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D&P sticking to tried and true aid plan

By 
  • November 28, 2013

Twenty-million dollars in matching funds from Ottawa for Philippines typhoon relief have so far gone to a familiar list of United Nations agencies and heavyweight non-governmental organizations with experience in emergency relief and development.

Absent entirely from the list was the Canadian Catholic Organization for Development and Peace.

The big winner has been the Evangelical aid agency World Vision, to which the Department of Foreign Affairs Development and Trade granted $2 million. Plan Canada and Oxfam Canada each rated $1.5 million. Save the Children Canada, Medecins sans Frontiers Canada and CARE Canada each received $1 million.

Development and Peace, a Catholic agency wasn’t snubbed in favour of the Evangelical and secular aid agencies. Though they were invited to submit a proposal, Development and Peace hasn’t yet asked Ottawa for money. The organization plans to do so at a later stage.

“At this time the Caritas network has sufficient support from its various members and the generosity of Catholics worldwide to respond,” said Development and Peace spokeswoman Kelly Di Domenico in an e-mail. “However, the situation is evolving quickly and reconstruction needs will be great.”

Given the level of devastation and the 24-hour media attention it has attracted, the Typhoon Haiyan challenge isn’t immediate emergency relief. In the Philippines, with its 82.9-per-cent Catholic population, the Caritas network of parish-based charities is the most effective route for aid to get to individuals and families affected by the storm. Caritas already has as much money and material as it can distribute in emergency aid.

However, at some point the TV crews and the first wave of humanitarian agencies will pack up and head to the next disaster. At that juncture the people living among the ruins are going to need a long-term plan for rebuilding their homes, getting their farms back up and running, restoring the school where their children were learning.

“We are very interested (in matching funds from DFADT), but we didn’t have enough information yet from the ground to submit a proposal,” said Di Domenico. “We work with the local population to assess the exact needs, as we believe they are in the best position to evaluate how they want us to respond and to help them.”

The kind of emergency-response template that can be moved from earthquake to typhoon to tsunami around the world doesn’t fit with Development and Peace’s partnership model. For 45 years the Catholic agency has avoided sending its people around the world to tell people what to do. In each case they ask the local NGOs, parishes and agencies how they can help, but always let the local population take the lead.

“We prefer to respect the process that the southern partner is working with, because that’s what our approach to partnership is about,” Di Domenico said.

Development and Peace will be submitting funding proposals to DFADT “imminently.”

“We will also submit proposals to DFADT for recovery and reconstruction projects, which is a moment when aid is needed as much, if not more, because some of the larger agencies have begun to scale down their emergency response operations,” she said.

The partnership model also makes a difference in terms of who benefits. Large-scale emergency response tends to be concentrated in the cities to the benefit of the urbanized middle class and local businesses that can provide services (bulldozers, telecommunications, transport) to the big aid groups.

Working with local NGOs and Caritas gives Development and Peace the ability to help “the most poor and vulnerable,” Di Domenico said.

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