Two years into the COVID-19 pandemic, the Philippines is still experiencing challenges in surpassing limitations and challenges — both new and exacerbated existing ones. However, it seems that one positive note is that in certain areas in the country, vaccine hesitance or resistance is slowly diminishing. Undoubtedly, this is not solely due to mainstream media and hearsay, but also because of the valuable contributions of community representatives, volunteers, and workers.
In some barangays in Pulilan, Baliuag, and Malolos, Bulacan, Community Health Educators or CHEs work hand-in-hand with the local government, particularly at the barangay level to engage the community and assure that they are being informed of updates for protocols, current response efforts from different sectors fo society, and most importantly the availability of services and vaccinations around their area.
Mary Jean Santos, 46, a resident in Pulilan, Bulacan, shared how she was extremely against getting the vaccine before. She had gotten word of different stories and hearsay that the vaccine would provide more harm than benefit, possibly even causing death. However, upon the encouragement of one of the barangay volunteer CHEs, Mary Jean was invited and attended a seminar that helped educate citizens on accurate information regarding COVID-19 vaccination. After learning that most, if not all of her prior prejudices on getting vaccinated were false, she was vaccinated last December 2021.
“Ngayon alam ko na na kailangan pala ng bakuna kasi kailangan natin ng protekshyon at saka para rin sa mga kasama sa bahay at pati na rin mga mahal natin sa buhay.” [I only found out recently that we really do need vaccines since we not only need protection for ourselves, but also protection for the sake of our households and loved ones.]
Community Health Educators such as Fe Jumagdao, also shared that aside from encouraging citizens to get vaccinated, it is also helpful to encourage the community to share their concerns and questions with their local government since it is also their right. CHE Syrlle Ann Ginooalso recounted her experiences in speaking with her fellow community members, with people fearing possible side effects of the vaccine, even hearing stories that some worried getting vaccinated would only allow them up two more years to live. Furthermore, since she believed the CHEs learned many facts from working with the health professionals and barangay officials, she strongly encouraged the participation of community members to take advantage of Risk Communication and Community Engagement (RCCE) efforts like resources and seminars made available through partnerships with both the private and humanitarian sector.
“Malaki ang naging tulong ng saminar dahil nga naunawaan nila, bukod sa kakasabi namin,” says Leny Ventura, another CHE from Brgy, Pinagbarilan, Baliuag, Bulacan. [The seminar was really a big help since it provided people an avenue to better understand the situation aside from jus t us CHEs repetitively telling them.]
Among other volunteers at the barangay level, Evelyn Paltao, a mother Leader in Barangay Tarcan highlighted that it is also important for local leaders and volunteers to be examples of practicing proper health protocols and movement in the community in order to further strengthen and assure their local safety and progress toward recovery and herd immunity.
With continued perseverance paired with government assistance, collaborative partnerships among different sectors of society, and the open-mindedness of the community people, the CHEs in these communities are among many of those who work hard and strive for a more positive and healthy population.
The RCCE and Vaccination Roll-Out Project, which is being implemented in Malolos City, Baliwag and Pulilan in Bulacan Province, Sto. Tomas City in Batangas, and General Santos City in South Cotabato, aims to support 30 barangay local government units (BLGUs) to increase their capacities in implementing COVID-19 policies and help encourage their residents to get vaccinated. More than 2,450 barangay officials, health workers and members of the peacekeeping team have already been trained by medical professionals to further spread information and provide communication about the risks of COVID-19 and vaccination benefits. This initiative is a collaboration between CARE Philippines, the Southern Tagalog People’s Response Center, MINCODE, and Cargill.
