Together We Stand

[ 105 ] The Philippines: partnerships for humanitarian action Jesus RS Domingo, Assistant Secretary for United Nations and International Organizations, Department of Foreign Affairs, the Philippines T he Philippines has faced a wide array of humanitarian crises, ranging from typhoons at home to civil strife overseas. In the midst of these challenges, Filipinos have been noted for their strong sense of resilience and adaptability, ability to learn from crisis, and development of coping mechanisms. A key lesson is the need for strengthened and innovative partnerships. Such partnerships developed by the Philippines span from the global to the local, synergizing a diverse spectrum of dynamic humanitarian stakeholders. Multisectoral partnership is firmly embedded as a principle in Philippine governance. Moving away from traditional top-down and north-south dynamics, the Philippines and its external supporters emphasize partnership rather than donorship in their relations. The Philippine Government also benefits from partner- ship with other national stakeholders, the country having one of the world’s most vibrant, empowered and diverse civil societies, a large and caring diaspora, and an engaged private sector. The Philippines and the multilateral humanitarian system enjoy a robust partnership. The United Nations is well represented through its country team inManila, and has helped to develop the country’s disaster risk reduction and management (DRRM) and peace process efforts. Other international agencies, including the World Bank, Asian Development Bank, International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC), International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), the International Organization onMigration (IOM) and leading international non- governmental organizations have strong partnerships with the Philippine Government and civil society. The Philippines is steadily developing its own DRRM capabili- ties for both natural and man-made crises. However, with the sheer number and scale of natural disasters visiting the country, the Philippines has partnered on a number of occasions with the international community inmanaging response to such disasters. When the Philippine Government requests external assis- tance after a major disaster strikes, international partners join the Humanitarian Country Team (HCT) led by the local United Nations Resident Coordinator, supported by the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA). The HCT coordinates external intergovernmental, governmental and non-governmental organization assistance. The Government’s Peace Process in the Southern Philippines takes the approach of collaborative partnership, addressing the wide range of political, social and economic concerns of its interlocutors. The process has enlisted a wide range of international institutional partners, particularly the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation. International assistance for Supertyphoon Haiyan (Yolanda) which hit the Philippines in November 2013 was one of the largest humanitarian response operations for a natural disaster in recent history. International assistance came from the entire spectrum of the humanitarian community — multilateral, regional and bilateral; civil and military; governmental and non- governmental. Within the Philippines itself assistance came to the affected areas from provinces and towns across the country. An important DRRM partnership concept successfully adapted by the Philippines, particularly for disaster response, is the Inter-Agency Standing Committee’s humanitarian cluster approach (HCA). The core idea of the HCA is partnership— the various humanitarian response ‘spokes of the wheel’ func- tions are government-led partnerships between the concerned national and international agencies. For example, the health cluster is led by the Philippine Department of Health, and is supported by the World Health Organization Country Office. The Philippine Red Cross (PRC) is a strong national society, working closely with the IFRC and ICRC. It is in fact the PRC which has regularly contributed medical teams to assist in disasters overseas, such as the Nepal earthquake in 2015. ICRC and IFRC have partnered with the Philippine Government for Pre-disaster risk assessment leaders and partners confer at the NDRRMC, led by Executive Director Alexander Pama Image: Department of Foreign Affairs, Phillipines T ogether W e S tand