Marawi | United States | Global Risk Mitigation Foundation

Marawi Inspiration Fundraising

The Global Risk Mitigation Foundation is pleased to be working on the inspiration of the wartorn city of Marawi, on the Philippine island of Mindanao and has commenced fundraising for this work.

Fundraising focuses on the immediate needs of healthcare risks to prepare for urban reconstruction.

Marawi Inspiration

Following the Marawi* war in the Southern Philippines,

the visit of a GRMF executive team to the battle zone and

refugee camp along with various military, political and

humanitarian briefings has subsequently been the root of a

number of subsequent GRMF initiatives.

These capacity-building programs look to not only alleviating a significant barrier to the rebuilding of

Marawi City, but also to mitigating the likelihood or severity of future Marawi-like conflicts.

Presently, these GRMF programs include:

A regional counterterrorism initiative and counterterrorism trainings
Unexploded Ordinance removal capacity-building programs
Countering political and information warfare courses

Once the siege of Marawi City was over, GRMF began exploring

potential partners and avenues that it could use to assist in the

mitigation of that crisis.

GRMF’s executives met with Philippine Secretary of Defense,

Delfin Lorenzana, to explore the situation and how GRMF might

be involved. Secretary Lorenzana arranged for GRMF 's Chairman

David Day, CEO Dr. Elizabeth Chan, and the Foundation's Director

of International Diplomatic Outreach, Ms. Bing Branigin, to be

escorted by a special military team and flown down to the battle

site in Marawi City on the island of Mindanao in the Southern Philippines.

The purpose of the GRMF team visit to Marawi City was to permit

the Foundation to conduct a Preliminary Risk Assessment of the

entire Marawi situation. The visit included a briefing by both the political

and the military leadership in Marawi City on the current plans to

rebuild the city. This briefing was then coupled with a detailed

discussion of the various complex issues underlying the conflict and

confronting the rebuilding efforts.

The briefing was followed with a tour of the battle zone

(“Ground Zero’ or “Most Affected Area”) and a further

briefing on the serious unexploded

ordinance removal challenges which

included booby traps, IEDs, and

large bombs buried underneath the

battle zone.

A visit to a refugee camp which

housed Maranao persons displaced

from the worst of the battle area followed.

The destroyed portion of Marawi City was quite large and nature of its rebuilding will have Regional security implications well beyond the island of Mindanao.

Following the GRMF visit to Marawi City, members of the team met

with Philippine Secretary of Defense, Delfin Lorenzana to lay out the

Foundation's preliminary risk assessment.

This was followed by meetings with Philippine

Foreign Secretary Teodoro Locsin. The purpose

of these meetings was to discuss potential

directions for addressing the risks associated with

the mitigation of underlying conflict causation, the

ISIS political and information propaganda,

counterterrorism challenges, unexploded ordinance

removal, as well as the difficult rebuilding and

resettling process.