Ivan Ledesma (DEP 2015-16), Ica Fernandez,
Nastassja Quijano, Miguel Dorotan, and Abbey Pangilinan write:
As of present writing there are now 3,746 confirmed cases of
COVID-19 in the Philippines, including 177 fatalities, of which 21 are
physicians. Eighty-four have recovered.
The country’s public health institutions are now overwhelmed. At a
time when humanitarian and development institutions should be more actively
working in the frontlines, it seems that smaller-scale, local and
private-sector actors are more prominent in these early stages of response.
While some agencies are more geared than others towards so-called ‘adaptive
programming’ and ‘thinking and working politically’ and have already deployed
on the ground, the nature of this global emergency has left the humanitarian
and development sectors, even in disaster-scarred and battle-tested
Philippines, to respond in a manner that many would describe as slow.
Part of the difficulty is how this prolonged crisis has a
different tempo and set of mobility, procurement, and deployment restrictions
that do not come into play in the standard natural disasters and
conflict-related displacements regularly experienced in Southeast Asia. More
than anything else, COVID-19 magnifies existing weaknesses in our service
delivery structures and amplifies humanitarian and development challenges that
existed before the pandemic. Thus the declaration of a National State of
Calamity and the establishment of ‘enhanced community quarantine’ across Metro
Manila, Luzon, and selected pockets across Visayas and Mindanao on 17 March
2020 puts in place new ‘rules of the game’--a situation that is likely to
continue for the rest of the year until the global pandemic is curbed.
While the health sector should
take the lead in COVID-19 response, “flattening the curve”—keeping the
infection growth rate down—and keeping the hospitals as the last line of
defense entails a complex set of efforts across multiple sectors. It will
involve community level initiatives such as social protection, water and
sanitation, transportation, logistics, food security, manufacturing and supply
chain innovation, data analytics, peace and security, and the fiscal and
macroeconomic calibrations to maintain all of these operations in the midst of
a global recession.
The following suggests seven key
strategies for the humanitarian and development community, including
multilateral and bilateral donors, members of the HCT, IASC, UN, INGOs and NGOs
for the next few weeks of adjustments:
1. Adapt and reframe project goals of existing grant envelopes.
●
Pivoting operations to respond to
COVID-19 means reviewing what ongoing projects and platforms can realistically
change, adapt, or reformulate their goals, target outputs, and activities. Aid
calendars for multiple countries have been pushed back as a result of the
lockdowns. But even so, these pivots within existing portfolios must be done
immediately, with the appropriate evidence-based review.
2. Focus on redesigning interventions for supporting the most vulnerable.
●
Although COVID-19 does not
discriminate amongst those it infects, the severity and adverse effects of the
virus and the various social measures taken to contain it disproportionately
affect the poorest and most vulnerable communities. This specifically refers to
the homeless, urban poor and informal settler families, the
internally-displaced, daily wage earners, and other populations that are often
uncounted in government databases and have limited access to basic and health services. As we have discussed elsewhere, protecting these vulnerable communities means protecting
everyone else.
●
Governments all over the world are
now deploying social protection packages of emergency cash transfers, rent
freezes, among others. In support of these efforts, bilateral and multilateral
donors should encourage their implementing partners and subgrantees to
prioritise and provide safety nets to target the most vulnerable communities
and populations, complementing the government’s response. This also means that
time and effort should be redirected in sharpening available data for targeting
and decision-making, at the most localized spatial scales possible.
3. Journey with national and local governments.
●
The humanitarian and development
community should work to complement the national, regional, and local
governance and delivery structures put in place. In the Philippines, this means
supporting the Inter-Agency Task Force on Emerging Infectious Diseases
(IATF-EID), filling in gaps, helping establish SOPs and coordination mechanisms
across levels and workstreams, and supporting governments to do better. These
tasks--which includes helping with analysis and process guidelines for
targeting, delivery, coordination, and monitoring and evaluation--are
traditional strengths of the development and humanitarian sectors. At the same
time, support should be directed towards
strengthening community-based responses, and helping cities, municipalities,
and barangay (village) leaders localize national guidelines.
