implies observance of the Fundamental Principles and of the Statutes of the Movement, and a synergetic cooperation, coupled with a clear division of labour, among components having distinct but closely related and complementary roles and competencies.

This Agreement is more than an instrument of operational management or a statement of understanding. It sets into motion a profound change in attitude between members of the same Movement: the adoption of a collaborative spirit, in which every member of the Movement values the contributions of other members as partners in a global humanitarian enterprise. It is an agreement on cooperation and not merely on a division of labour, and it applies to all those international activities which, under the Movement's Statutes, the components are called upon to carry out in close collaboration. It establishes clear guidelines for the performance of tasks by Movement members, using the specific areas of competence and the complementary capacities of each to best effect. It provides for continuity of activities as situations change, and aims at fostering among the components a stronger sense of identity, of solidarity, of mutual trust and of shared responsibility. With those objectives set out, this Agreement on the organization of the international activities of the Movement's components constitutes an essential element of a new common strategy of action that will allow the components to achieve three important goals :
- to provide more effective response to humanitarian needs using to best effect the Movement's many resources;
- to promote better respect for humanitarian principles, and for international humanitarian law;
-to create a stronger International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement in which all components cooperate to the optimum extent.

For Part l -- General
For Part ll -- International Relief Activities
For Part lll -- Strengthening of the Movement (Development and Functional Cooperation
For Part lV -- Implementation and Final Provisions
For the full text of the Seville Agreement
For the accompanying Resolutions

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