Local Capacity Building Key for Effective Humanitarian Partnerships

Local Capacity Building Key for Effective Humanitarian Partnerships By Regina “Nanette” S. Antequisa, Executive Director, ECOWEB1

A Remarks delivered to

ECOSOC Humanitarian Affairs Segment Side-Event : The role of partnerships in humanitarian response: lessons learned from Typhoon Haiyan Co-sponsored by: The Government of the Philippines, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), ActionAid, CAFOD, Christian Aid, Oxfam, and Tearfund

Conference Room 7 NLB, UN Headquarters, New York City Date: Tuesday, 24 June 2014 08:15 – 09:30 am

This morning, I wish to share with you our experiences in responding to Haiyan as well as our engagement with the UN and International Humanitarian System from which I draw my recommendations.

EcoWEB’s Haiyan response has been focused on providing emergency relief. Together with other partner NGOs and faith-based organizations2, we were able to provide relief to about 10,000 families utilizing the food and non-food items we had accessed from existing and new partners from the neighboring countries in SEA that include relief agencies and private companies. The story of the response provides a good example of some of the challenges we have faced in responding to the Typhoon.

Our long term partner, CREST Malaysia, and new referral, Foodbank Singapore, were among those who immediately responded and committed to send thousands of tons of food and non-food items. While we had the relief goods, our first problem was where to store the goods. Fortunately we had connections in Cebu and a local businessman offered his warehouse at much reduced cost. Our next problem was how to distribute the goods so they could reach communities in the islands affected. We tapped the logistics support from the UN and government but it was not easy and caused our distribution with much delay.

We were able to mobilize some funding but it was not enough. We approached some big INGO’s but they chose not to fund us. It took sometime before we were able to raise enough funds to cover the

1 Ecosystems Work For Essential Benefits, Inc. (EcoWEB) is an NGO based in Mindanao, Philippines working to address four inter-linking challenges resulting to poverty such as lack of access and control of resources, strained social relations, degraded environment and climate change and poor governance. Currently, EcoWEB is implementing a resilient core shelter project in Dulag, Leyte with support from the Mennonite Central Committee. Also, EcoWEB is developing a project for developing resilient livelihoods of Haiyan survivors in partnership with CAFOD, Department of Agriculture and UNDP. With CAFOD support, EcoWEB is also initiating a project for disaster risk reduction of communities in partnership with local governments.

2 Local Partners include OMEGA, Arapal Christian Camp, Alpha Sigma Phi, Church of Christ, Our Lady of Mt. Carmel of Cabacungan, Catholic Parish of Marasbaras, Couples for Christ Cebu, Archdiocese of Palo, were among our local partners. transport of goods. However, nobody would fund us for the community organizing and the cost of distribution that would ensure participation and reach to isolated communities.

A second factor that made our response difficult was the challenge that we’ve had in retaining our senior staff. Although we have trained a number of staff in previous humanitarian responses, but we have had a constant turnover who opt to work for better paying INGOs and UN agencies. This has meant that we have to constantly recruit new staff and because of the project-based nature of our humanitarian funding it is difficult to train them apart from on-the-job experience.

While it may be true that local and national NGOs (LNGOs/NNGOs)3 have more limited capacity than International NGOs this is mainly because of a lack of resources. INGOs and UN agencies receive more funding and are able to operate at large scale immediately as a result. They can also hire the best people from local and national organizations.

And I would say that the challenges we faced in Haiyan response are not unique to EcoWEB but are shared by many other national NGOs.

Despite the challenges we faced in launching a response to Haiyan, we feel that we have much to offer as a national NGO. Although we did not have prior presence in the area affected by Haiyan, within our network there were members that had experience which made it easier for EcoWEB to understand the context and to launch a response that met the most important needs of communities affected.

Our knowledge of communities and the fact that our staff live with those they work with has meant that we have been able to build trust. We seek to engage communities in our programmes rather than offer relief handouts. Few foreign organisations have the same relationship with communities.

Our previous work with government and local authorities meant that we had a good understanding of the Disaster legislation and the roles and responsibilities and understand how the system should work – even when capacity doesn’t allow this.

For our engagement with the UN Humanitarian system, we were first exposed to the cluster system after Typhoon Washi in 2011 and recognize the advantages that it has for coordination and the role it plays in helping to avoid duplication. However, after Haiyan, the cluster meetings were far more dominated by foreigners because of the international surge staff brought in. We often find the cluster meetings discussing issues more concerned with the INGOs response than issues that concern the local and national NGOs. We would like to focus more on practical issues to enhance coordination on the ground, such as building partnerships between local groups. I often hear local organizations say they get nothing out of the meetings and that it is better spend the time in the community than in the meetings.

Also with meetings held in the regional centers such as Tacloban, it has made it more difficult for local NGOs operating in distant communities to participate. As much as we would like to participate in the cluster meetings, our limited resources and the distance of the venue from our operations makes it much difficult for our staff to attend.

Based on our experience on Haiyan response and taking lessons from our past humanitarian experiences, we see the need to strengthen humanitarian partnership.

3 LNGOs/NNGOs refer to local and national NGOs called as civil society organizations in general in the Philippines. With or without disasters LNGOs/NNGOs will always operate in the Philippines. We have greater knowledge of the context and have strong connections with community and government structures. However, we suffer from a lack of resources. Capacity building is essential to ensure that LNGOs/NNGOS have staff with the right skills.

Direct access to humanitarian funding is also a priority for us. Access to an Emergency Relief and Recovery Fund that could be easily and immediately accessed by LNGOs/NNGOs in times of disasters would allow us to respond in a more timely way at a bigger scale. But, preparedness is also key. INGO’s should support partner development organizations and national NGO networks to be more ready to respond to disasters.

For greater effectiveness and efficiency, I think coordination is essential but I see the need to enhance the cluster system to make it more responsive to the local context and more welcoming to local participation particularly in responding to big disasters like Haiyan, when local structures especially those of the government are overwhelmed.

To this end, I would call UN Agencies, INGO’s and States to strengthen their partnership with national and local NGOs to make humanitarian response more effective and responsive to the needs and context of communities affected by disasters.

Thank you.