With resilient livelihood as one of the core activities of INCREASE, promoting sustainable agriculture principles to women and men farmers in the project areas help in ensuring livelihood diversification and strengthening strategies are being implemented. This tarpaulin will be placed in strategic areas especially in demo farms to familiarize community members with elements of sustainable agriculture.

 

 

INCREASE or  “Philippines – Increasing Resilience to Natural Hazards” aims to 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.

This session of the Resilience Knowledge Exchange Series (RKES) aims to disseminate the results of the post-project sustainability (PPS) evaluation of the Women Enterprise Fund initiative (WEF-PPS). The study findings, learning, and recommendations seek to enhance the gender responsiveness and sustainability of livelihood recovery in humanitarian-development nexus programming.

The WEF initiative was one of CARE’s largest women-targeted disaster response and recovery projects. A total of 929 women entrepreneurs from six provinces were assisted in the project to restore their household livelihoods devastated by Typhoon Haiyan. WEF’s supported the women’s microenterprises towards the development of more sustainable livelihoods that could rehabilitate or diversify household income sources to secure their access to basic needs. CARE, together with local partners, implemented three key interventions: the infusion of financial capital, capacity-strengthening activities, and linkage to relevant supply chain actors and service providers.

The WEF-PPS study assessed the women’s economic empowerment (WEE) and resilience outcomes that were sustained among WEF-supported women entrepreneurs four years since the completion of the WEF initiative. It not only explored the unintended and emerging impacts of the WEF project but also identified contributing factors to sustainable outcomes. The study also looked into the impact of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic on women’s livelihoods to determine their resilience.

In this study, sustainability is defined as the achieved state and benefits of women’s economic empowerment and resilience are maintained, and WEF beneficiaries continue adapting their situation to evolving conditions while achieving economic well-being. The CARE gender equality (GE), WEE and resilience frameworks guided the design of the evaluation. The harvested WEE and resilience outcomes were classified, analyzed and interpreted based on five WEE and resilience domains of change: economic advancement, access to skills development and job opportunities, access to assets, services and other support to advance economically, decision-making in different spheres, and reducing drivers of risks.

 

This WEF-PPS session of the RILHUB Resilience Knowledge Exchange Series is aimed at reaching the objectives below:

1. Share the findings of the study – what outcomes and benefits were sustained or have emerged four years after the WEF project closed.

2. Share evidence on WEE and resilience outcomes to support advocacy initiatives.

3. Inform future programming strategy and call for actions based on learning and recommendations

4. Acknowledge the successes of WEF entrepreneurs and the contributions of partners

This presentation on the WEF-PPS outcomes was created and presented by the research team composed of Ms. Maria Teresa Bayombong, Ms. Caitlin Shannon, Ms. Maria Adelma Montejo, and Ms. Tzuhsuan Peng. 

To access a soft copy of this material, please click here.

Among the key activities of INCREASE Project is the farmer field business school (FFBS). To aid local partners in implementing the FFBS, this briefer was created to summarize the definition, characteristics, elements, and step-by-step process of FFBS. It is hoped that through this briefer, the women and men farmers will know the basics of FFBS and will be able to also use it to further inform other farmers in their community..

Click on images in the gallery below to enlarge and download this resource.

 

 

 

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.

by INCREASE

Cagayan Province, where two INCREASE municipalities (Amulung and Cagayan) are located, have been heavily devastated by a series of typhoons—Category 3 Typhoon Molave, Category 5 Super Typhoon Goni, and Category 4 Typhoon Vamco in a span of three weeks. This has brought the worst flooding the province has recorded for the last 40 years. The lost lives, livelihood, and shelter exacerbated the already difficult situations of the communities whose mobility and sources of income have been limited because of the pandemic.

Before the disaster

Before the onslaught of the disasters, INCREASE field team has been deployed to conduct community risk assessments and community-based disaster risk reduction and management trainings in Amulung and Gattaran. In such activities, farmers and fishers, along with women, the elderly, youth, persons with disabilities, and other vulnerable persons provided valuable insights on sector-specific hazards, risks, and vulnerabilities in their communities. The barangay captain from Brgy. Annabuculan, Amulung, Cagayan expressed his newfound appreciation for how preparedness measures should be conducted. He appreciated the Community Risk Assessment conducted by INCREASE in their barangay, saying “the information [we] learned were useful and helped us realize the importance of assessments and conducting early action in order to mitigate the disaster.” This has proven how important such activities in building the capacities of the communities in responding to disasters. In addition, information materials such as primers on hazards and evacuation measures were also distributed to community members to help them prepare for the typhoons. The team also coordinated with the barangay DRRM council and monitored and disseminated information from PAGASA so it can be shared with community members.

