Emergency Relief Response to Systemic Change

Helvetas, together with Swiss Solidarity (SwS), hosted a ‘Sharing Event’in Bern, on November 29, 2019. Here are some highlights that you can download.

In November 2013, Super Typhoon Haiyan hit the Philippines, leaving thousands of people dead, missing and injured. It greatly affected the livelihoods of already vulnerable people.

Following that disaster, Swiss Solidarity (SwS) has supported HELVETAS from 2015 with the project ‘Enhancing Sustainable Income in the Philippines’ in the area of Eastern Samar. In this post-typhoon context, the project has applied a market systems development (MSD) approach to increase the income and improve the resilience of poor and vulnerable farmers in Eastern Samar through the strengthening and development of their income generating skills and opportunities.

Helvetas has also applied aspects of MSD under the SwS funded project ‘Early Recovery of Extreme Poor Flood Victims’ in the districts of Gaibanda and Jamalpur in Bangladesh in 2018.

Both project strategies intended to strengthen local market systems so that results are sustainable beyond the project intervention following humanitarian disasters.

Are you eager to know more about those projects; specifically, about the experiences on the transition from emergency/relief response to systemic change?

The focal point of our discussion included:

• Systemic development approach in post disaster response and livelihood recovery
• Systemic changes in agricultural subsectors affected by disasters
• The role of the Local Service Providers (LSPs)

Feel free to download some interesting and impactful information.