4. Diversify partners portfolio – celebrate local and private initiatives.
●
The last two weeks have seen how small-scale,
local, and private initiatives or loose collectives and coalitions, private
individuals, and small organizations can mobilize and reach communities
quickly. From providing a platform for donations, amassing private sector
support, to mapping of vulnerabilities, these small interventions have so far
proved to be the most successful, given the varying levels of lockdown,
immobility, and access restrictions.
●
With the burden of service
delivery with municipal and city-level local governments, we have seen the rise
of local leaders being able to innovate by delivering food to marginalized
populations, instituting spacing queues, deploying rolling stores, and
encouraging non-motorized transport such as bikes and scooters to complement
government-established bus shuttle routes for frontliners. The most effective
governance platforms have also been able to collaborate with the private sector
for fundraising, emergency food pack and PPE donations, and encouraging
manufacturers, clothing designers, and 3D printing fablabs to pivot and address
urgent needs.
●
To support this, bilateral and
multilateral donors should widen their partnership portfolios and consider
directly supporting local and private sector actors who have provided tangible
results for the most in need. Arguably, with the paralysis of many larger
development and humanitarian actors, supporting smaller organizations can cut
through several layers of bureaucracy and inject assistance to where it is much
needed. In order to partner with these organizations, relaxing selected
procurement rules may be considered.
5. Institute workforce adaptation and adjust operational modalities.
●
Portfolio decisions and
streamlining for COVID-19 readiness means that the workforces of implementing
actors and subgrantees must also adapt accordingly. As these administrative and
human resources (HR) related changes are happening, there is a need for
flexibility and creativity in figuring out the best courses of action, whilst
not leaving dependent populations (particularly in humanitarian response
operations) without any lifeline. Such measures would include adopting remote
management practices, mapping and engaging private sector service providers who
have access to move to deliver basic social services.
6. Repurpose existing budgets and monitoring, evaluation, and learning mechanisms - ensure grant flexibility.
●
In many cases, approved budgets
submitted by implementing partners and subgrantees will require revision to
address the COVID-19 response. Though actors will strive to do what they can,
bilateral and multilateral donors’ support in handling these revisions with the
utmost flexibility will be necessary. Additional top-up support in parallel to
government financing may also be considered if existing programs already target
the vulnerable communities and current appropriations are not enough.
7. Acknowledge that adjustable project durations are necessary because a quick return to “Business as Usual” is unlikely.
●
Following portfolio-level reviews,
adjusting project durations for implementing partners and subgrantees may also
be required, including possible extensions. Extensions and adjustments should
be based on supporting the most vulnerable populations. It should be
acknowledged that some current developmental and humanitarian programming (for
example, any activity that requires large physical gatherings of people such as
training workshops, community distributions, conferences) are not necessarily
relevant and could pose more harm to communities if sustained.
●
Existing global evidence shows that it will
take months to address this global crisis. Returning to ‘business as usual’
will be impossible. Donors and field actors alike will need to quickly pivot
programming to those that would address emergency needs as well as future gaps
and repercussions. Global changes in programming will likely require
significant layoffs, changes, and suspension of other types of support, which
should be properly and clearly communicated to both implementing partners and
communities. The tolls of rapid organizational shifts notwithstanding, a
massive sea change in how humanitarian and development institutions operate and
collaborate is unavoidable.
The Need to #CovidPivot:
COVID-19 has brought the world to
its knees, causing significant losses of life, disruption of social norms, and
unprecedented shocks to the global economy. It also poses a direct challenge to
all institutions and individuals working in the development and humanitarian
sectors. It is clear that usual modalities of delivering aid and social
services through the current system are no longer viable. This is particularly
true in responding to the specific needs of the most vulnerable populations.
The time to pivot and revolutionize the way we think, innovate, and serve,
during this time is long past. We are playing catch up. While many are
constrained by working from home, many smaller, more localized initiatives led
by local governments, the business sector, and citizen-led efforts are proving
that with the right approach, development work can still be impactful during
these challenging times. We ask the international development and humanitarian
aid community to consider these seven key messages, and open up platforms for
engagement, localisation, and quick action.
Pivoting in times of COVID19 is
not optional.
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