INCREASE areas in Amulung and Gattaran were severely affected by Typhoon Vamco.

The team has also proceeded with household selection for resilient livelihood activities. During which, they have identified the evolving needs of the community. Because of the pandemic, community members are restricted to travel and need to secure food sources within their area. Together with the local government, the team will help them establish communal gardens which can help sustain the food needs of the community while also diversifying their source of income. Organic farming orientations promoting sustainable farming techniques were also implemented in the area. As farmers and community members are used to synthetic farming, the orientations helped them gain knowledge on natural farming practices that do not cause harm to the ecosystem.

Emergency Response

During the flooding disaster, the team has also been present on the ground. It helped in the facilitation of resource mobilization for emergency response and aid delivery, through conducting assessments in INCREASE areas and participating in the joint Rapid Damage Assessment and Needs Analysis (RDANA). Its visibility increased the local government’s trust and support for the project.

Facilitating resource mobilization for emergency response has helped in building stronger relationship with LGUs

The team has also seen this as an opportunity to lobby for the mainstreaming of integrated risk management in local development plans, since the disaster was caused by the inter-linkages of disasters, climate change impacts, and ecosystem degradation. It has also initiated landscape-wide early warning systems to be established.

 

 

INCREASE or Increasing the Resilience to Natural Hazards aims to increase the resilience of 45,000 women and men small-scale farmers and fishers, including 720 extreme poor female-headed households, to natural hazards and the effects of climate change. The project is supported by the SKala initiative. SKala is driven by the German entrepreneur Susanne Klatten in partnership with the think tank and non-profit consultancy PHINEO.

October 1, 2012

By Tarra Quismundo, Philippine Daily Inquirer

This report was first published in print in issue in the Philippine Daily Inquirer on 30 September 2012

 

St. Bernard, Southern Leyte – When a 7.6-magnitude quake hit the Visayas and triggered a tsunami warning in the Pacific coast a month ago, some 7,000 residents from coastal barangays here evacuated to higher ground within 12 minutes. 

In the fast and orderly retreat to safer ground, everyone was spared from harm. 

Scarred by a deadly landslide six years ago, this fourth class town of 27,000 residents has emerged as a “flagship” example in disaster preparedness, response and mitigation, its early warning system and community-based readiness program now a model for other vulnerable towns to emulate. 

 

“Where we fall, we rise.”

“Where we fall, we rise.”, said town Mayor Rico Rentuza in opening the national disaster risk reduction and climate change conference here on Friday. 

“We are not a rich town, but we are rich in hazards. Name all the hazards, we have them.. We want to build a culture of preparedness. With all the things we implemented in St. Bernard, we are already experiencing the impact of more efficient emergency response and coordination,” Rentuza said before an audience of fellow government officials and civil society groups that gathered to learn about his town’s experience. 

Once rendered “helpless” by a landslide that killed more than 1,000 residents in 2006, this town of survivors has integrated disaster risk reduction into their daily lives. 

 

Early Warning Systems

Barangays on the town’s Pacific coast man state-of-the-art early warning systems round-the-clock, ready to immediately dispatch alerts through loudspeakers installed in hazard-prone villages. All around town are disaster preparedness posters and signs. Evacuation routes are marked.

Volunteers plant mangroves along the coastline to build a natural shield from flooding. Young people regularly go to disaster-preparedness camps. And the town government, supported by both local and international agencies, is in a constant state of readiness – that is, ready to sustain the program even when left to stand in their own feet. 

“As a first-time visitor in Southern Leyte, it is rewarding to see how St. Bernard has been fully involved in community based disaster risk reduction project since the results of its investment are manifested in the successful outcomes of drills and actual evacuation,” said European Union Manila head of delegation Guy Ledoux, addressing the forum.

“I would say that regarding disaster preparedness, St. Bernard is certainly flagship. It is the most successful project and we are now [looking] to share the success in disaster preparedness of St. Bernard,” an impressed Ledoux later said in an interview. 

He also noted how the Philippines has come a long way in disaster risk reduction efforts compared to its neighbors in the region. 

“We are proud to recognize that the Philippines is ahead of its Southeast Asian neighbors as it has adopted a policy framework on disaster preparedness and local government units have been trained in implementing this framework,” Ledoux said. 

