Loreine B. Dela Cruz, Executive Director, Center for Disaster Preparedness (CDP), Philippines

In the first episode of the new ALNAP's The Learning Curve: a podcast for busy humanitarians series, Juliet Parker, the director of ALNAP, the global network for humanitarian learning, speaks to Loreine B. Dela Cruz, executive director of the Center for Disaster Preparedness (CDP) in the Philippines. The wealth of learning that exists in the Philippines is so embedded within humanitarian practice, civil society structures and relationships with the government. There's so much for the rest of the sector to learn and much of it is very well documented. But sometimes there are barriers and a sense that this learning hasn't been taken up in the way it could have been. Juliet and Loreine explore the reasons why.

Follow us on WhatsApp for exclusive releases: https://whatsapp.com/channel/0029VaLBHnR0wak1Rlk7662x

Transcript

Juliet Parker (JP): Welcome to the Learning Curve. My name's Juliet Parker and I'm the director of ALNAP, the learning network for the humanitarian sector. During this podcast series, we'll be taking the opportunity to talk to a range of people across the sector about what the humanitarian sector would look like if we lived in a world based on learning. We know that the humanitarian sector is rich, rich in learning, expertise and knowledge, but that we are falling far short of really capitalising on that in order to improve on the performance of humanitarian action.

So, I'm delighted to be joined today by Loreine Dela Cruz, who is the executive director of the Centre for Disaster Preparedness Foundation in the Philippines, and they are a resource centre for the whole region on community based climate and disaster risk reduction. Welcome Loreine, and thank you very much for joining me.

Loreine Dela Cruz (LDC): Thank you, Juliet. Happy to be here. 

JP: So Loreine, the Philippines is often cited as a leading example on learning around community engagement practices. And certainly your organisation is extremely experienced in this area. Tell me a bit about why you think this is that the Philippines have excelled so much in this area?

LDC: The Philippines is known for, like, tens of thousands of civil society organisations working in various thematic areas of concern with sectoral focus, geographic focus, and different agenda and advocacy initiatives. The partnership and collaboration between the government, civil society, the private sector, the academia and to some extent the media is very much present.

Our country is very much like we say 24-7, you have various hazards turning into a disaster: be it geologic, hydrometeorological and even everyday risk being experienced by the people in the communities, both urban and rural settings. 

And, therefore, when we think of programmes, services, projects and various initiatives, we always consider how we can really support our communities on the ground. 

JP: So with the wealth of learning that exists within the Philippines that is so embedded within humanitarian practice and your civil society structures and the relationships with the government, there's so much for the rest of the sector to learn and much of it is very well documented. But sometimes there's this feeling of the sense of barriers and that it hasn't been taken up in the way that it could have been. If the humanitarian sector had picked up on this more over the last 10 or 15 years, where do you think we would be now? 

LDC: Wow. What a very impactful question for me. I really think if we really learn from all these years, with the experience that we have, like in cases of Haiyan, Odette, the the earthquakes, even fires. So, I think there would be no competition. But, you know, complementation, collaboration, cooperation, solidarity and sharing everything. Sharing knowledge, sharing resources, sharing the expertise. 

So, we could very well discuss a lot of things on how we can divide the work, distribute the assignments, the resources that we have and so we can readily respond and readily recover, bounce back and move again forward to development. 

JP: Do you have an example then of where you felt there's learning existing within the Philippines context that has then been a missed opportunity, where the sector hasn't used it in the way that it could? What are the barriers that are preventing the utilisation of this expertise that already exists?

LDC: I think one is their mindset. They don't want to change their mindset and perspective, because they know that they are the centre. But then for almost 10 years, we already have the localisation agenda. It's really a call for the UN system, donor agencies, international non government organisations to shift power, to channel resources, human, financial and otherwise, to national and local actors. Because they are there already. They're the first and last responders. Trusting them that we can all do this together, so that we can deliver the best for the affected people and the community. 