START Network aims to transform humanitarian action through innovation, fast funding, early action, and localisation, and plans to build a risk financing system in the Philippines. The network believes that the humanitarian sector faces the biggest systemic problems–problems including slow and reactive funding, centralized decision-making, and an aversion to change–means that people affected by crises worldwide do not receive the best help fast enough and needless suffering results. In a short survey conducted with the members of Start Network in the Philippines, the shared experience of the network identifies severe winds and flooding caused by tropical cyclones as having the most impactful hazards that hit the country. Given the likelihood and severity of these hazards, the present study identified the following, first, the geographic and socio-economic extent of impacts of severe winds and flooding due to tropical cyclones in the Philippines; second, the vulnerability factors and cross-sectoral issues related to tropical cyclones, and third, the existing community-based coping mechanisms that the humanitarian sector can leverage on.
View and download the full document here.
Given its geographical location, the Philippines is one of the countries in Asia that is most prone to disasters. In fact, the Philippines placed 5th as the most vulnerable country on disaster risk implications for development capacity on the 2015 Global Assessment Report of the UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction while consistently ranking in the top 4 among the countries in the world hit by the highest number of disasters for over 20 years. Recognizing the adverse impacts of disasters in the economy and human capital, the Philippine government has predicted a yearly PhP 177 billion losses due to disasters.
START Network defined disaster risk financing as an integration of the elements of science-based risk modeling, contingency planning, and pre-agreed financing to prompt humanitarian funding in situations that meet the threshold. Disaster risk financing also entails access to reliable funds whenever a crisis hits which can result in an improved timing, coverage, and design of humanitarian action, and at the same time, support improved emergency preparedness measures.
In terms of gender equality, the Philippines, as compared with other countries in the world, ranks medium to high based on Gender and Development Index, and Gender Gap Index. Despite these achievements, during the onslaught of both climate and disaster risks, women, men, and other gender identities still tend to remain vulnerable. Thus, in disaster risk financing, it is essential to consider gendered needs and the contexts of populations that benefit from it. START Network recognizes the importance of experiences as a learning mechanism to devise ways to help in improving disaster preparedness, access to information, and early action given the gendered needs of people.
View and download the full document here.
Start Network started piloting disaster risk financing (DRF) approaches to move from reacting to crises, to proactively managing risks, so that we can ensure faster, more efficient, and more effective locally-led humanitarian action. Disaster risk financing as defined by START Network (2021) integrates the elements of science-based risk modeling, contingency planning, and pre-agreed financing to prompt humanitarian funding in situations that meet the threshold. This session was conducted with the aim of achieving the following objectives:
- Introduce the DRF system build work for the Philippines;
- Share the outputs of completed DRF research studies to a public audience; and
- Ensure that START Network members, local CSO partners, and other stakeholders have a common understanding of the current baseline for the build-up of the DRF system in the Philippine context.
Background of the Sessions during the Webinar
Start Network supports inclusive locally-led structures to own, develop and implement financing strategies and systems in their contexts. In the Philippines, Start Network conducted studies to collect baseline information needed to establish a DRF system that is appropriate for the Philippine context. In this meeting, the outputs of three research studies on disaster risk management (DRM) financial flows, impact, vulnerability analysis, and gender mainstreaming will be shared to Start Network Members and local CSO partners in the Philippines.