 

International Assistance

Through a modest P10-million assistance over five years, the European Union and other partner agencies, including CARE Netherlands and the German Agency for International Cooperation (GIZ), have helped build the town’s capacity for disaster risk reduction. 

International funding helped the town create its local disaster risk reduction office, which maintains a sophisticated, Filipino-made early warning system in eight high-risk barangays. 

Designed and operated by Filippino scientist Reginald Juan Mercado, devices that detect multiple hazards such as flood, earthquake, landslide and tsunami, among others, are hooked to barangay stations that could readily issue warnings through loudspeakers whenever necessary. 

While monitored by a nerve-center based at the town hall, this decentralized system makes for factor dispatch of information, Rentuza said. “They don’t have to wait for me to issue the warning,” he said. 

 

“We have a long way to go. This should be a lifelong process and practice.”

 

Colorful Houses

The town has also designated evacuation sites in every sector. This way, residents already know where to run when emergency comes. 

Incidentally, one such site is the uphill resettlement site for survivors of the Guinsagon landslide. Permanently relocated after the 2006 landslide, some 268 families (1,023 people) now reside in the new village, living in colorful concrete homes built by the Red Cross, Gawad Kalinga and the Japan International Cooperation Agency. 

“I am proud to say that from tragedy, we are now host to evacuees from Barangay Tambis Uno,” said New Guinsagon village chief Beauty Omela Cabacungan, referring to one of the town’s vulnerable barangays. 

“Our secret to still surviving is our faith in God and the prayer that whatever problem happens, we offer it to God, for we all know that God will provide,” said Cabacungan in welcoming Ledoux and other visiting officials to her village on Friday. 

 

Lifelong Process

“The St. Bernard experience is a good example of how local communities with the support of civil society and organizations and collaboration with local government authorities can spearhead collective action along disaster risk reduction,” Ledoux said. 

Much needs to be done, conceded Rentuza, as he gave assurance that the local government will not waver in disaster risk reduction efforts. 

“There is still much to be done. And it requires commitment, focus, time… We have a long way to go. This should be a lifelong process and practice,” Rentuza said. 

The European Union has been a steady humanitarian partner of the Philippines as part of its global effort to provide financial and technical aid to disaster-prone countries. Between this year and 2013, the EU has allocated P130 million for disaster-preparedness initiatives across the Philippines.

(Photo credit to Gregorio Dantes Jr.)

 

To access a soft copy of this story, please click here. 

INCREASE prioritizes vulnerable women in its activities to make sure that more opportunities will be accessible for them. This is published to show the selection criteria for female household heads who would be qualified to become part of the resilient livelihood activities of INCREASE.

To access a high-resolution copy of the file, please access the document by clicking on this link.

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.

by ACCORD, Inc.

Building Back Better and Safer : Mainstreaming IRM in livelihood programming

 

Benidicto M. Cabilte or Mano Ben, as everybody calls him, is a frail man at 63. He is apologetic and quite shy when we went to see him in his house in Barangay Bulod, part of Sta. Fe municipality in Leyte.  He lives in a small house together with his son, Junior. The father and son tandem cultivates a ¼ hectare of land owned by a relative residing in Palo. They plant rice and vegetables. Half of their rice harvest is given to the land owner as a form of rent, while the rest they keep for their consumption.  Mano Ben used to work as a security guard in Tacloban and Samar. His wife and their children were the ones tending the farm. But when his wife got sick of tuberculosis, he stopped working as a security guard and took care of her. It was also during this time that Mano Ben went back to farming. 

The couple survived Yolanda’s wrath, but unfortunately last year, Mano Ben’s wife died. The old man got so depressed that at times he turned to drinking to forget his pain. When he is sober Mano Ben continues to work in the farm together with his son Jun. The farm provides for their food and other needs and at the same time serves as therapy for Mano Ben. The daily toil keeps his mind off some problems. 

Mano Ben came to know ACCORD through the livelihood assistance project for their barangay where he is a beneficiary. For the first tranche, he received P3,000.00 which he used to buy feeds for a piglet he already owns.  For the second tranche, the livelihood group that Mano Ben was a member pooled part of the assistance they received and decided to buy a rice thresher and a carabao. They agreed this will enable them to expand their farms and increase productivity, thereby increasing their income.

