October 21, 2010

HRI mission to the Philippines: The inequality of humanitarian aid

In its recent Humanitarian Response Index (HRI) mission to the Philippines, DARA has found that while the international community mobilized in response to tropical storm Ketsana and typhoon Parma in Northern Philippines in September and October 2009, it did little to alleviate the suffering of those affected by an ongoing armed conflict in the Southern region of Mindanao.

The HRI team was in the Philippines from the 16th to the 22nd of January and met with donors and representatives of humanitarian agencies and NGO’s. The team examined donor response to the ravaging effects of the two climate hazards. DARA also looked at how donors have handled the humanitarian crisis caused by the armed conflict in Mindanao, in which the Government of the Philippines (GoP), a traditional political and military ally of the United States, is one of the main players.

The storms crisscrossed Northern Philippines and left 80 percent of Manila underwater, flooded extensive areas, and collectively affected 8.2 million people and left 4.2 million in need of humanitarian assistance. The international community responded quickly and over 60 NGO’s deployed teams to help with the two back-to-back emergencies. However, most of these had already left after three months, even though many of the needs had still not been met, particularly for shelter, water and sanitation.

Meanwhile, the Mindanao conflict has so far caused at least 300 violent deaths, displaced 950,000 people over the past year – the largest displacement in the world – and generated serious humanitarian needs among the civilian population.

Only seven agencies are present in the region, including the United Nations, the International Committee of the Red Cross and several NGOs, all of which have a limited capacity to work mostly due to irregular access to victims. Manila has always been reluctant to appeal for international aid and considers the conflict in Mindanao an internal affair in the fight against terror.

The HRI team is concerned that despite severe humanitarian needs in Mindanao, donors are hesitant to include within their bilateral agendas issues such as protection of and free access to victims. Donors’ concerns for issues such as security and trade, which carry important weight in relations with Manila, limit their efforts in providing the humanitarian players they fund with political and institutional backup. DARA also warns that the GoP’s presence within the Cluster System undermines its independence and effectiveness since it holds an active role within the conflict.

With regard to the natural disasters response, DARA found a general lack of disaster preparedness and post-disaster coordination within the GoP, and between the government and the UN system. The role of the Clusters System was reduced mainly to information-sharing, with no emphasis on priority-setting and decision making. The GoP’s inaccurate needs assessments were accepted uncritically by donors and UN agencies, with the international response’s part being channeled through the National Disaster Coordination Council (NDCC) of the GoP, resulting in an overestimation of the needs. There were also reports of non-independent aid distribution due to political interests fueled by the ongoing presidential campaign.

Two other issues were relevant in the response to this crisis. First, donors did not provide sufficient support for significant capacities at the local level (both for Local Government Units –LGUs- and NGOs), preferring to work with traditional international partners with slower deployment capacity and with early withdrawal strategies in some cases, without becoming sufficiently involved in early recovery and transitional phases. Secondly, there was a disproportionate response from donors to assessed needs, with an overfunding of food but shortfalls for shelter, water and sanitation.

DARA is offering some key recommendations to the different stakeholders:

• It is essential that donor governments include humanitarian issues such as protection for victims and humanitarian access in Mindanao in their bilateral agendas with the GoP, and that they also increase diplomatic and institutional support to humanitarian players in the region. With regard to this issue, donor countries should also make a greater effort to separate their security and humanitarian agendas when dealing with the GoP, and to make sure that their policies towards the GoP are consistent with the core values laid out by the Principles and Good Practice of Humanitarian Donorship (GHD).
• Increased donor support to local networks (both LGUs and civil society) in order to strengthen the preparedness and needs assessment capacities for the onset of crises such as natural disasters.
• The UN System should strengthen its capacities for humanitarian coordination. Its presence and involvement in the Philippines should continue while there is an ongoing crisis in Mindanao, and as long as the northern and central Islands continue to be vulnerable to recurrent natural disasters.
• The UN Cluster system should also be reinforced with strong leadership and a more independent approach so as to prevent being too government-dependent or biased. In the case of acute crisis, the UN system’s role and priorities regarding the long term agendas should be clearly differentiated from the humanitarian ones, while seeking complementarity between them.
• The early recovery phase is already ongoing, and donor countries should pay special attention to maintaining their support towards this process by investing adequately in those needs already identified (shelter is still a serious problem, with around 1 million people yet to be resettled) and by mainstreaming the good governance approach in order to enhance both Disaster Risk Reduction policies as well as the decentralized and accountable assistance management by the recipient government.