Recovery and reconstruction planning in the aftermath of typhoon Haiyan

This report summarizes the “just-in-time” advice provided by the World Bank to the government of the Philippines (GoP) immediately after Typhoon Haiyan. The Bank helped the National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA) develop the Reconstruction Assistance on Yolanda (RAY) plan, providing recommendations and sharing international good practice on key aspects of recovery and reconstruction, including institutional arrangements for recovery implementation, use of remote damage assessment, resilient recovery, and reconstruction of housing, buildings, roads, and other infrastructure.

The report is divided into six chapters: (i) Rapid damage assessments: using remote sensing technologies and risk information to help determine preliminary reconstruction needs; (ii) Buildings and infrastructure: good practices for resilient reconstruction; (iii) Housing: lessons learned from large-scale housing reconstruction programs; (iv) Building back better: restoring key sectors, local economy, and livelihoods; (v) Roads and bridges: enabling operational continuity of lifelines for evacuation and post disaster response and (vi) Institutional structures: good practices and options for effective planning and implementation of reconstruction and recovery.

Super Typhoon Haiyan (local name Yolanda) is considered one of the strongest typhoons ever recorded, with Category 5–equivalent winds and five- to six-meter storm surges at landfall. The typhoon caused over 8,000 casualties, affected some 12.2 million people (in 2.6 million families), and brought damages and losses to the country estimated at US$12.9 billion.