Mano Ben consistently attended meetings and trainings facilitated by ACCORD. Most memorable to him is the sustainable agriculture training. He got interested upon hearing that the training involves actual demonstration on how to make organic fertilizer and insecticide.  It was very appropriate at that time since he was having trouble with some insects and pests in his farm and commercial fertilizer was too expensive that he can’t afford to buy them. 

Prior to attending the seminar on sustainable agriculture, Mano Ben used chemical sprayers and fertilizer in their rice field such as Superharvest and Restorer. He notes that it isn’t good for his health because of weakness and pains he endures after spraying.  He also observes that chemicals harm the environment, and the plant stems are more infirm and shorter. However, like other farmers, he was used to it and had little knowledge on how to shift to organic farming, although he had heard about it in seminars he attended before.  

Mano Ben shared that the trainings were very helpful because of the step-by-step process taught them.   He was so enthusiastic during the training, he took pains jotting important notes and made sure to bring with him a copy of the recipes for organic concoctions.  He wanted to share it with his son and try making some for their own use. Jun, on the one hand, was introduced to a 15-day course on gardening in high school. “Mabuti na lang nagturo sila tungkol sa gardening sa amin, napakahalaga ng kaalamang iyon.” said Jun. Aside from what he learned from high school, he also actively does research on useful techniques and supplements the organic farming knowledge his father learned during the Sustainable Agriculture seminar. For their first attempt, Mano Ben and Jun made fermented fruit juice and insect attractant. They applied the fermented fruit juice and insect attractant on their vegetable crops of squash, red chili, string beans, watermelon and eggplant. 

Since then, they have observed a significant change in the quality of both rice and vegetable crops with convincing testimonies on the effects of organic fertilizers on production. They said that the crops were bigger than before, with firmer stems and greener in color, with increased yield and faster growth rate compared with crops using chemical fertilizers. Organic fertilizers also do not cause acidity in the soil, thus, continuously producing good crops. Father and son also happily relate how effective the organic attractant they have concocted in deflecting pests off their crops. They also tried to mix the fermented fruit juice to feed the pigs and deworm them.  At present, they are tending 6 pigs, a dozen chickens, and a few ducks.

Mano Ben was so proud when his neighbors noticed the difference in his vegetable garden that they started to ask what he applied to achieve such healthy-looking vegetables. He also adds that one of the big landowners in their barangay sought their help on how to make the organic concoctions.  He boasts that he has convinced three farmers to go organic, too.

The passion of Mano Ben and Jun about practicing organic farming is very evident in the way they talk about their experiences.  They are very proud of their practice that is more environmentally friendly and are very keen on encouraging their community to do the same. Jun plans to share his knowledge more extensively with the youth after proving the effectiveness of organic farming which they tested and practiced in their vegetable garden.  Mano Ben continues to be busy throughout the day attending to the farm and their livestock.  For both of them, life is simply getting better.  Mano Ben at 63 is indeed still active and dynamic by going organic. 

 

To view and download a copy of this story, please click here.

What is resilient livelihood? This infographic aims to acquaint readers to examples and unique characteristics of resilient livelihood and how

INCREASE project will support its establishment in its project areas.

 

INCREASE or  “Philippines – Increasing Resilience to Natural Hazards” aims to 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.

Originally Written: June 18, 2013

From the town proper of Bokod in Benguet, Sitio Cobabeng can be reached after an hour’s drive in a 4×4 pick–up. After passing the Ambuklao Dam, the paved highway will lead to a dirt road marked by deep ruts that ordinary vehicles won’t be able to negotiate. Scars of earlier landslides are evident in many places along the road, all the way to Sitio Cobabeng. 

Moving from one sitio to another in order to cover the whole barangay is a challenge. Barangay Poblacion is one of five Bokod barangays participating in the Partners for Resilience project. The distance and travel time from Cobabeng to Mangagew illustrates the challenges the staff of CorDisRDS have to face regularly to implement disaster risk reduction that incorporates climate change adaptation and ecosystem management and restoration in five barangays in Bokod municipality. In many instances, PfR staff having no service vehicle, have to hike for hours in order to reach these communities, like during days when the roads are not passable even to 4×4 vehicles. 

Sitio Cobabeng is one of eight sitios that comprise Barangay Poblacion. Another sitio of Barangay Poblacion is Sitio Mangagew, which can be reached from Cobabeng after more than an hour‘s drive. During rainy season, even 4×4 pick-ups would not be able to negotiate the deeply rutted dirt road to Mangagew. Being parts of the Poblacion, or the town centre, one is given the impression that the sitios are more accessible. They are not.

