Honduras
2021-12 Factsheet - Honduras - Hurricanes Eta and Iota
Highlights
First semester
- Operating with scarce funding, limited room for deployment and in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic and ongoing violence, the coordination of this response presented particular challenges.
- Driven by local initiative, the Shelter Cluster in Honduras focused on connecting municipal emergency coordinating bodies with the agencies that provided shelter support after the arrival of Eta and Iota hurricanes.
Second semester
During the second semester of 2021, the Coordination of the Table focused on:
- Humanitarian Needs Overview, HNO: Worked under OCHA's leadership with the purpose of updating the humanitarian need gaps in Honduras. The database of the Ministry of Development and Social Inclusion (SEDIS) was used, it was a regional process that considered the three countries of the northern triangle of Central America (Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala).
- Humanitarian response plan, HRP : Worked under OCHA's leadership with the purpose of formulating projects to obtain funds to cover the gaps of the pending needs of Hurracaines Eta and Iota and other emergencies that may occur in the future. 7 members of the Cluster presented projects for a total of 8 million dollars.
- Housing Land Property, HLP: In programmatic terms, the Cluster's coordination established HLP as a strategic part of the agenda, integrating actors from the national government, cooperation agencies and Honduran universities in which a small committee has been formed.
- Transversally, a gender approach was integrated into the regular activities of the cluster with the support of the gender advisor of the humanitarian country team.
- For information management, permanent support was provided to partners who update the data in the 345W. Digital tools were incorporated to facilitate the exchange of information with partners and the available data visualization tools were updated.
NFI
Shelter
Need analysis
The latest needs analysis was conducted in June 2021 for the Humanitarian Needs Overview, which considers Honduras' humanitarian needs in general, including those of people affected by the hurricanes Eta and Iota, as well as those whose shelter situation is highly vulnerable due internal displacement caused by violence, livelihood loss and economic reasons.
Following the JIAF methodology, 88,000 people have been identified as in need of temporay shelter and 35,000 people are in need of house repairs.
These needs are reflected in the HNO and have not been updated for the second half of the year. This exercise will be done in the first half of 2022.
Response
The partners' response, as expressed in the Humanitarian Response Plan focuses on four main actions:
- NFI distribution
- Provision of temporary shelter
- House repairs
- Rental subsidies
The HRP for the Shelter Cluster consists of 7 projects that have required a total of 8 million US dollars, in 2021 no funds were obtained through the HRP.
Gaps / challenges
The hurricane season will add complexity to the ongoing humanitarian response. The Sula Valley for instance, the region most affected by hurricanes Eta and Iota, is highly prone to flooding and requires reconstruction of critical infrastructure in order to withstand a tropical cyclone again.
Host families still require support to deal with overcrowding. There is limited availability of land for relocation of families who inhabited flooded areas. Temporary shelters will most likely remain permanent, as families do not have a better alternative. Meanwhile, other families are refusing temporary solutions hoping that they will access housing subsidies from the Honduran government. Several families continue living in hazardous conditions.
Shelter insecurity is a contributing factor to the deterioration of livelihood conditions and slow economic reactivation.
In 2022, the Cluster's coordination will reinforce the process to obtain resources through the projects presented by the partners in the HRP.
