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Philippines: Situation Report, 12 Nov 2019

Countries
Philippines
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OCHA
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HIGHLIGHTS

  • As of 12 November, over 260,000 people are in need of assistance due to a series of earthquakes in Tulunan, North Cotabato in Mindanao.

  • The Humanitarian-Development-Peace Nexus: Towards a New Way of Working in the Philippines

The Humanitarian-Development-Peace Nexus – Old wine in new bottles?

Linking humanitarian action closer to development assistance has been on the global agenda for decades and discussed under various themes. From ‘Linking relief, rehabilitation and development’, to building resilience, to the ‘Humanitarian-Development-Nexus’ – the underlying notions and goals remain similar: humanitarian and development actors both strive to improve the well-being and resilience of affected populations and by creating stronger linkages between them the overall impact of their interventions could be increased.

In recent years, the nexus concept gained new momentum. At the World Humanitarian Summit (WHS) in 2016, strengthening the humanitarian-development nexus was identified as a priority and as part of the Grand Bargain, donors and aid providers committed themselves to enhance engagement between humanitarian and development actors. With the addition of a peace perspective emphasized by António Guterres, Secretary-General of the United Nations, the nexus advanced further into the ‘triple nexus’ uniting the humanitarian, development and peace agendas.

Since the aim of the humanitarian-development-peace nexus is similar to earlier concepts, the question arises whether it is just a revival of a longstanding idea under a different name. However, what distinguishes the nexus from previous concepts, is that it goes beyond a programmatic approach and places emphasis on the strategic and structural changes from the perspective of donors, governments and organizations delivering services that are needed in order to adapt to the fundamental shifts occurring on a global scale, ranging from increasing risks as a result of climate change to smaller funding streams which necessitate more efficient and pre-emptive responses to natural and man-made disasters. Thus, the nexus is not merely a revival of an old concept, but rather an evolution of an approach that is able to close some of the gaps left by compartmentalized planning and programming and change the way humanitarian and development assistance is funded and delivered.

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