Sitio Cobabeng is an unofficial resettlement site. Residents moved to their present location after landslides hit their original settlement during the July 1990 earthquake. In 2009, the livelihood assets of Sitio Cobabeng residents sustained serious damage from four tropical cyclones that hit the country in one month: Ketsana, Parma, Melor and Lupit (local names Ondoy, Pepeng, Quedan and Ramil, respectively). For two weeks, they were also isolated because of numerous landslides that blocked the road to the community.

 

“With better understanding, we are now more confident in the decisions and actions that we take.”

Sitio Cobabeng was one of the locations where the Philippine Tropical Cyclone Emergency Response project (PTC-1) and the Philippine Tropical Cyclones 2009 Shelter and Livelihood Recovery Project (PTC-2) were implemented with support from the European Commission Humanitarian Aid and Civil Protection department (ECHO). In PTC-1, community residents received food-for–work (FFW) assistance. With the food distribution, community members opened and cleared the road of landslide debris, restoring vital access to their community. Community members also decided to redistribute some of the food assistance they received in order to start a community-owned rice retail store.

During PTC-2, Sitio Cobabeng residents were supported in establishing their small–scale mining enterprise. The decision to support the enterprise was taken after a series of discussions on the sustainability, including environmental sustainability, of such enterprise. The enterprise was designed to apply traditional small-scale mining methods. Traditional methods do not use chemicals in processing. Less mechanization is involved. Tunnels are dug instead of the very destructive open–pit mines. The impact on the environment is there much less compared to that of non-traditional mining activities. 

A start–up capital was also provided to enable to community to consolidate purchases of the gold produced so that community members will not have to deal with middlemen and intermediaries. 

Three years after, during a monitoring visit for the PfR, community members proudly relate that they are able to sustain the operations of their enterprise, and that they are enjoying various benefits from it: 

Asked about the single most significant change that they have experienced since the CorDisRDS worked with the community in 2009, Martina Wakit, a woman leader of the people‘s organization said: “In the past, our understanding of various events and phenomena (mga bagay-bagay) are fragmented and limited. We are now able to understand them better and how they are linked to one another. With better understanding, we are now more confident in the decisions and actions that we take.”

 

View and download a PDF version of this article here.

Originally Written: January 15, 2013

 

Indigenous peoples living in upland, and difficult-to-reach communities in Boston and Cateel municipalities in Davao Oriental are facing long-term food shortage and hunger if they are not able to plant fast-maturing crops by February at the latest. 

At present, CARE and other organizations, such as the Department of Social Welfare and Development in partnership with the World Food Program, are meeting immediate food needs through food distribution. There is uncertainty, however, as to how long this food distribution will last. In a best-case scenario, these communities will have access to food supplies up to mid-March only. 

The source of livelihood of these indigenous communities, like most of the population Davao Oriental, is growing coconut, oil palm, rubber and falcata trees in smallholder plots, or by working in plantations. All these were destroyed by typhoon Pablo, resulting in the long-term loss of livelihoods. Coconut, oil palm, rubber and falcata trees take time, no less than three years, before becoming productive again. 

Indigenous peoples also plant upland rice (traditional rice variety); and vegetables such as eggplants, string beans, okra and pechay; and root crops such sweet potato and cassava. These are grown mainly for household consumption. These crops were also destroyed by typhoon Pablo. 

Residents of remote and hard-to-reach barangays Aliwagwag, Malibago and Maglahus in Cateel municipality, and Simulao, Caatihan and Cawayanan in Boston municipality, mostly indigenous peoples, are subsisting on food rations. In the face of uncertainty over the long term, they are asking for support so that they are able to acquire seeds so that they can immediately start their livelihood recovery, and avert long-term food shortage. 

According to the local seasonal calendar for agriculture, February is the season for planting vegetables, upland rice, and other crops. If this planting season is missed, the next planting season will be during the third quarter of the year yet. Missing the February 2013 planting season would have serious implications on the well-being of the indigenous communities in Boston and Cateel. 

Support to the livelihood recovery activities of the 9,940 indigenous peoples residing in Aliwagwag, Malibago and Maglahus in Cateel municipality, and Simulao, Caatihan and Cawayanan in Boston municipality will avert long-term food shortage and hunger among these vulnerable populations. Their timely livelihood recovery can be supported by providing them seeds, including seeds of fast-maturing crops (less than three months) such as radish, mustard green, okra and eggplant in order to augment their food sources in the earliest possible time.

 

View and download a PDF version of this article here.