The United States Agency for International Development's Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance (USAID/BHA) has committed $19 million (P1.01 billion) in humanitarian assistance to areas impacted by Super Typhoon Rai, also known locally as Super Typhoon Odette.
This fund is in addition to the initial $1.2 million donated in late December 2021 to the UN World Food Program (WFP) and the NGO Acción contra el Hambre/Spain (ACH/Spain) to address the storm's immediate humanitarian needs.
USAID/BHA assistance, which totals approximately $20.2 million to date, will assist the UN and non-governmental organization (NGO) partners in delivering emergency food, protection programming, shelter, and water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) assistance, as well as critical logistics, humanitarian coordination, and information management services across affected regions.
Meanwhile, on December 24, 2021, Secretary of Foreign Affairs Teodoro Locsin of the Government of the Philippines (GPH) 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 seeks to provide emergency food, health, logistical, housing, and WASH assistance to 530,000 individuals in severely affected districts of Caraga and Eastern Visayas.
Additionally, on December 23, 2021, UN Under-Secretary-General and Emergency Relief Coordinator (ERC) Martin Griffiths announced the allocation of $12 million from the UN Central Emergency Response 4 Fund (CERF) for humanitarian assistance in the aftermath of Super Typhoon Rai in Caraga and Eastern Visayas. At least $2.4 million of this cash will go toward protective activities in affected communities.
As of January 6, the GPH reported that Super Typhoon Rai had impacted 7.3 million people and that an estimated 2.4 million people in the affected regions of the Philippines require humanitarian assistance.
The most efficient approach for individuals to contribute to relief efforts is through monetary contributions to humanitarian groups performing relief operations. www.interaction.org maintains a directory of humanitarian groups that take cash donations for worldwide disaster relief.
Additional information is available at the USAID Center for International Disaster Information at www.cidi.org and information on the humanitarian community's relief actions at reliefweb.int. (Source: USAID)