MANILA -- The United States Agency for International Development Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance (USAID/BHA) allocated $19 million (P1.01 billion) in humanitarian assistance to support communities affected by Super Typhoon Rai or locally known as Super Typhoon Odette. This funding is in addition to an initial $1.2 million provided to the UN World Food Program (WFP) and the NGO Acción contra el Hambre/Spain (ACH/Spain) in late December 2021 to address the urgent humanitarian needs arising from the storm.
With a total contribution of approximately $20.2 million to date, USAID/BHA assistance will support UN and NGO partners to deliver emergency food, protection programming, shelter, and water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) assistance as well as to provide critical logistics and humanitarian coordination and information management services across affected regions.
Meanwhile, on 24 December 2021, Government of the Philippines (GPH) Secretary of Foreign Affairs Teodoro Locsin and UN Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator in the Philippines Gustavo Gonzalez jointly launched the Humanitarian Needs and Priorities (HNP) for the Philippines in response to Super Typhoon Rai, requesting approximately $107.2 million in international disaster assistance to support GPH-led humanitarian relief efforts.
Between December 2021 and June 2022, the HNP aims to reach 530,000 people in severely affected areas of Caraga and Eastern Visayas with emergency food, health, logistics, shelter, and WASH assistance, among other support.
Additionally, on 23 December 2021, UN Under-Secretary-General and Emergency Relief Coordinator (ERC) Martin Griffiths allocated $12 million from the UN Central Emergency Response 4 Fund (CERF) for humanitarian assistance in response to Super Typhoon Rai across Caraga and Eastern Visayas. This funding includes at least $2.4 million for protection activities in affected areas.
As of January 6, the GPH estimated that Super Typhoon Rai had affected 7.3 million people and an estimated 2.4 million people need humanitarian assistance in the affected regions of the Philippines.
The most effective way people can assist relief efforts is by making cash contributions to humanitarian organizations that are conducting relief operations. A list of humanitarian organizations that are accepting cash donations for disaster responses around the world can be found at www.interaction.org.
More information can also be found at: USAID Center for International Disaster Information at www.cidi.org and Information on relief activities of the humanitarian community can be found at reliefweb.int. (USAID)
