Manila, January 12 2016 — BusinessWorld has published an article on UN-Habitat’s renewed partnership with the Social Housing Finance Corporation (SHFC).
Text from the article:
The Social Housing Finance Corporation recently renewed its partnership with United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UN Habitat) to facilitate faster recovery and reconstruction of Yolanda-affected areas in Luzon and Visayas.
The signing of the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) held in Pontevedra, Capiz marked the expansion of the “Post-Yolanda Support for Safer Homes and Settlements Project,” a community-driven recovery and rehabilitation of Yolanda-hit communities in Capiz and Iloilo.
Under the MOU, SHFC and UN Habitat will continue to advocate the community-driven approach in their shelter responses in Palawan, Tacloban City, Leyte, and other Yolanda-hit communities which will undergo Post-Yolanda recovery program. Aside from building houses, SHFC and UN Habitat will also implement capacity building programs that will equip the communities on resiliency and climate change adaptation.
The community-driven approach, also called the “People’s Process,” is an alternative way of implementing housing programs which enables the community to lead their housing projects. This approach results in faster delivery of housing needs especially in post-disaster areas as illustrated in the experience of Sri Linka and Indonesia.
SHFC Vice President for Visayas and Mindanao Atty. Rosalie Taguian said that the partnership will continue to bring out the best in every community so that they will be able to lead their way to recovery and resilience.
Local leaders in Capiz including Vice Governor Esteban Contreras who attended the event expressed their intentions in collaborating with SHFC and UN-Habitat in the implementation of the community-driven recovery in their respective areas.
The photobook and video on people-initiated disaster-recovery were also launched.
It is a joint project of SHFC and UN Habitat which highlights the lessons of the “Post-Yolanda Support for Safer Homes and Settlements Project” in Capiz and Iloilo, which enabled the construction of 660 disaster-proof houses and the training of more than 4,000 households on disaster resiliency.
