“Efforts are intensifying to improve access to much needed humanitarian assistance to remote Philippine islands, one month after the category five Super Typhoon Haiyan” struck, IRIN reports in an analysis. “Some remote areas that are difficult to reach in ordinary circumstances have become even more inaccessible since Haiyan swept through the region,” the news service writes, noting, “[T]he challenge grew to manage, coordinate and effectively deploy the goods provided by some 45 humanitarian actors.” The news service examines the delivery of aid by foreign military services, and highlights reconstruction efforts and needs (12/9).

In related news, “[t]he Red Cross warned against aid dependency in the Philippines Tuesday as the United Nations urged donors to double their assistance to millions of victims of the country’s deadliest-ever typhoon,” Agence France-Presse writes, adding, “The secretary general of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies Bekele Geleta said that, a month after Super Typhoon Haiyan devastated the islands, longer-term recovery needs should begin to take precedence over food aid” (12/10). “Now that the storm has passed, the trickiest balancing act will be providing pressing humanitarian assistance while simultaneously working toward a long-term recovery,” Elizabeth Ferris, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, writes in PBS’ “Nova Next” blog (11/26).