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Philippines

The Philippines’ Enhancing Resilient Communities and Inter-agency Collaboration and Interoperability: Systems Wide Risk-Informed Sustainable Goal

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Executive Summary

Learning Notes to Building Community Resilience in the Philippines: Return to Basics

The Enhancing Resilient Communities (ERC) Flagship Initiative (FI) in the Philippines is a proactive approach to resilience-building, focusing on engaging with affected populations and local capacities. The initiative aims to develop an inclusive humanitarian response system that works with and for affected people, delivers what they need in the way they need it, and reduces risks and vulnerabilities, especially for women, girls, and other communities at risk. The ERC FI is aligned with OCHA's mandate to coordinate effective humanitarian action in partnership with national and international actors, aiming to strengthen the resilience of vulnerable communities against disasters and climate impacts. One key pillar of the ERC FI is community engagement, with UNOCHA piloting the Resilience-Based Participatory Community Appraisal (ReBPCA), a structured dialogue methodology based on the principle of 'listen, discover, and enhance'.

The EU-ERC Technical Assistance Team (EU TAT) is a continuation of the EU Global Facility for Nationally Determined Contributions (NDC Facility) support for an initial scoping exercise on the gaps, needs, and priorities in the field of disaster risk reduction as well as short-term technical assistance (TA) support to the initial stages of the UN’s ERC FI Piloting. The report emphasized the need for integrated planning frameworks, prioritising disaster prevention and mitigation, and enhancing local government units' operational capacities as well calls for financial incentives, localisation, knowledge, equitable technical guidance, and comprehensive risk assessment tools. The report also highlighted the importance of inter-agency collaboration, interoperability, and monitoring processes.

The EU-ERC TAT's overarching objective is to contribute to the implementation of a more coherent, impactful, and strategic approach to DRR in the Philippines, including climate change adaptation, by increasing the ability of international and domestic DRRM, climate and development institutions, and instruments to work together in complementary and reinforcing ways for enhancing community resilience.

The EU-ERC TA team worked with the UNOCHA regional field coordinators in the ERC FI “pilot” areas in Bicol (Region V) and CARAGA (Region XIII) to find out what the ERC pilot communities think about community resilience; how they plan to build their own resilience development agenda; and what kind of involvement they need from local agencies and partners, such as LGUs, NGOs, and CSOs, to enhance their resilience. Together with UN-OCHA’s national and regional staff, they facilitated community resilience exercises in Legaspi and Surigao. These activities involved 89 participants, of whom 48 are females and 41 are males, from six different communities, who highlighted the community description of a resilient community and established pathways towards achieving the community-described resilient end state, validated by 74 community representatives with whom 21 males and 53 females from the six original barangays earlier consulted, plus two barangays who have been engaged for validation of the results.

Resilience unpacked. Resilience is the capacity of an element at risk to survive and recover from hazards in a timely and efficient manner. The Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) Formula calculates disaster risk by multiplying hazard by vulnerability and dividing by capacity. Resilience is based on the adaptive capacity of the element at risk, with higher adaptive capacities reducing one’s risk for a specific hazard reduces the probability of a disaster.

Resilience is the capacity of an individual and community to survive and recover from a hazard event. To ensure resilience, it is essential to transform to have increasing access to basic needs such as food, clothing, shelter, opportunities for livelihood, health, and well-being, healthy and sustainable ecosystem services, equitable, effective and efficient community systems and structures in place, an enabling policy environment, and global platforms like treaties and agreements1 . Coupled with capacities preventing hazard from happening and mitigating the force of the hazard. Moreover, individuals are integral parts of the community, contributing to the development of responsive systems and structures. Therefore, individual capacity is also tied up to a collective strength within a given area. Thus, resilience refers to the capacity of individuals and communities at risk to survive, bounce forward and recover from a hazard event with responsive and transformative systems and structures in place to restore and enhance societal functioning. Therefore, in non-crisis periods, both the individual and community capacities are built up and robust enough to enjoy being resilient and effectively respond to emerging hazards.

Resilience is specific to an element at risk. Understanding and assessing the level of resilience of each element at risk or ‘differential risk’ is crucial for risk-informed planning, safeguarding sustainable development gains, and achieving goals. Inclusivity involves incorporating the voices of marginalised individuals and creating a safe environment. Differential risk refers to the degree of resilience of specific elements at risk due to their socio-economic, political, and cultural makeup. The more deliberate process of uncovering and understanding the existing and innate systems, assets, capacities, and relationships of different members of the community and how these are used collectively and individually to overcome or cope with the different types of situations that they confront in their daily lives’ which is a ‘differential risk’ analysis of each element at risk to the hazard. With the community’s knowledge and application of these traditional and non-traditional socio-cultural, economic, human, institutional, natural, physical, and national interaction dynamics, they can determine their own local resilience agenda and build a resilience plan. Focusing on most at-risk individuals in development or humanitarian aid ensures equal access to local government services, addresses systemic inequalities, and promotes social cohesion.

History of inter-agency and multi-sectoral collaboration and cooperation. The Philippines has a long history of interagency and multi-agency collaboration for disaster risk reduction (DRR) and resilience. The National Disaster Risk Reduction Management Council (NDRMMC) oversees four DRR thematic areas: preparedness, prevention and mitigation, response, recovery, and rehabilitation. Philippine NGOs and CSOs have successfully utilized collaboration, coordination, cooperative, co-development, and partnership strategies to build their networks and convergence strategies. However, the country's fragmented approach to DRRM hinders the reduction of risk to future hazards for communities affected by previous disasters. Local NGOs/CSO networks, such as the Philippine Disaster Risk Reduction Network (DRRNetPhils), Philippine Partnership for Emergency Response and Resilience (PPERR), and Balik Lokal, focus on various purposes and thematic agendas.

