ReliefWeb

On November 8, 2013, Typhoon Haiyan tore a path of destruction across the Philippines. While the emergency response was successful in providing life-saving assistance, three months on, humanitarian needs remain enormous, especially with respect to the restoration of people’s livelihoods. A lack of robust early recovery programs has left hundreds of thousands of people reliant on aid, and points to a broader problem regarding the overall efficacy of the UN’s early recovery approach to large-scale, sudden-onset natural disasters.

In addition, a proposal by the Philippine government to enforce “no build zones” in typhoon-affected coastal areas in the wake of the disaster has left thousands displaced and raised numerous legal and human rights concerns. While progress has been made in recent weeks on revising the policy, the failure of the UN Resident Coordinator/Humanitarian Coordinator to take up the issue from the start resulted in confusion on the ground, slowed the response, and denied adequate protection to thousands of vulnerable people.