Extreme weather is already frequent but is becoming the new normal, according to the country's climate change commission

As one of the world's poorest and least developed countries, the Philippines is handicapped by a chronic lack of resources, poor or non-existent infrastructure, and a far-flung archipelagic geography when dealing with the natural catastrophes that regularly afflict it.

But hard-won experience is also forcing Filipino government administrators and agencies, and their international collaborators, to examine and create new strategies for disaster preparedness, response and mitigation that have important potential applications in other parts of the world.

As the impact of climate change grows ever more marked, the ill-starred Philippines, lying prone and vulnerable at the windswept eastern end of the Pacific, is becoming a hothouse for developing new methods and systems in the growing business of disaster relief. But as super-typhoon Haiyan cruelly demonstrated, it still has a long way to go.

The Philippines averages about 20 typhoons a year, including three super-typhoons plus numerous incidents of flooding, drought, earthquakes and tremors and occasional volcanic eruptions, making it one of the most naturally disaster-prone countries in the world.

According to the UN Office for Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs (Ocha), the Philippines has recorded 182 disasters since 2002, in which almost 11,000 people have died. This figure does not include super-typhoon Bopha, known locally as Pablo, which hit the southern Philippines last December, killing more than 1,000 people, nor last Friday's super-typhoon Haiyan.

Bopha produced wind speeds of 160mph, gusting to 195mph and was the world's deadliest typhoon in 2012. More than 6.2 million people were affected. The cost of the damage was estimated at more than $1bn. Haiyan topped those wind speeds and has reportedly claimed 10 times the number of victims. Early estimates suggest 4.5 million people have been affected. The financial cost is so far incalculable.

The appearance that these storms are getting bigger and more damaging reflects rapidly deteriorating climatic trends. The five most devastating typhoons ever recorded in the Philippines have occurred since 1990, affecting 23 million people. Four of the costliest typhoons anywhere occurred in the same period, according to Oxfam.

The inter-governmental panel on climate change says mean temperatures in the Philippines are rising by 0.14C a decade. Scientists are also registering steadily rising sea levels around the Philippines, and a falling water table. All of this appears to increase the likelihood and incidence of extreme weather events, analysts say.

Mary Ann Lucille Sering, head of the Philippine government's climate change commission, warned in an interview with the Guardian in Manila earlier this year that her country faced a deepening crisis that it could ill afford financially and in human terms. Typhoon-related costs in 2009, the year the commission was created, amounted to 2.9% of GDP, she said, and have been rising each year since.

"Extreme weather is becoming more frequent, you could even call it the new normal," Sering said. "Last year one typhoon [Bopha] hurt us very much. If this continues we are looking at a big drain on resources." Human activity-related "slow-onset impacts" included over-fishing, over-dependence on certain crops, over-extraction of ground water, and an expanding population (the Philippines has about 95 million people and a median age of 23).

"Altogether this could eventually lead to disaster," Sering said. And her fears are widely shared. Opinion surveys showed that Filipinos rated global warming as a bigger threat than rising food and fuel prices, she said.

To deal with these enormous challenges, the Philippines government has created the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council (NDRRMC), which works with the UN and relief agencies to try to mitigate the impact of extreme weather events and other disasters.

The response to a storm such as Haiyan in theory comprises three phases: immediate help, including the provision of shelter and clean water, sanitation and hygiene facilities; rebuilding and relocation; and mitigation and prevention measures.

Supplying emergency toilets and water bladders is essential in preventing diseases such as cholera, and, for example, dehydration among babies and young children, aid workers say. Shelter in the form of tents is also a first priority and for this and other key supplies the Philippines will rely on airlifts by the UN and international donor governments such as Britain, which in some cases pre-position supplies.

The NDRRMC has produced a national disaster risk reduction and management plan for the period 2011 to 2028 that takes a holistic and long-term approach to disaster relief. Factored into its strategies are considerations of pre- and post-disaster sustainable development, poverty alleviation, environmental protection, and physical security. The idea is to "build back better" once the clear-up begins.

The plan also focuses, with charities such as Oxfam, on training networks of first responders – local people who know what to do when disaster strikes without waiting for the emergency services to arrive, which can take days or weeks. Unfortunately, with a disaster the magnitude of Haiyan, such systems may be initially overwhelmed.

Examples of longer-term projects following on from disasters include the building, if funds allow, of waste management plants, setting up markets at relocation sites, and working on disaster risk reduction programmes, so that when the next typhoon hits, local people may be better prepared.

For this to work, aid agency workers say, it is essential that the international community remains committed, financially and otherwise, once the initial drama of the human emergency subsides.

One success story in the Philippines is to be found in the Lumbia resettlement project outside Cagayan de Oro, in northern Mindanao. Here, victims of tropical storm Washi, which swept through the area in 2011, killing 1,200 people and causing nearly $50m in damage, have been offered newly built homes on land owned by a university away from the local river's flood plain. The Lumbia project's slogan is "build a community, not just homes".

Benito Ramos, the former executive director of the NDRRMC, told the Guardian in February that the bigger challenge of climate change was becoming more dangerous. Climate change, he said, posed an existential threat to the Philippines. "We are mainstreaming climate change in all government departments and policies. If we don't adapt and adjust, we all agree we are heading for disaster."