The 1991 Local Government Code allows local government units (LGUs) to collaborate, coordinate, and cooperate in various aspects of their communities. However, weak coordination, overlaps, omission, mispritization, neglect, and social conflicts have resulted from these interactions. Community members have reported that international humanitarian NGOs and donor agencies only coordinated with the province during emergency situations like Typhoon Odette, without receiving feedback or detailed information on the extent and areas of relief and assistance provided to these communities.

Community as the ‘center of gravity’. Community empowerment allows the community to set its own goals and priorities, creating sustainable solutions tailored to their specific needs and challenges. External agencies and organizations should support community members in self-determining, engaging, understanding, processing, and analyzing their local conditions, social arrangements, support systems, practices, knowledge, prioritization, and criteria to develop their own resilience agenda.

Community-based disaster risk management (CBDRM) is a community-based approach to disaster risk reduction that aims to build stronger, more resilient communities. Policies like the Local Government Code of 1991 and the Philippine Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Act of 2010 support CBDRM in the Philippines. However, challenges arise in transferring skills within communities and ensuring the sustainability of CBDRM initiatives due to the large number of barangays. CBDRM involves strategies like risk assessments, evacuation routes, early warning systems, community capacity building, infrastructure improvements, and hazards mapping. Differential risk management enhances awareness, decision-making, and facilitates risk reduction.

Resilient communities are organised to meet individual needs, celebrate capacities, and unite under a common belief in a higher power. They address root causes of disaster risk, preventing hazard events from escalating into disasters. External agencies should align their processes with the community's and play a critical role in assisting community members and leaders in understanding disaster risk, enhancing adaptive capacities, and developing resilience. Investing in risk-based community contingency and development planning before hazard strikes empowers local communities to take ownership of their own resilience plans.

Local governance should involve communities in decision-making for effective disaster risk reduction and emergency response. Differential risk data, segregated by age and sex, can be translated into development, investment, and contingency plans. This data connects different risk-informed planning and programming efforts across different levels of government, empowering everyone in the system to work together to reduce risk and improve overall resilience.

Community resilient aspiration and process to achieve it. Resilient communities are organized to meet individual needs, celebrate capacities, and unite under a common belief in a higher power. They address the root or “underlying” causes of disaster risk, preventing hazard events from escalating into disasters. The community process empowers marginalized and most-at-risk groups and addresses challenges like inequality, poverty, social stigma, gender, cultural and political biases, and environmental degradation. The Philippines' community organizing tradition empowers marginalized groups and fosters collective action, sustainable solutions, and risk-informed planning guided by differential risk analysis. The process should be imbued and embedded with and among community members and their leaders to develop competencies to effectively negotiate with external agencies.

Likewise, external agencies should ensure that their own process would be aligned with the community's processes and timelines, and play a critical ‘facilitating’ role in assisting and ensuring that community members and leaders understand disaster risk, enhance their adaptive capacities to cope and bounce forward, and develop resilience. Aligning goals and objectives is crucial for successful collaboration and achieving community resilience. This process orientated approach avoids silos and promotes community independence from external agencies.

Resilience Operational Framework. Risk-informed development goals aim to build resilience in communities and the landscapes they depend on, prepare at-risk populations for future hazards, and take proactive steps to increase capacity while addressing the root causes of disaster risk. The Framework for Developing Participatory Resilient Programs and Projects guides the government, community, and catalysts on the steps to deliver the output, outcome, and impact of disaster risk reduction implementation.

Opportunities and entry points for action. Mainstreaming and integration of differential risk data at different government systems is essential, with projects like the Agence Française de Développement's Disaster Risk Reduction Enhancement at the Local Level Program and the Australian Government-funded UNDP-implemented SHIELD Program leveraging climate and disaster data to inform plans and advocate for more responsive resilience building policies.

The Office of Civil Defence (OCD) can add differential risk to the CBDRM modules, enhancing capacity building nationwide. Collaboration with the Bureau of Local Government Development and the National Barangay Operations Office can improve guidelines for mainstreaming climate and disaster risk-informed LGU-mandated plans, enhance climate and disaster risk-based PPAs, and improve local governance and performance standards. Additionally, enhancing technical competence and knowledge on community resilience and local development planning can help improve local governance and performance.

The UN plays a crucial role in promoting peace, security, human rights, development, and international cooperation by working with governments to address global challenges, provide humanitarian aid, advocate for gender equality, and support sustainable development. The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) offer a shared vision for a better future and provide a framework for governments to work together to achieve them. However, integrating resilience or risk informed planning into the SDGs will not only create a more secure and stable world but also enhance preparedness for future challenges and address the underlying causes of disaster risk, promote sustainable development, and ensure a better quality of life for all.

The UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR) promotes risk-informed sustainable development, integrating disaster risk reduction into policies and programs. They advocate for a systemic approach considering social, economic, and environmental factors, using scientific data for informed decisions, and prioritizing people in their approach to building resilience. UN agencies should act together for a coherent approach to the practical know-how and do-how of resilience, harmonizing conceptual understanding, community processes, methods, and tools.