Analytical Report: The Budget of the Red Crescent Society is Less than That of Religious Seminaries and State Media

The Open Data Iran database reports that due to climate change and an increase in severe weather events, the frequency of floods and earthquakes in Iran is on the rise. According to official statistics, an average of 1,000 floods and earthquakes have led to Red Crescent operations in Iran each year over the past decade. However, the average number of floods in the second half of the 1390s (Iranian calendar) has been 60% higher than in the first half, increasing from 636 floods between 1390 and 1394 to 1,007 floods between 1395 and 1399. Based on these statistics, nearly 19,000 people were injured due to these events between 1390 and 1399, with over 14,000 of those injuries occurring in the second half of the decade. In addition to floods and earthquakes, an average of over 30,000 rescue operations, including fires, snow and blizzards, road, sea, and coastal incidents, landslides, debris falls, urban incidents, lightning, storms, dust storms, industrial and workshop incidents, etc., have been recorded each year over the past decade. The situation of these incidents is worse in southern Iran, where in 1400, the provinces of Kerman, Sistan and Baluchestan, Fars, and Hormozgan had the highest flood statistics, while Kerman, Hormozgan, Fars, and Khuzestan had the highest earthquake statistics. Despite all this evidence indicating an increase in natural disasters and a greater need for rescue operations, the total current and development budget for the Iranian Red Crescent Society in the 1402 budget law is nearly 7 trillion tomans. In contrast, the total budget for religious seminaries is about twice as much, the projected financial turnover for state media is over three times greater, and the budget for the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps is more than seven times that of the Red Crescent Society. This article is based on a report from the Open Data Iran database.