Tacloban, March 17 2014 — A team of six ARCADIANs recently returned from the second Shelter Rapid Response follow-up mission to typhoon hit parts of the Philippines.

The mission team, led by Program Manager Bert Smolders, assisted UN-Habitat in its damage assessment and reconstruction efforts following Typhoon Haiyan in November 2013. The ARCADIS team assisted UN-Habitat in preparing plans for coastal zone protection, the provision of water supply and the urban planning of the area.

Speaking after the mission, Bert Smolders commented: “The widespread devastation caused by typhoon Hayian was still shockingly visible everywhere we went (pictured). Conditions for the people of Tacloban and Guiuan are severe but UN-Habitat and other international organizations are working hard to provide relief and recovery, and we are proud to be part of that work. The team had an excellent experience and made a real difference the local communities there.”

Bernhard Barth, Human Settlements Officer, Asia Pacific at UN-HABITAT gave the following feedback to the ARCADIS team:
“UN-Habitat is grateful to all the team members for the wonderful support they have provided to Tacloban and Guiuan through Shelter. The ARCADIS team’s contribution has been extremely useful to our work and is highly appreciated by the local government. We look forward to ARCADIS’ continued support to the typhoon response, in particular the coastal protection and master planning work”.

This trip followed a successful first mission carried out in the region last November. The missions were carried out at the request of UN-Habitat and performed under the Shelter program, the collaboration between ARCADIS and UN-Habitat.

The Shelter Program is supported financially by the Lovinklaan Foundation.

For more information on ARCADIS’ partnership with UN-Habitat, please visit their pages on: Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn.