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.