At the recent World Humanitarian Summit regional consultation for East Asia, a survivor of Typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines stood at the podium.
Victoria Arnaiz-Lanting’s voice was breaking as she relived painful memories, telling us how the number of lives lost during the disaster had pushed humanitarians to question the effectiveness of preparedness and response efforts.
She called for international actors to do more to build resilience at the local level. They must trust local actors, she said, working with them to ensure that preparedness becomes a way of life.
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About the author
Jemilah Mahmood
Dr. Jemilah Mahmood is the chief of the World Humanitarian Summit secretariat. For her work in humanitarian response and peace building she has been conferred numerous national and international awards, and has been a member of several humanitarian international boards. She is a medical physician and the founder of MERCY Malaysia. Mahmood was the co-founder of the Asian Disaster Reduction and Response Network in 2004, and the Chief of Humanitarian Response at UNFPA in New York from 2009-2011.