- Financing Disaster Risk Management in the Philippines: A Three-Year Snapshot, 2018-2020
This study by a research team from the University of the Philippines Resilience Institute mapped the flow of funding for DRM in the Philippines from 2018 to 2020 to determine the gaps that can be addressed by developing a DRF mechanism. This study identified financing gaps geographically and hazards-wise and explored the impacts of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic on DRM funding. Tracking the sources of annual financing to deal with disaster risks, both ex-ante and ex-post, allows for a better understanding of the scope of actionable DRM strategies by both government and non-government actors, especially for anticipatory action. - ‘What suits one may not suit the other’: A Vulnerability and Impact Analysis on flooding and severe winds caused by tropical cyclones
START Network members in the Philippines have identified severe winds and flooding caused by tropical cyclones as the most impactful hazards that have hit the country. This Vulnerability and Impact Analysis by a team from the Research Institute for Mindanao Culture identified the following: (1) the geographic and socio-economic extent of impacts of severe winds and flooding due to tropical cyclones in the Philippines; (2) the vulnerability factors and cross-sectoral issues related to tropical cyclones and (3) the existing community-based coping mechanisms that the humanitarian sector can leverage on. Through their analysis, three vulnerable areas (one each in Luzon, Visayas, and Mindanao) were selected as focus study areas where the DRF Project can potentially be piloted. - Mainstreaming Gender and DRF: Experiences of Marginalized Gender Identities in Disasters in Rural/Urban Communities in the Philippines
In developing DRF models, it is important to highlight the need to mainstream gender and other intersectional identities in the planning, implementing, monitoring, and evaluation process. Ensuring gender equality in DRF requires looking into its gendered dimensions with respect to intersectional identities. This research report by Practical Action Consulting on mainstreaming gender and disaster risk financing (DRF) documents the lived experiences of women, men, and other gender identities on disasters and their intersectional impact on their access to information, preparedness, and early action. It delves deep into their marginalized status and how the existing disaster risk reduction measures reach them and how these could provide opportunities for disaster risk financing. In these gendered dimensions of disaster risk financing, the study identified entry points on opportunities where gender can be effectively mainstreamed. - Start Ready
Start Ready is a new financial infrastructure recently launched by Start Network that will house a range of innovative crisis financing mechanisms, enabling faster, more efficient, and more effective global humanitarian action. Through risk pooling, it can provide predictable triggered funding at scale for foreseeable crises using innovative risk analysis, collective planning, scientific modeling, and pre-positioned financing.
Start Network is made up of more than 50 aid agencies across five continents, ranging from large international organizations to national NGOs. Together, our aim is to transform humanitarian action through innovation, fast funding, early action, and localization. Through the START Network, members and partners can quickly access funding for projects to save lives before a disaster strikes.
The need for disaster risk reduction (DRR) measures rises with more frequent and stronger disasters. Thus, disaster risk financing (DRF) systems should be prompt, adequate, and responsive to cater to the needs of the vulnerable sector, especially in the Philippines, being the ninth most vulnerable country in the world (Bündnis Entwicklung Hilft, 2020). However, disaster risk management (DRM) funding in the country is insufficient and unpredictable (Villacin, 2017), indicating deficiencies in the national DRF architecture. The development of a robust risk financing mechanism has been hampered by a lack of information on the nature, volume, and flows of funds from various sources.
This document showcases a three-year snapshot of Disaster Risk Financing in the Philippines.
View and download the full document here.
Disasters are on the rise. In the past two decades, more than 200 million people have been affected, on average, every year by disasters. Storms, floods, and earthquakes are the top three disaster events worldwide that have claimed a considerable amount of lives and properties.
This book aims to educate children about disasters, particularly storms, floods, and earthquakes, and what they can do about them. This is aimed at children between the ages of 6 and 10. This book features different activities to make learning a lot more fun for them. The Citizens ‘Disaster Response Center (CDRC) advises parents, guardians, and teachers to assist the children using this activity book.
This book is produced by the Citizens’ Disaster Response Center for the MICRODIS Project under the Sixth Framework Program of the European Commission.
To access a soft copy of this resource, please click here.
An Excerpt from the Document:
INTRODUCTION
CORAL reefs are among the most biodiverse ecosystems globally, and they support the provision of goods and services for approximately 500 million people in coastal communities (Hoegh-Guldberg et al. 2019). Yet, climate change threatens the sustainability of coral reefs. Increased ocean temperatures mean coral bleaching and mortality events are becoming more widespread (Wilkinson 2000; Speers et al. 2016). These changes are modifying food systems and decreasing fisheries productivity (Rogers et al. 2018), increasing the vulnerability of millions of people dependent on reefs for their livelihoods (Hoegh-Guldberg et al. 2019).
