Foreign aid shifting to rebuilding – USAID

MANILA, Philippines - Foreign aid is shifting to rebuilding in the typhoon-hit areas, with the United States committed to sustaining assistance through the transition, a top US aid official said yesterday.

Jeremy Konyndyk emphasized that the Philippine government would take the lead in the multinational reconstruction effort.

Konyndyk, who arrived Friday night from the United States, heads the Office of US Foreign Disaster Assistance (OFDA) of the US Agency for International Development (USAID).

He said USAID would seek guidelines from Manila on how best to utilize the massive outpouring of aid from the international community.

“It’s the Philippine government that’s going to be the lead,” Konyndyk told The STAR yesterday. “You need to have some clear leadership for this to work.”

Before flying to Manila, Konyndyk was briefed in Hawaii on the situation in the disaster zones. The briefing was given by the Honolulu-based US Pacific Command, which has deployed the aircraft carrier USS George Washington to the disaster area.

As of yesterday morning, the aircraft carrier’s contingent of Osprey aircraft and Black Hawk helicopters had conducted 500 sorties to Tacloban City and islands devastated by Super Typhoon Yolanda, according to Al Dwyer, OFDA principal regional advisor for the Asia-Pacific.

Responding to the United Nations’ flash appeal, the international community has so far committed a total of $317 million in aid to the Philippines, Konyndyk said.

“That to me indicates a very substantial, very committed international response,” he told The STAR. “I’m not worried about donor fatigue.”

At this point, he said the focus is “how do we get past the international support” and allow the victims to get back on their feet.

“We need to start moving into this recovery quickly,” Konyndyk said.

Getting people back into “more permanent structures” is one of the two top priorities in the rebuilding effort.

The other is the provision of employment. Konyndyk was told that the super typhoon destroyed some six million coconut trees. Fishing and the copra industry are two of the biggest sources of employment in Leyte and Samar.

Konyndyk described it as a “livelihood challenge.” Also challenging is cleaning up the rubble that Yolanda left in its wake.

The US can help in this effort, but Dwyer said they needed clarification from the Philippine government on legal issues such as private ownership regulations before the work can start.

“We don’t want to be ahead of the (Philippine) government,” Dwyer told The STAR. “The government can tell us what’s good and what’s not… it needs to happen very quickly.”

The USAID officials lauded the performance of the Department of Social Welfare and Development and Armed Forces of the Philippines, and considered it a positive sign that President Aquino had flown to Tacloban to personally oversee the relief operations.

Konyndyk noted that Yolanda “has been a huge story in the US,” with prime coverage lasting up to 10 days.

Dwyer, who flew to Manila from his office in Bangkok, Thailand a day after Yolanda struck, noted that both Samar and Leyte hold “a very important emotional place” in the hearts of Americans.

Leyte was where Gen. Douglas MacArthur began the American liberation of the Philippines from Japanese occupation forces, fulfilling his promise to return to the country during World War II.

Eastern Samar, meanwhile, was the scene of the bloodiest fighting during the Philippine-American War in 1901.

Konyndyk said that in the US, the Filipino-American community has been active in raising relief aid, but even non-Filipino-Americans have come up to him, asking how they could help the typhoon victims.

“People care, people are really interested,” Konyndyk said. “There is an intense desire to help.”