Recovery Collection: Typhoon Haiyan (Yolanda) 2013

Typhoon Haiyan, locally known as Super Typhoon Yolanda, was one of the most powerful tropical cyclones on record and made landfall at the Eastern part of the Philippines on 17 November 2013. The most affected islands were Leyte and Samar. The typhoon killed over 6,000 people and affected in around 590 municipalities approximately 16 million people, including 4 million who were displaced. The typhoon also caused widespread damage to housing, livelihoods and infrastructure across nine of the poorest provinces of the country. Almost 1.1 million houses were damaged or destroyed.

The National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council (NDRRMC) of the Government of Philippines evacuated over 125,00 people to over 109 evacuation centres before the arrival of typhoon. Initially, the Government developed a document “Reconstruction Assistance on Yolanda”, in which the overall damages and losses from the typhoon were estimated at US$12.9 billion and the needs for recovery and reconstruction were estimated at US$8.2 billion. Subsequently, the Government developed a “Comprehensive Rehabilitation and Recovery Plan”, for the implementation of which the following five clusters were established: Food and water distribution, peace and order, shelter and reconstruction, social services as well as livelihood, employment and commerce.

The World Bank proposed as lessons learned from the typhoon to reform the NDRRMC, to create a disaster rehabilitation and recovery framework as well as effective coordination mechanisms, to develop implementation modalities and strategies for faster rehabilitation and recovery interventions, an effective emergency procurement manual as well as standards for disaster rehabilitation and recovery communications and to explore further channels of funding for disaster rehabilitation and recovery.