The 26 December 2004 tsunami disaster around the Indian Ocean provided an opportunity to see if decades of knowledge and experience on post-disaster settlement and shelter could be applied to match the tagline which many groups gave to the post-tsunami reconstruction: 'build back better' (or 'building back better'). This paper uses evidence from field work completed on implementing settlement and shelter in post-tsunami Aceh and Sri Lanka to examine whether or not the theory and practice of 'build back better' were witnessed. Focusing on settlement and shelter, four areas are examined: (i) safety, security, and livelihoods; (ii) how post-disaster settlement and shelter could have an improved connection with permanent housing and communities (the 'transition to what?' question); (iii) fairness and equity; and (iv) connecting relief and development by tackling root causes of vulnerability. Based on the field work, addressing these four areas is suggested as how 'build back better' could be implemented. Recommendations are 1. Community involvement is essential, but that does not necessarily mean community control. 2. Organizations involved in implementing transitional settlement and shelter need to consider their capacity and links to other sectors. 3. Thinking ahead is necessary by integrating relief and development through long-term planning and disaster risk reduction.Overall, 'building back safer' might be a preferable tagline to 'building back better' because 'better' has multiple interpretations, many of which caused further problems, whereas 'safer' provides a clearer goal on which to focus for post-disaster settlement and shelter.
The diversity of shelters used in transitional settlements for internally displaced persons (IDPs) in Herat, Afghanistan is described. The information is based on a field survey undertaken in March 2002 and highlights the adaptation techniques, which IDPs undertake to improve any provided shelter. Potential areas for improvement are indicated; for example, the possibility for using insulated, demountable liners to prevent cold-related deaths without sacrificing shelter flexibility along with the likely need for better agency coordination of the shelter responses they provide. The wider context in which the technical recommendations would be implemented must also be considered. Such issues include agency resources, political impediments to providing the desired option, and the preference of many IDPs that the best shelter would be their home.
Local actors affected by humanitarian crises, including disasters and conflict, often attract the support of global actors with engineering resources to support the recovery of their shelter and settlements. Global initiatives increasingly prioritise the agency of local actors and the concept of local participation following humanitarian crises, and a critical mass of evidence of the role of local actors in the recovery of their shelter and settlements has now emerged. This study reviews this body of knowledge and considers its implications on the global humanitarian policy framework. Data have been collected from emerging literature on the recovery of shelter and settlements and extended with sampling cases of 25 crises over the past two decades. This study finds that for the successful recovery of shelter and settlements, the participation of affected households must prioritise their ownership of the recovery process, rather than simply their level of involvement. Furthermore, a focus on local participation appears to be most successful when tailored to the capacity households have to contribute and the shape of their plans for recovery. At the level of global humanitarian policy, a shift in priorities is required if local ownership and successful recovery is to be achieved. These priorities include more broadly assessing local capacity during the immediate aftermath of crisis, paired with systematically funding beyond the first 12 months after a crisis with adaptive funding instruments. The focus of this paper is the recovery of shelter and settlements, but the analysis could be used more generally in other contexts where the need for rapid global response with financial, technical and engineering knowledge coincides with the need to work with local social, political and technical knowledge and experiences.
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