Within coral reef systems, the effects of social and ecological change are inequitably distributed (de la Torre-Castro et al. 2017; Lau et al. 2021a). Gender, the social meaning and expectations regarding what it is to be a woman or man, shapes how individuals experience opportunities and outcomes within social-ecological systems (Resurrección & Elmhirst 2008; Nightingale 2016). Women tend to face greater constraints than men in their capacities to respond to social-ecological change; men tend to have greater access to and control over assets (i.e., natural resources, income or technology) meaning they are generally better positioned to cope and recover from such change (Cohen et al. 2016; Locke et al. 2017). Moreover, in cases where social-ecological change has created food or economic insecurity, men are more likely to migrate to urban areas to find work, leaving women to bear the brunt of food provisioning, reproductive labour and experience the impacts of poverty more intensely (Rao et al. 2021).
Gender also shapes how people experience and engage with programmes and policies seeking to assist communities overcome social-ecological disturbance. In many cases, men are more able than women to access information and support, have greater flexibility to participate in alternative or adapted livelihoods, and greater autonomy in making strategic life decisions (Locke et al. 2014; Cohen et al. 2016; Lawless et al. 2019). To ensure both effective and equitable outcomes, it is critical that environmental development interventions consider, and work to address these inequities. Yet, analysis of gender approaches used by interventions within coastal social-ecological systems suggest that current efforts are falling short of catalyzing needed progress toward gender equality (Stacey et al. 2019; Lawless et al. 2021; Mangubhai & Lawless 2021).
How environmental interventions interact with gender can be situated along a spectrum from those that seek to ‘reach’, ‘benefit’ or ‘empower’ women and men (Johnson et al. 2018), to those that actively seek to ‘transform’ gender inequalities (Kleiber et al. 2019) (Figure 1)1. Research has shown that the majority of environmental interventions seek to ‘reach’ or ‘benefit’ participants (Danielsen et al. 2018; Mangubhai & Lawless 2021). ‘Reach’ approaches tend to focus on ensuring women are included in interventions, for example, equal numbers of women and men participating in activities or projects. ‘Benefit’ approaches focus on advancing individual access to resources, for example, as a means to increase productivity or income generation (Johnson et al. 2018; Kleiber et al. 2019). While these are important steps, these actions alone are unlikely to generate the profound gender and social change needed to drive equitable outcomes. Further along this spectrum, yet far less evident in environmental and conservation practice, are approaches that seek to ‘empower’ individuals. Essentially, these approaches focus on strengthening agency through expanding strategic freedoms or life choices, ultimately enhancing individual ability to make and act on decisions. Given women tend to have relatively less agency than men (Kabeer 1999; Muñoz Boudet et al. 2013), there is a tendency for ‘empower’ approaches to primarily focus on women.
Gender transformative approaches (GTAs) are considered the frontier of gender best practice. GTAs seek to surface and rebalance unequal norms, power relations and structures toward those that are considered gender equal (expanded in Section 2) (Wong et al. 2019; McDougall et al. 2020). They are distinct from approaches that only seek to address the symptoms of gender inequality (i.e., ‘reach’, ‘benefit’ or ‘empower’ approaches). GTAs are more ambitious and are designed to tackle the root causes of inequality (McDougall et al. 2020) and thus realize more transformative and longlasting progress towards gender equality across a range of scales. While the use of GTAs is emerging in environmental sectors, and specifically in food systems discourse, to date, there has been little guidance for their application in coral reef social-ecological systems.
A recent literature review (Lau & Ruano-Chamorro 2021) found that although attention to gender and fisheries, and marine environments is increasing (Harper et al. 2013, 2020; Gopal et al. 2014; Kleiber 2014; Frangoudes & Gerrard 2018; Frangoudes et al. 2019), studies of gender are more nascent in tropical seascapes (de la Torre-Castro et al. 2017; de la Torre-Castro 2019), and gender transformative approaches are rarely applied. There is thus considerable scope to enhance gender equality outcomes by elucidating what applying a GTA entails in this context.
