Shifting from recovery to resilience

Resilience in housing is more crucial than its recovery following a disaster. This contrasts the traditional mindset, which believes that post-disaster recovery is a massive shelter or housing work since significant funding is available. The more houses collapse following an earthquake, the more funding flows to the recovery efforts. This traditional perspective has solid evidence if we refer to housing recoveries following the Asian Tsunami (2004), the Haiti earthquake (2010), and the Nepal earthquake (2015). More news coverage on the affected people brought philanthropists and humanitarian workers together to collect funds and rebuild. 

In reality, working in recovery settings has its challenges. The heavily impacted market and public infrastructure make the recovery efforts considerably slow. Adding to this problem, national or local governments need to establish recovery policies or guidance to ensure a broad recovery, not only housing. There is a long process from recovery strategy development to its socialization and, later on, implementation. Even though all of these are in place, the flow might not be smooth. The market that provides construction materials and labor is not sufficient. The local businesses, which are expected to catalyze the reconstruction process, are still recovering their business. People also struggle to get loans since they lose their assets due to the disaster.

Resilience is working in a different approach. From a resilience perspective, the houses and public infrastructure might experience damage, but it is not fatal. Resilience means improving structural capacities and minimizing vulnerability. For instance, an earthquake, known as a natural hazard, is still a hazard that does not turn into a disaster since houses and public infrastructures are still safe and standing. No casualties and the local business is still running. Therefore, it is essential to invest in resilience. UNDRR report says investing in more resilient infrastructure in low- and middle-income countries yields USD 4 in benefit for each USD 1 invested.

But why are most people more interested in housing recovery rather than improving its resilience? Post-disaster recovery is driven by urgency, and there are business expectations for a large number of projects. While working for resilience is more about working with the community, continuous education for local builders and homeowners is key. These initiatives actually bring everyone to abide by the building code. In developing countries, there are some challenges, such as no legal sanction for anyone who does not follow the code when constructing their own houses. Hence, persuading people to seismically strengthen their houses isn't easy, even for their safety.

In the last decade, the focus has shifted from recovery to resilience. Therefore, shelter/housing and settlement practitioners launched a campaign on seismic retrofitting. This effort needs support from the government and business entities to make it more massive. It is a long marathon to convince people to change their priorities, such as having a safe house, which is much more important than having a beautiful house.

Arwin Soelaksono

Photo: Twitter @FXMC1957

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Minimizing corruption risks in housing recovery post-disaster

Shelter assistance and housing recovery post-disaster always face a high risk of corruption. From the disaster itself, higher levels of corruption resulted in an even larger number of deaths from disasters caused by natural hazards, especially in developing countries. (Cevik, 2023). The severity of disasters is a consequence of corruption, but the opportunities for corruption also increase in post-disaster situations. (Calossi, 2012). As shelter and housing are urgently needed following a disaster, urgency breeds corruption opportunities. (Sorensen, 2018). In this situation, governments, aid agencies, and affected people are prone to fall into various spectrums of corruption.

Hence, shelter and housing assistance should be adequately provided, even in urgent situations. Initiatives to curb the risk of corruption still exist amid challenging circumstances. To begin with, transparency through the broad engagement and participation of societies. Before shelter assistance is given to the community, the terms of modality, goods, and services must be communicated to all stakeholders. This ensures a shared responsibility to ensure fairness and quality of assistance. Everyone will know the amount of support, type of assistance, and its limitations. The assistance will have no hidden items since every aspect, including costs and goods grade, is mentioned publicly. For instance, if support uses cash assistance, everyone will know how much money is donated. If support is given using vouchers to purchase construction materials, there will be fair competition amongst local hardware stores.

Another crucial aspect is capacity building for local government, NGOs, construction actors, and homeowners. They should know that shelter assistance and housing recovery support can be provided using various construction materials and methodologies. During recovery efforts, big construction or supplier companies are often attracted to join. However, by developing their capacities, we can ensure that no one can dictate to them to use a particular material or method as endorsed by parties that try to sell goods and services for big profit. Abiding by the building code is also part of developing capacities to ensure there will be building back safer, no matter the construction material or methodologies they choose. Hence, government and aid agencies should deploy their engineers, architects, and skilled builders to conduct training and quality monitoring.

Lastly, there should be a safe complaint mechanism. Delivering substandard quality goods and services is expected to happen. The risk is higher if aid agencies or housing actors deliver large-scale assistance. The voices of unsatisfied beneficiaries may be unheard due to the big celebration of handover ceremonies. There should be experts to follow up on complaints and judge the issue reasonably to ensure the recovery efforts are on track.

All of these factors can put the corruption risks at a minimum.

Arwin Soelaksono

Photo: Faruk Tokluoğlu - https://www.pexels.com/photo/shocked-woman-in-fur-standing-among-ruins-16105715/

Flexible housing recovery program to ensure robustness and sustainability

 

Every post-disaster housing recovery process is susceptible to disruption. Rather than striving for a disruption-proof recovery program, it is more realistic to prepare for various approaches. Construction techniques, methods, and partners can be altered; the only constant is the mission to assist affected individuals in rebuilding safer homes. Given the inevitability of disruption, the key to smooth implementation lies in flexibility. The success of flexible recovery programs hinges on the recovery actor's knowledge, experiences, and networks. 

