Haoliang Xu on UNDP in the Philippines: 'We focus on issues we are good at'

This month, the Philippines marked the anniversary of Super Typhoon Haiyan — known locally as Yolanda — with the expected progress reports on reconstruction and recovery efforts. It also shone a renewed spotlight on the challenges that Haiyan victims continue to face after the early response period. Devex covered these issues on the ground, reporting on the lessons stakeholders have learned about conducting disaster operations not just in the Philippines but elsewhere, the essential skills needed to carry out humanitarian work in these settings, and the tough road ahead for the typhoon victims and everyone involved in the reconstruction and recovery efforts. That last point is echoed by various government and development officials who have spent time in the disaster-struck areas, including the assistant secretary-general of the United Nations. At a press briefing held two days after the anniversary, Haoliang Xu, who is also the director of the U.N. Development Program’s regional bureau for Asia and the Pacific, stressed the need to involve the typhoon victims themselves in their own recovery process. Xu traveled to Tacloban and Palo in Leyte province and Basey in Samar province — among the areas hit hardest by the typhoon — as part of his nine-day trip to the Philippines, which also included a trip to Davao City, where he participated in the Philippine Development Forum on the Bangsamoro. In fact, this month also marks the second phase of the Ad Hoc Committee on the Bangsamoro Basic Law’s public hearings in Mindanao. The signing of the Comprehensive Agreement on the Bangsamoro early this year was a milestone deemed necessary to help Muslim Mindanao transition from conflict to development; the signing of the Bangsamoro Basic Law — which will define relations between local government units, the Bangsamoro government and the central government — is a crucial part of that agreement. Toward the end of his trip to the Philippines, Xu sat down with Devex to share his thoughts on Haiyan reconstruction and the Bangsamoro peace process — two challenges that will likely be key to assessing the Philippines’ development record in the next few years. Below are some highlights from our conversation. On working in a highly decentralized environment in the Philippines “We focus on issues we are good at,” Xu said. “With the central government, our focus is on getting the planning right, the governance systems right.” With local governments, UNDP typically works on issues that are within these units’ mandate. For example, UNDP has been improving the capacity of local government units to issue new birth certificates to Haiyan victims, according to Xu. “Birth certificates, I understand, are critically important to receiving social services,” he said. “Typhoon Yolanda destroyed a lot of them.” This kind of setup has also given UNDP an opportunity to partner with a vibrant civil society and private sector — two key players in the early Haiyan response and continued recovery. On UNDP’s work with the Philippine private sector “I think that, in the Yolanda response in the Philippines, it came out very clearly that it’s not only the state that supported the efforts,” Xu said when asked about the traditional reluctance of the humanitarian sector in engaging the private sector. “The individual, the private sector contributions were equally important.” While he acknowledged that “what government can do is limited,” Xu also emphasized that the “private sector does not work in a vacuum” and that “it works best with the public sector.” For instance, through the help of donor support from both the public and private sectors, UNDP Philippines has been buying fallen coconut trees from poor families and using them to build transitional shelter for Haiyan victims. Meanwhile, UNDP Philippines has also been working with the Land Bank of the Philippines and Smart Communications on a mobile payment system for an estimated 50,000 participants of cash-for-work programs run by the government, civil society and U.N. agencies. On the Philippines’ procurement system, which some have criticized as not being equipped enough to allow aid to move more quickly “I think that, in the interest of ensuring accountability and transparency, the Filipino government procurement system has many checks and balances,” Xu said. The dissatisfaction that some have expressed with this cumbersome system perhaps arises from what Xu sees as the natural need to see results from the donor money being channeled toward Haiyan reconstruction efforts. “A longer-term solution would be to look at policies and legislation [on procurement] to see if they could be simplified,” he said. On how Mindanao can make the transition from conflict to long-term peace and development “There needs to be a concerted effort for a period of time,” Xu said. But he believes that the transition from conflict to development in the Bangsamoro region is still “at a stage where a lot of governance issues need to be sorted out. When it comes to details, there are still a lot of issues that need to be clarified.” Based on insights gained from an extensive review of literature, field interviews and joint U.N.-World Bank guidelines on post-conflict assessment, the Bangsamoro Development Plan is a six-year blueprint with seven thematic areas: economy, social, environmental and natural resources, politics, security, culture and identity, and the crosscutting themes of gender and development as well as peace building and youth. While hailed as a step toward faster human development in the Bangsamoro region, the BDP, according to Xu, should be more than just an aspirational blueprint. “We need to operationalize the plan with a sense of urgency,” he said. There also needs to be a sense of continuity in shifting from the Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao to the new Bangsamoro Transition Commission and, eventually, to the Bangsamoro Transition Authority, according to Xu. “During the meeting [with MILF and ARMM leaders] I advocated for the Bangsamoro to look at what they can use from the ARMM,” he said. “[The Bangsamoro Transition Commission] shouldn’t start from scratch.” On approaches to natural disaster and conflict “While some of the symptoms are similar, the root causes are different,” Xu said when asked whether there was a need to better link approaches to natural disasters and conflict, as a recent study has recommended. “If there is conflict, the level of development is low. If the level of development is low, the area is more susceptible to natural disasters. So we cannot easily separate them [natural disasters and conflict],” Xu added. “But the response to Haiyan and the development strategy for Bangsamoro are very different.” Check out more insights and analysis provided to hundreds of Executive Members worldwide, and subscribe to the Development Insider to receive the latest news, trends and policies that influence your organization.