Three years after the World Humanitarian Summit, Philippine NGOs take stock of their own initiatives, as well as that of government, donor agencies and international NGOs toward the Grand Bargain and other summit commitments. The Balik-Lokal Movement, a CSO advocacy platform on localization of humanitarian response in the Philippines organized the “National Conference: Promoting Locally-Led Humanitarian Response” last 14-15 November 2019 in Quezon City, Philippines.

The national conference provided space for conversation among the country’s key humanitarian actors on localization of humanitarian response as major commitment made by various governments and non-government organizations during the 2016 World Humanitarian Summit (WHS) in Istanbul, Turkey. The conference tackled the progress of implementation of commitments, account localization efforts, and identify actions that would address obstacles to localization of humanitarian response. About a hundred organizations from various national and local NGOs, people’s organizations, faith-based organizations, academe, private sectors, LGUs, government agencies, UN agencies and international NGOs participated in the event.

Balik-Lokal Movement members representing people’s organizations, faith-based organizations, CSOs and CSO networks presented their experiences on locally-led humanitarian response. CODE-NGO, a co-convenor of the movement, shared about the work of its 10 regional DRRM coordination hubs as an example of localization at scale. Formed in 2014, the hubs function as disaster risk reduction and management (DRRM) advocacy and learning exchange platform during peace times, and coordinate needs assessments and member interventions during emergencies. Around a hundred organizations are involved in the hubs in 10 regions of the country. The Hubs have since responded to seven (7) disasters, including the Marawi siege in Marawi and nearby areas and Typhoon Mangkhut in Kalinga.

CODE-NGO and its DRRM Hubs expanded its coordination on humanitarian actions with other CSO networks such as the NASSA Caritas Philippines, Humanitarian Response Consortium (HRC) and National Council of Churches in the Philippines (NCCP). Together, they form the Philippine Partnership for Emergency Response and Resilience (PPERR) to exchange assessments and coordinate response interventions during emergencies.  CODE-NGO, NASSA Caritas Philippines and HRC further deepened its partnership to establish an independent foundation called SAFER or Shared Aid Fund for Emergency Response that raises funds from the public to support disaster response actions of local organizations. Further, CODE-NGO partnered with Humanitarian Leadership Academy (HLA) to form the Center for Humanitarian Learning and Innovations (CHLI). CHLI continues to make available locally HLA’s 400 free courses on www.kayaconnect.org platform, as well as its other humanitarian learning solutions.

See poster here for the highlights of the work of CODE-NGOs’ DRRM Coordination Hubs.