To view and access the technical brief, click here.
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Vulnerable groups – particularly women – suffer most from natural and man-made hazards. Now more than ever, there is a need to account for their needs and interests in public decision-making spaces to ensure that community-based disaster risk reduction (DRR) mechanisms and governance structures are effective, inclusive, and are sustainably adopted. Providing women with the opportunity and ability to actively participate in DRR planning and solutions not only amplifies their voice in decisions that affect their lives but also harnesses their potential in leading community DRR work.
Aimed at increasing the resilience of small-scale farmers, fisherfolk – with focus given to female headed-households and women collectives in its partner communities, Project INCREASE sought to augment its women engagement activities and advocacy work through (1) piloting the Women Lead in Emergencies (WLiE) action research model in its activities, and (2) drawing insights from the Rapid Gender Analysis on Power (RGA-POW) conducted in nine crisis-affected barangays in Mapanas, and Palapag, Northern Samar, Philippines that are covered by the project.
This RGA-POW provides information about the different needs, capacities, and aspirations of women – with a focus on the structural and relational barriers to, and opportunities for women’s leadership and public participation during and after emergencies, as well as relevant information on the local context from previous studies (e.g. post-distribution monitoring reports, rapid gender analyses, etc.).
Apart from demonstrating that women do have power and exercise this with other women, the report also outlines underlying reasons for limited public voice and decision-making for different groups of women and identifies potential resistors and risks, as well as presents opportunities and actions that can address observed barriers. Thus, providing promising directions for WLiE in INCREASE.
View and download a full copy of the document by clicking here.
The INCREASE Project has committed to holding four (4) learning exchanges engaging local implementing partners and partner communities across provinces to share DRR CCA / IRM good practices, ideas for sustainability and upscaling, innovations, and evidence from which these are based.
Similarly, the project has also committed to producing four (4) research briefs/communication materials, or case stories, from DRR CCA / IRM good practices and innovations documented to be published through RILHUB.
This partner-level learning exchange is the second part of the INCREASE Cross-Learning Platform for Resilience-Building Session 3. The learning questions raised to partners are the following:
- How is community members’ participation in DRR and CCA programs and activities changing?
- How are community members being included in the design and delivery of these risk reduction programs and activities? What role do women’s organizations, women CSO leaders, and local champions play in facilitating inclusion?
- How is the project influencing LGUs to be gender-responsive and risk-informed?
- From the perspective of a local planner, why is there a need for gender-responsive and risk-informed planning? What benefits can one get from mainstreaming IRM? Any evidence as to why local governments need to be more flexible to change (i.e. integrating IRM, gender lens in their plans), etc.?
To access a soft copy of this presentation deck, please click here.
INCREASE or “Philippines – Increasing Resilience to Natural Hazards” aims to increase the resilience of 45,00 women and men small scale farmers and fishers, including 720 extremely poor female-headed households, to natural hazards and the effect of climate change. The project will run from 2019-2021 in different parts of the Philippines, namely 36 barangays across 8 municipalities in the provinces of Cagayan, Mt. Province, Northern Samar, and Surigao del Sur. Its project components and activities include early warning systems, alternative livelihood, and climate and disaster governance.
On September 22 and 24, theINCREASE Project, in collaboration with RILHUB and its community partners, held the third installation of the Cross-Learning Platform for Resilience-building (CLPRB) via Zoom.
INCREASE or “Philippines – Increasing Resilience to Natural Hazards” aims to increase the resilience of 45,00 women and men small scale farmers and fishers, including 720 extremely poor female-headed households, to natural hazards and the effect of climate change. The project will run from 2019-2021 in different parts of the Philippines, namely 36 barangays across 8 municipalities in the provinces of Cagayan, Mt. Province, Northern Samar, and Surigao del Sur. Its project components and activities include early warning systems, alternative livelihood, and climate and disaster governance