The Red Crescent Society of the United Arab Emirates is affiliated with the International Federation of Red Cross. Its main objectives are to conduct Red Cross operations systematically throughout the UAE. The organization was founded in Abu Dhabi in 1983 with the support of the Sheikh Zayed Bin Sultan Al Nahyan. UAE Red Crescent Authority gained international recognition as a member No.: 139 of the International Federation of Red Crescent and Red Cross on 08/27/1986. In 2001, the UAE Red Crescent was voted the number two humanitarian aid agency on Asia’s continent (UAE Red Crescent, 2021).
The organization employs over three million people worldwide, including numerous volunteers involved in humanitarian operations; the corporate head office is located in Abu Dhabi, UAE. The Arab Emirates Red Crescent is a non-profit organization whose primary purpose is volunteer and humanitarian aid. The organization has many objectives, such as publicizing a culture of volunteerism to enhance the interest in voluntary work and development of the authority’s human resource capacity to ensure readiness to respond to humanitarian appeals.
SWOT-analysis
Strengths
The first strength of the UAE Red Crescent is workplace diversity, a substantial advantage for a company that operates internationally. Workplace diversity refers to the fact that since the company runs humanitarian aid programs throughout the UAE and has various forms of cooperation in its remit, it is easier to engage people (Alotaibi, 2020). Individuals can work on short-term projects within or outside their city and on long-term projects both online and offline, and the organization also provides internship opportunities. As it is more difficult for humanitarian organizations to attract people to their company, the diverse forms of cooperation are the main strengths of the organization and enable it to attract a large number of people.
The second strength of the organization is its direct access to primary commodity suppliers, which helps improve the efficiency of the company’s operations. As the UAE Red Crescent is a non-profit organization, it has extensive access to humanitarian resources donated by various foundations (Alotaibi, 2020). Therefore, the organization has an excellent and productive resource to keep operations on track, since in providing diverse humanitarian aid, the company needs to have quick access to resources. This is also facilitated by the fact that the company’s employees are located throughout the country, in almost every city, which means that access to resources is as easy as possible.
Weaknesses
The main weaknesses of the UAE Red Crescent are the following. First, the organization may receive criticism from environmentalists for its substandard waste management practices because it allocates resources to many humanitarian operations daily but fails to monitor these resources at the recycling stage properly. Besides, since the humanitarian aid allocated is most often situational and not monitored in terms of its environmental impact, the organization has been criticized for failing to integrate sustainable development into livelihoods.
The next problem concerns the decision-making, which sometimes takes too much time, causing extensive delays in the provision of humanitarian aid. As the organization operates at the national level and has a direct link to the International Red Cross, the approval of humanitarian aid decisions sometimes takes an exceptionally long time. In situations where such aid is required in unstable political or social conditions, the circumstances there are very dynamic and sometimes require an immediate decision.
Opportunities
The development of new technologies to facilitate the delivery of services can be used to drive innovation in an organization’s operations. Modern technological integration can reduce costs, increase efficiency and lead to the rapid introduction of innovative technologies to deliver fast and quality humanitarian aid. The UAE Red Crescent is active in developing new assistance strategies and processes by taking advantage of new developments in technology (Afoweso, Guleid & Bamidele, 2017). This will enable the organization to improve its efficiency in the long term.
Also, one of the main opportunities of the organization is the popularization of the volunteer movement among the younger generation of the population. As awareness of global youth issues is proliferating, volunteer organizations are gaining popularity. This surge of young and creative workers is primarily an opportunity to scale the company. Besides, this is the impetus for introducing a greater variety of forms of cooperation with the company, which is also the impetus for expansion. Moreover, young people can try themselves in different areas of cooperation through various internships, which further attracts them to the organization.
Threats
One of the main threats for the UAE Red Crescent is the Shortage of skilled labor in the market, making it difficult for the organization to attract workers with the proper skill set. The organization needs qualified people from various sectors to volunteer and provide humanitarian assistance (Al Saraidi, Afoweso & Dolan, 2020). Because qualified doctors, for example, prefer to stay in one place rather than get involved in voluntary projects, the organization is sometimes short of such specialists. The same is true for teachers, food technologists, and sociologists. Volunteer projects mostly attract young people who are just starting their professional development path and sometimes do not have sufficient qualifications to work in projects. Therefore, the organization has to recruit new specialists constantly, but with an emphasis on the required qualifications.
In another way, a threat to the organization is the global rise in inflation, which exacerbates the economic situation around the world. On the one hand, this is a threat because an increasing variety of aid is required for the impoverished groves of the population, which requires an additional expenditure of resources (Al Saraidi, Afoweso & Dolan, 2020). On the other hand, it is also a threat because the Red Cross is dependent on donations from various foundations, and economic difficulties may cause shortages of resources and even a deficit in the future.
Competitive Advantage
In order to increase the efficiency of the organization, it is worth taking the following steps. Firstly, to avoid criticism and be in line with today’s environmental views, the company should pay more attention to recycling waste. Also, the Red Cross should develop a strategy to track the further expenditure of humanitarian aid once the host party directly receives it. This will help control the process at all stages and avoid possible negative consequences for the environment in the form of non-recycling and ensure that the aid provided is received as intended. Secondly, in addition to the Red Cross’s existing decision-making apparatus, it would be worth introducing a rapid response system that would allow quicker access to situations requiring urgent action. Such a system will make it possible to react more quickly to emerging situations and avoid wasting valuable time.
References
Alotaibi, H. J. M. (2020). Impact of strategic planning and innovation on organizational performance of the Saudi Red Crescent authority. International Journal of Management Excellence, 14(3), 2095-2108.
Al Saraidi, A. S., Afoweso, N. & Dolan, T. C. (2020). Volunteering in the United Arab Emirates’ health system—Motivations and challenges. Health, 12(4). Web.
Awofeso, N., Guleid, M., & Bamidele, M. (2017). Perceptions and motivations of volunteers in the United Arab Emirates: Health services’ implications. World Wide Journal of Multidisciplinary Research and Development, 3(9), 23-32.
Emirates Red Crescent. (2021). Web.