HHI Resilient Communities

Amid the multibillion-dollar scandal in control projects that shook the 🇵🇭 Philippines this year, we shared a policy note with key government officials outlining recommendations on how to 💰 combat corruption and ensure the effectiveness of 🌊 flood risk management projects through research, science, and evidence.

Here are the top 3 actionable policy recommendations from Harvard Humanitarian Initiative–HHI Resilient Communities Program Director Dr. Vincenzo Bollettino and University of the Philippines Professorial Lecturer Dr. Pamela Gloria Cajilig, both of whom have long-standing engagement in disaster resilience in the country and globally.

The Senate of the Philippines' content portal highlights the policy recommendations by Dr. Vincenzo Bollettino and Dr. Pamela Gloria Cajilig for addressing in in the 🇵🇭 Philippines:

"The researchers' prescription is clear and compelling: inject rigorous science and transparent, independent scrutiny into every phase of flood control, from initial design to long-term maintenance."

Read more: https://eclips.senate.gov.ph/editorial-opinion/moving-past-ghost-projects-a-fresh-approach-to-flood-resilience-in-phl

❇️ Dr. Bollettino is the Director of HHI Resilient Communities program at the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative, and Senior Research Scientist in the Department of Global Health and Population at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health; and

❇️ Dr. Cajilig is a Professorial Lecturer at the University of the Philippines College of Architecture, and a Senior Fellow of the Atlantic Fellows for Health Equity in Southeast Asia at the Atlantic Institute of the Rhodes Trust, University of Oxford

eClips Senate News Updates Get the latest news, headlines, and breaking stories breaking stories in the Philippines.

"Against this backdrop of immense expenditure and allegations of misappropriation, a crucial policy note from researchers Vincenzo Bollettino (Harvard University) and Pamela Gloria Cajilig (University of the Philippines) arrives not merely as a suggestion, but as an urgent blueprint for redemption."

Read more: https://businessmirror.com.ph/2025/11/06/moving-past-ghost-projects-a-fresh-approach-to-flood-resilience-in-phl/

Moving past ghost projects: A fresh approach to flood resilience in PHL | BusinessMirror Editorial President Marcos announced 9,855 completed flood control projects costing over half a trillion pesos in under three years, but corruption narratives persist. Against this backdrop of immense expenditure and allegations of misappropriation, a crucial policy note from researchers Vincenzo Bollettino (...

Here are our top 10 takeaways from our 10 years of programming in 🌏 Asia—conducting 💡 resilience research and 🤝 collaborative engagements in the 🇵🇭 Philippines, 🇳🇵 Nepal, and 🇧🇩 Bangladesh since 2015.

Are these impact lessons relevant to your work?

✅ Read more: hsph.me/impact1

Today, 13 October, is the International Day for 🌀 Disaster Risk Reduction. This year's commemoration calls for 💰 funding resilience now to ❗ avoid paying for disasters later.

At HHI Resilient Communities, we support this global call. We also believe that solutions are most effective when developed in 🤝 collaboration with local partners. Over the past decade, we catalyzed cross-sector coordination and collaboration with dozens of local partners to co-create research, resilience tools, and action plans.

In this last part of our blog series, we discuss key takeaways from our collaboration initiatives, which complete our top ten impact lessons over our ten years of programming in Asia.

Read Part 3: hsph.me/impact3 👈