Supporting farmers and fisherfolk through social protection during typhoon Nalgae in the Philippines

BARMM is the Philippines poorest region, with an estimated poverty incidence in 2021 of 29.8 percent, which means that around 230 000 households were likely unable to meet their basic food and non-food needs. Agriculture, forestry and fisheries dominate its economy. Vulnerability to poverty is aggravated by recurrent violence, which has a wide-ranging impact on the population, who are often displaced and suffer loss of livelihoods as a result. All these stressors are compounded by elevated exposure to natural hazards, including flooding, landslides, earthquakes and drought, among others. 

On 29 October 2022, typhoon Nalgae (locally named Paeng) made landfall in the northern Philippines with repercussions on the whole country. On the island of Mindanao, it caused landslides, flooding and flash-floods that left 64 people dead and 17 missing. Overall, the event affected 557 000 people in BARMM and displaced 102 000. The worst-affected province was Maguindanao. Small-scale food producers reported widespread degradation of eco-systems and disruptions to their activities, including damages to crops, fishing boats and death of livestock. FAO intervened to mitigate the impact of floods on food security and on the livelihoods of farmers and fisherfolk.  

FAO decided to increase the value of assistance delivered to farmers and fisherfolk by leveraging the social protection system, namely Project Tabang managed by the Office of the Chief Minister and the Emergency Relief Assistance programme managed by the Ministry of Social Solidarity and Development (MSSD).     

Target households were selected from existing government social registries based on the following criteria: presence of children, presence of pregnant or lactating women, dependency on small-scale food production and vulnerability to poverty and floods. The criteria had been pre-established in consultation with the BARMM Anticipatory Action Technical Working Group and then validated through community consultations.     

FAO and partners delivered a one-off cash transfer of PHP 5 800 (USD 104) per household. The transfer value corresponded to 50 percent of the BARMM Minimum Expenditure Basket for emergency interventions.     

The project had previously tested this approach in March 2022 through a simulation exercise with government counterparts to assess the feasibility of anticipatory action for floods in the Mindanao River Basin.     

Finally, the project also contributed to train BARMM government staff in data collection and in conflict-sensitivity awareness for social protection programming, as well as helping them establish a government-led grievance mechanism for social protection interventions. 

The post distribution monitoring revealed that 98 percent of respondents had spent most of the cash assistance on food. Other popular areas of expenditure were education-related items (49 percent), agricultural inputs (44 percent), clothes (37 percent), loan repayment (27 percent), and hygiene items (18 percent). Leveraging the social protection system allowed FAO to respond early to the floods and deliver assistance to affected households in a short period of time. The capacity building efforts and the partnership between FAO and BARMM ministries allowed to establish and test shared standard operating procedures. These are crucial should the BARMM government need again to mobilize external support for the emergency expansion of social protection programmes. More specifically, this collaboration ensured access to the MSSD social registry for targeting well ahead of the event, which in turn allowed for a swift identification of beneficiary households, particularly important in the context of disaster-risk management. Finally, leveraging the BARMM social protection system ensured that the beneficiaries were familiar with the process and easily access support. 

The intervention, despite being an emergency scale-up, had a high institutional sustainability and sought to establish a direct link between humanitarian and development programmes in BARMM. First, the project handed over to the BARMM administration a fully functioning system to implement anticipatory action for floods, integrated with the regional disaster risk management system and social protection programmes. Second, the intervention was accompanied by substantial capacity development initiatives. These increased the administration’s ability to operationalise anticipatory action through social protection and to collect monitoring data through interoperable and digital systems. Third, there is continuing collaboration between FAO, the BARMM administration and other external partners on strengthening the social protection system in the region. This commitment was further reinforced in 2022 when FAO and partners established a BARMM Cash Working Group. Contrarily to the norm in other parts of the world, the Group is co-led by the regional administration through MSSD and is committed to strengthening links between humanitarian cash assistance and social protection in the region. 

The intervention consisted in the scale-up of FAO’s existing engagement in BARMM. These had revolved around supporting the regional administration in developing a risk-informed and shock-responsive social protection system. Their focus had always been on cash assistance, as a strategic means to improve food security, health and nutrition while protecting vulnerable households from shocks. This same approach has been tested by FAO in the Philippines since 2016 in various regions, including most recently in Region V (Bicol) in the Province of Catanduanes. Through a significant number of pilot interventions and simulation exercises, FAO has been advocating and building government’s capacity to deliver assistance in times of crisis through the social protection system.     

This engagement continues through multiple initiatives, including a Programmatic Partnership between DG ECHO and FAO on increasing capacities to implement anticipatory action through social protection. FAO worked with the Regional Integrated Multi-Hazard Early Warning System for Asia and Africa and the Mindanao River Basin Management Council to develop anticipatory action protocols for flood. The protocol includes the delivery of cash assistance through the social protection system, in order to help vulnerable households cope with the impact of the hazard and secure their livelihoods.