Humanitarian & Disaster Assistance

One of the most important lessons for the world to draw from the [Thypoon Haiyan] situation is that, given the reality of climate change, all governments are going to have to invest more in planning for responding to these huge disasters, even if it means taking difficult political decisions.

While international agencies are becoming increasingly aware of gender issues in the distribution of relief items, there are still cases where aid is distributed only to male heads of families, relief items are too heavy for women to carry, or where aid is distributed to women but they are vulnerable to being robbed on their way home.

The best type of recovery occurs when the global foreign aid community is coordinating on, what is sometimes referred to, as ‘building back better.' Building back better means building with an eye to the long-term, rebuilding through job creation, through restoring livelihoods and things like that.