Featured Member: Ronaldo Reario

Ronaldo Reario never thought he would have a career in humanitarian emergencies, let alone with the United Nations. Having volunteered to join the Philippine Marine Corps in 1990, his plan was to retire at the end of a fruitful military career. However, his assignment to the Department of National Defense in 1998 offered several opportunities. After being sent to attend a Disaster Management Course at Cranfield University in the UK in 1999, he got a new post directly supporting the Secretary of National Defense and Chairman of the National Disaster Coordinating Council (NDCC). He later moved on to become the head of the NDCC’s Operations Center.

While at the NDCC, he got inducted in the United Nations Disaster Assessment and Coordination (UNDAC) Team, a pool of rapid response disaster management experts who are tapped by the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) to respond to emergencies. His subsequent deployments with the UNDAC Team to different emergencies around the world gave him international exposure and allowed him to gain experience in the UN system, particularly with OCHA. After his UNDAC deployment to Pakistan in the aftermath of the October 2005 earthquake, he applied and got a post with the OCHA Office in Pakistan, covering Bagh District of the Pakistani Administered Kashmir. This was followed by assignments in the Philippines, Myanmar, and Switzerland. 

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The right assistance, to the right people, at the right time, in the most appropriate way.

- Ronaldo Reario on his coordination role in emergencies

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Ronaldo currently heads the Training and Partnership Unit of the Civil-Military Coordination Section (CMCS) of OCHA Geneva.  He is responsible for managing the UN Humanitarian Civil-Military Coordination (UN-CMCoord) Training Programme, as well as establishing partnerships with institutions that believe in the value and benefit of the UN-CMCoord training in emergencies. The programme addresses key coordination issues between civilian and military actors in natural disasters and complex humanitarian emergencies, aiming to build mutual understanding of each other’s roles and responsibilities.

He also deploys during emergencies to provide additional coordination capacity on the ground. Ronaldo describes the overarching goal and main challenge in these situations as being able to facilitate the delivery of “the right assistance, to the right people, at the right time, in the most appropriate way,” which is never easy, as every emergency is different.  He adds that one has to have the ability to work comfortably in harsh working and living conditions, but that the sense of fulfilment that one feels after making a difference in the lives of people in need completely wipes out the accumulated exhaustion and stress. 

Looking back, he thinks that the probable reason why he thrives in this kind of environment is the fact that he grew-up in a disaster-prone country, where he and his family were regularly part of the affected population. He knows how it feels like to be severely affected by typhoons. He has seen a volcano erupt three times in his home province. He has been repeatedly exposed to earthquakes, but so far only one has been very destructive. These experiences have, no doubt, helped him cope with the difficulties in the field and enabled him to understand the needs of the affected communities in the different emergencies in which he has worked. 

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Interview conducted by Lena Zimmer      Text edited by Markus Forsberg