Building safety in humanitarian programmes that support post‐disaster shelter self‐recovery: an evidence review

Abstract

The humanitarian sector is increasingly aware of the role that good quality evidence plays in the underpinning of effective and accountable practice. This review addresses the need for reliable evidence by evaluating current knowledge about the intersection of two key outcome targets of post‐disaster shelter response: supporting shelter self‐recovery and building back safer. Evidence about post‐disaster shelter programmes that aim to improve hazard resistance while supporting shelter self‐recovery has been systematically analysed and evaluated. Technical support, especially training in safer construction techniques, was found to be a central programme feature, but the impact of this and other programme attributes on building safety was largely not ascertainable. Programme reports and studies lack sufficient detail, especially on the hazard resistance of repaired houses. Accounts of shelter programmes need to include more reliable reporting of key activities and assessment of outcomes, in order to contribute to the growing evidence base in this field.

A Review of Temporary Housing Management Modeling: Trends in Design Strategies, Optimization Models, and Decision-Making Methods

“…A program similar to FEMA's past pilot program known as Sheltering and Temporary Essential Power (STEP) would allow the emergency shelter, temporary shelter, temporary housing, and permanent housing to be combined into one singular entity, enabling homeowner inclusion through the entire process and efficiency of time and resources. While this option improves feasibility, expenditure, and wellbeing during implementation, it has not been fully established in temporary housing research due to a lack of data regarding the success of the recovery activities [106].…”

Ownership and Participation in Local–Global Partnerships: The Recovery of Shelter and Settlements after Humanitarian Crises

“…Tag‐Eldeen (, p. 409) describes this challenge, where ‘the tyranny of urgency governs the conventional approaches to humanitarian assistances and limits the scope for collaboration, underestimates and underutilises local capacity and knowledge’. Furthermore, irrespective of the type of local participation or the level of control, the timing of when local actors secure global support affects the success of their recovery (Davidson et al ., ; Harriss et al ., ). These dimensions include the timing of initial engagement between local and global actors following a crises and the timing of local contributions in the recovery process.…”

“…More recently, global actors have purposefully observed households as they recover their shelter and settlements following crises, in a similar way to Davis in the 1980s. The initiative taken by local actors has been termed ‘self‐recovery’ (Parrack et al ., ; Flinn et al ., ; Maynard, Parker & Twigg, ; Harriss, Parrack & Jordan, ). One advantage of this concept is that it may apply to a range of recovery activities and at any point on the recovery journey, including construction temporary or permanent shelter.…”

“…For this approach to be successful, local actors also require sufficient resources to cover any additional costs of safer techniques to avoid competition with more immediate livelihoods strategies. There are also additional, practical reasons why building resilience to hazards remains a lower priority including the extra costs of adaptation (Tuan, Giai & Mulenga, ; Harriss et al ., ), the level of certainty over government policies and the availability of labour (Maynard et al ., ).…”

The evolution of shelter �self-recovery�: adapting thinking and practice for post-disaster resilience

“…17 Davis and Alexander (2016). 18 Schofield and Miranda Morel (2017); Harriss et al (2020). 19 ; Harriss et al (2020).…”