On the question of evidence, I think we have rich evidence on the ground. But they are not documented. They are not written in the standards of the, of course, the academia, the INGO standards probably on how they prepare reports or narratives, but it's already there. It's just a matter of really collecting and putting everything together to build the evidence. Because you have really competent people doing all the research, the studies and reports, and everything. How can we, you know, take a leap forward out of that? I think we need organisations like ALNAP to help us, you know, bring to light, bring to a different level the documentations and the evidence that we have on the ground.

Like this recent case of the UN OCHA flagship initiative. Actually, this is a great initiative. The whole concept is very good. It's really for empowering resilient communities, but the thing is actually there is no need for UN OCHA to reinvent the wheel. So many civil society organisations are already on the ground. We've been working with them whenever there are disasters, whenever there are humanitarian emergencies. We've been coordinating a lot prior to humanitarian response. But then, why do they need this flagship initiative to still pilot? Why not engage the civil society organisations already? They should trust us because we've been working together for so many years.

JP: Can I ask you about some other examples of where you've seen the rich learning from the Philippines emerging but struggling to reach the level of influence that you would hope.

LDC: We have another grant making component, We call it the Abot Kamay Community Solidarity Fund. We really chose 32 community-based and people's organisations that, you know, develop, design their own community-led actions. Not necessarily writing their proposal in English. It could be in video, it could be in their own language, or they can role play it. It's up to our team to capture and document the content of their proposal. So we didn't do due diligence. We just did, we call it GTKY, getting to know you, getting to know the partner. And, of course, the last is an approach in our humanitarian response, wherein, it's not us, even though we do rapid data analysis and needs assessment at the community level, but we identify communities that would really go through the process of discovering what their needs and situations are; dreaming how they want to change their situation from the emergencies, how they would bounce back and recover, and then design their own small projects and undertaking to help them recover. So that's the sclr approach. So, we have piloted this, we have documented this and all the learnings we have, we are sharing this in every opportunity that we have in webinars, in forums, in workshops, and in our capacity building and capacity developments.

JP: So then in your visioning for 10 years time or 15 years time, scaling this approach, what would humanitarian action look like or how would it look differently in the Philippines or more widely even?

LDC: We can really have, I think, successful humanitarian actions on the ground. Not necessarily the duty bearers being there in the first 72 hours because our strength, is conducting community-based disaster risk reduction and management. And therefore, the first and last responders would always be there. They can be tucked on the ground and they know what to do. They have the early warning. They have the planned evacuation. They have the preparedness plan, some mitigating and preventive measures. And therefore, it would be less resources because they can also tap what they have to start with in their very own communities.

JP: Great. Thank you, Loreine. So my final question, and it's a big one. If the humanitarian sector is really serious about learning, what needs to happen now?

LDC: I think, if I may be frank and not inhibited. What's needed is really, you know, but the State of Humanitarian System would always say that, yes, there are problems, but it can be fixed. But I think that the real thing should be the transformation of the humanitarian system. So, there would be actors and people who would really making all their efforts to perpetuate that system. But I think us, those in the movement building for shifting the power, nd for community philanthropy, we would like to think that we are ushering into the new system and building models to make the new system really be in place in due course, while definitely still working within the same system. So, that's why we make all efforts to really raise awareness, do advocacy and influencing work. And just recently, we've launched, together with NEAR, the Philippine Localization Lab. We want to make it highly visible because we want it to serve as a counterpole. This can be the channel if you want to support, provide resources to locally-led development and community-led actions.

And I think people need to change themselves too in this very complicated or very entangled situation we are into. We need humility. Humility, at the same time boldness, in order to really challenge our own power. And to listen to and really work with others. That's difficult, but we can start with our own self. And then, with our organisation, with many organisations building solidarity, we're hoping that we could contribute to transforming the current system. 

JP: Thank you so much, Loreine. And thank you very much for all your thoughts, which I'm sure our listeners to our new podcast The Learning Cove will be extremely interested to hear.

LDC: Thank you too.