No funds for Tacloban jobs–UN report

Tacloban residents, like this family in San Jose district, celebrate Christmas amid the rubble of their homes destroyed by Super Typhoon Yolanda. Efforts to provide livelihood to survivors of Yolanda are getting barely any funds in the ongoing rehabilitation program, particularly in Eastern Visayas, according to a report submitted to a United Nations agency. RICHARD A. REYES

NAGA CITY, Philippines—Efforts to provide livelihood to survivors of Super Typhoon Yolanda are getting barely any funds in the ongoing rehabilitation program for areas devastated by the storm, particularly in Eastern Visayas, according to a report submitted to a United Nations agency.

The report, submitted to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, said UN partners noted that only a few livelihood projects were ongoing, benefiting only 5,000 out of 5.9 million workers who lost their sources of income as a result of Yolanda.

The livelihood cluster of the UN, according to the report, was targeting 400,000 of these people in its livelihood programs.

Most livelihood projects meant to help people get back on their feet, not through doles but through jobs, had received no funding as of Jan. 14, or more than three months after Yolanda struck last Nov. 8, said the report released by UN Coordinator to the Philippines Gemma Cortes on Wednesday.

It said only 20 percent of livelihood projects monitored by UN partners had been completed.

Aside from failing to give people jobs, the report said rehabilitation efforts in Yolanda-stricken areas were also focused on a shelter program that largely ignores individual efforts to rebuild homes, whether in their original sites or in places away from government-designated no-build zones.

Shelter rehabilitation projects particularly in Eastern Visayas, said the report, were “seriously and disproportionally underfunded.”

This resulted in survivors languishing in schools that double as evacuation sites, said the report. In Tacloban City alone, it said, at least 1,020 families were still living in schools.

UN partners, said the report, linked poor sanitation and cases of theft of school materials to the continued stay of survivors in schools.

The 1,020 families in Tacloban still sheltered in schools were just a fragment of at least 4.1 million families who had lost homes in areas hit by Yolanda, said the report.

Low funding

It said international organizations, working closely with the Philippine government, blamed low funding for efforts to rebuild homes and limited options to transfer devastated communities to safer locations for the continued displacement of thousands of families.

It quoted a report from the UN shelter cluster as saying that only 12 of 33 projects to provide shelters for storm survivors have so far received funding.

The report said at least 1.1 million houses had been destroyed by Yolanda in Western and Eastern Visayas.

It said the UN shelter cluster had so far provided basic emergency shelter materials to 384,329 households in the two regions while support for individual efforts to rebuild or repair homes would be given to 60,508 households.

Quoting the UN Financial Tracking Service, the report said at least $609 million had been poured in for rehabilitation efforts. Another $328 million had been given to the Strategic Response Plan (SRP) aligned with the Philippine government’s Recovery Assistance on Yolanda Plan launched last Dec. 18, the report said.

Gaps

It said at least 80 international entities, including UN member states, contributed to the SRP. It noted gaps and constraints in shelter and livelihood programs, however.

One of these was the failure to use local resources, like fallen coconut trees that could be processed into lumber, according to the report.

It also said there was a lack of support for local governments to resume basic government services and restore facilities. This prevented progress, the report said.

Many towns in western Leyte, the report said, had not received help to set up emergency shelters, like tents.