Typhoon Yolanda: Spain’s partnership in disaster risk reduction

Last week, I visited Tacloban to see first hand the Spanish relief efforts in the area, as well as to evaluate possible future endeavours in disaster risk reduction (DRR) in this calamity prone country so close to Spain’s heart.

I was very impressed by the excellent work that the medical team of 35 plus people from the Agencia Española de Cooperación Internacional para el Desarrollo (AECID) is carrying out in assisting the Regional Hospital of Tacloban to recover its normal operations. Two days after their arrival to the hospital, the supply of water had been reestablished, the operating and delivery rooms were being cleaned up and an installation for medical waste was functioning, etc. Best of all, the working relationship with the doctors and staff of the hospital demonstrated the close partnership we have built up with the Department of Health over the years allowing us to assist them in these difficult times of rehabilitation of the public health system of that Region. Along with this medical team from AECID, there is another one of the region of Andalousia (Southern Spain) in the Island of Bantayan (Cebu) and other nine emergency teams spread out in the devastated areas.

However, our humanitarian relief efforts related to typhoon Yolanda have not stopped there. I also had the honor to welcome in Cebu two other cargo aircraft loaded with emergency humanitarian aid, WASH supplies, shelters, mobile potable water treatment plants (we have mobilized 10 in this crisis), generators and medicines (including 6 tons of antibiotics and analgesics sent by the Foundation of Her Majesty Queen Sofía, who has been following the situation very closely). Bilaterally, but also through other NGOs and the World Food Programme (WFP), we have donated goods worth more than P80,000,000.

This disaster, as the earthquake in Bohol last month and many other previous calamities, have reminded us of something that the Spanish Aid Program has realized for some time now. The need to work strategically on DRR in the Philippines, third most battered country on the planet when it comes to natural disasters. That is why Spain has been the single largest European donor of humanitarian aid since 2007 with more than 26 million Euros in grants (P1,521,000,000). These funds have been used mostly to help the victims of the calamities inflicted by nature, but they have also helped prepare the national and local institutions to cope with them and, if possible, to prevent them from causing human casualties.

We are determined to continue working with the Philippine authorities to build up their disaster risk reduction capabilities, as we have already done remarkably in the province of Albay with the construction of evacuation centers, training of relief teams, donation of mobile potable water treatment plants, etc. This joint effort has paid off. I will give you two examples. In the wake of typhoon Yolanda, 400,000 people were evacuated in the Bicol region which resulted in zero human casualties: this is the story we want to hear in the future in other parts of the Philippines struck by typhoons or earthquakes. Furthermore, few probably know that the first water treatment plant to attend to this basic need of the population of Tacloban in the aftermath of Yolanda, was the one donated by the Spanish Government to the province of Albay, and which arrived with its team of experts the following day after the disaster.

We are, therefore, going to enhance our collaboration with the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council (NDRRMC), the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) and the Philippine Government, in general, through a recently approved capacity building program for local institutions and structures dealing with the prevention and management of natural disasters (NDRRMC-OCD). We are also in the final stages of establishing the first two emergency humanitarian warehouses, 3-in-1 facilities, located in Clark Air Base and in Nueva Ecija. These are only two out of the six that will be set-up in the country and that will store the prepositioned humanitarian equipment (such as water treatment plants, generators, rubber boats, satellite communication systems, etc), which will be utilized for possible interventions in crisis situations. Spain, through AECID, wants to make a significant contribution to a safer and more prepared DRR country.

*   *   *

(Jorge Domecq is the ambassador of Spain.)