Together We Stand

[ 83 ] Building resilience through community-driven development Camilo Gudmalin, Undersecretary, Department of Social Welfare and Development; Joel Mangahas, Senior Social Sector Specialist, Human and Social Development Division, Southeast Asia Department, Asian Development Bank; Rowena Mantaring and Maria Priscilla del Rosario, Consultants, Asian Development Bank 1 A n eerie silence muffled by cries of grief and deso- lation echoed in areas where typhoon Yolanda (international name: Haiyan) released her wrath. The future seemed bleak for the poor and vulnerable who bore the brunt of Yolanda’s rage. Given the extent of devastation, recovery and reconstruction — after the immediate relief operations — seemed daunting even for rich countries; what more for a developing one with limited resources? The Asian Development Bank (ADB) estimates that though the death toll from the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami was tragically much higher, “Yolanda destroyed five times as many houses, 10 times as many schools, displaced nearly twice as many people, and caused far more devastation to local agriculture.” An estimated addi- tional 1.5 million people may have fallen into poverty after Yolanda, increasing the number of poor by 24 per cent in central Philippines and 7.1 per cent nationwide. Yet, within a year, the results of post-disaster operations were clearly visible. Yolanda-affected areas were transi- tioning from recovery to reconstruction. The Government spearheaded a series of strategic actions to set the stage for long-term successful recovery, with support from the global community. ADB describes the progress across affected regions as “reflective of the resilience of the Filipino people and the unprecedented humanitarian response from devel- opment partners.” It further confirms that the Philippines’ road to recovery was even faster than that of Aceh. While the global community seemed to marvel at the Filipinos’ resilience, such ‘capacity’ would not have been possible if not for the timely assistance provided by differ- ent development partners such as ADB in cooperation with the Government, private sector and non-government organi- zations. ADB’s response to Yolanda in 2013 amounted to nearly US$900 million, comprising a US$3 million grant from the Asia Pacific Disaster Response Fund to help meet immediate expenses to restore life-saving services; a US$500 million emergency assistance loan to support the post-disas- ter efforts of the Government; a US$20 million grant from the Japan Fund for Poverty Reduction to provide affected people in Eastern Visayas, the hardest-hit region, with access to emergency support and early recovery systems; and a US$372 million emergency assistance loan to support the KALAHI CIDSS-National Community-Driven Development Program (KC-NCDDP) in restoring basic social services and rebuilding communities using the community-driven development (CDD) approach. ADB’s support to the Government’s conditional cash transfer programme partially funded 200,000 families in the affected areas, with at least 69,000 households in the severely affected areas. Also, in collaboration with other development partners, ADB assisted the Government of the Philippines to prepare the Yolanda Recovery Rehabilitation Plan. The country’s road to recovery was facilitated at the community level in many areas by the CDD approach, which is a core element of KC-NCDDP, with the Department of Social Welfare and Development at the forefront of its implementation. KC-NCDDP empowers barangays (villages) of targeted municipalities to have improved access to services and to participate in more inclusive planning, budgeting and implementation at the local level, with the end goal of reducing poverty, attaining good governance and improving resilience of poor commu- nities to natural hazards. In the aftermath of Yolanda, ADB was quick to redesign its support to KC-NCDDP by refo- cusing its assistance to typhoon-affected areas and building on international experiences showing the effectiveness of CDD in post-disaster rehabilitation. Through CDD, the community, being the first line of defence, is the first to respond after a disaster. The exist- ing social and institutional infrastructure makes immediate mobilization for relief possible, through CDD volunteer residents in the areas, who are available to be engaged for information and to fill in the gaps in general support, revealing the added value from service delivery using CDD Typhoon Yolanda (Haiyan) On 8 November 2013, Typhoon Yolanda, the most powerful typhoon to hit land in recorded history, devastated a huge area of Southeast Asia including some of the poorest communities of the Philippines. In response, the Asian Development Bank (ADB) immediately approved over $900 million in assistance for relief, recovery and reconstruction of Yolanda-hit regions. In addition to loans and grants, ADB ongoing projects for transport, the conditional cash transfer programme and agrarian reform were reallocated to help affected communities 2 . T ogether W e S tand