Those with field experience may be aware of problems that may cause disruption. The issues that usually exist are construction material and builders scarcity, leading to severe local inflation. Moreover, following a disaster event, there would be public infrastructure damages such as collapsed bridges, roadblocks due to landslides, or disrupted public services such as malfunctioning banking systems. Also, sometimes, we must wait for the issuance of the government policy on recovery. More problems may pop up during the process, which needs to be anticipated and prepared for. 

Prior to the program's initiation, it is crucial to adopt a proactive stance and prepare for the worst-case scenario. This includes developing additional programs to run parallel to the housing recovery program, such as strategies to mitigate inflation due to resource scarcity. One viable option is to provide construction materials and skilled builders through a livelihood program. Training local builders and house owners so that they can rebuild by themselves is one of the most effective ways to ensure human resources availability. Implementing a livelihood program that produces and supplies construction material locally, such as making concrete blocks or compressed stabilized earth blocks, can anticipate brick scarcity during the massive reconstruction period.

Additionally, recycling facilities can produce structural elements from salvaged material. These initiatives should be managed by partners and run by a livelihood program. Therefore, it is crucial to involve non-housing agencies as recovery partners as early as possible.

As the local government will spearhead and bear the responsibility for the recovery, it is essential to advocate for their involvement from the outset. Recovery agents are not equipped to address all issues, such as revitalizing public infrastructures, land and property disputes, and, most importantly, supporting the most vulnerable. Every disaster will expose underlying issues within the community. For instance, land boundaries become unclear due to landslides or liquefaction. Hence, there is a need to resolve all land ownership.

Hence, before the program starts, we should have various approaches, modalities, #construction techniques, and partners to ensure robust housing recovery and sustainability. The local communities should be able to continue even after the recovery program ends.

Arwin Soelaksono

Photo credit: Republika. https://news.republika.co.id/berita/rlr5um377/gempa-di-cianjur-dapat-terjadi-lagi-tiap-20-tahun-sekali#google_vignette

Learning from Taiwan Building Resilience

Taiwan has made remarkable achievements in construction quality as proven by the recent earthquake. Though the Mw 7.4 (MMI VIII) earthquake took 13 lives, it saved more lives if it is compared to other incidents. For instance, in Cianjur, Indonesia (2022) Mw 5.6 (MMI VIII) earthquake, the total death toll was 635. Stronger earthquake but fewer casualties.  Both Taiwan and Indonesia, are near the 'Ring of Fire' and are prone to earthquakes. From an engineering perspective, at least there are three initiatives we can learn from Taiwan in protecting their people from collapsing buildings under earthquake load. Those are a strict imposition of building codes, continuous construction market improvement, and innovation.

All requirements in the Building Codes are mandatory to obtain building approval. Furthermore, some requirements mandate some deposit of funds into the government account. There will be consequences if the builders or developers fail to fulfill the requirements as stated in the code. The deposited fund will be confestigated. Therefore, any attempt to save costs should not sacrifice the safety factors by delivering sub-standard construction material or workmanship. This regulation becomes effective since there is effective monitoring and a range of sanctions.

To survive in the construction market, builders and construction industries have not only adhered to the code but also successfully improved efficiency. Through years of improvement, Taiwan’s construction industry was found to have higher labor efficiency than mainland China. Along with the labor, their management and technical capacities are increasing.

If the market continuously improves, it will lead to more innovative construction methodologies and technologies. To reduce the impact, we must deliver robust structures and install elements that may dampen or absorb earthquake load. These elements may be pendulums or base isolation. As installed at the Taipei 101 skyscraper, if the building sways, the pendulum can suppress motion by applying forces in opposite directions.

How can this be applied to housing industries in developing countries? It can be applied, but it should not jump to the innovation. It should follow the natural law. Enforcing the code may lead to improvement in the construction market. This means the whole ecosystem must abide by the code, i.e., homeowners, builders, construction material vendors, and government. There should be country-wide education and training for builders. Sending engineers and skilled builders to rural areas to train local builders. Continuous campaign on build-back-safer and seismic retrofitting. Provision of loans for house repair and retrofitting. Along with the market improvement, there will be fair competition to find better ways to increase safety and reduce costs through innovation. At this point, academia should give their input that the innovation is fulfilling the scientific aspects.

Arwin Soelaksono

Minimizing debris for more sustainable recovery

Minimizing post-disaster debris intended to fulfill the zero-waste principle is achievable if at least 3 parties, i.e., housing recovery actors, environmental agencies, and local government, could collaborate on developing a preparedness plan. Planning to manage debris after a disaster would be too late and could hamper the recovery process and endanger the environment. Massive quantities of debris suddenly overwhelm the local government and the affected people. For instance, Aceh had 10 million cubic meters of debris following the 2004 tsunami. Also, there were 14 million tons of debris waste was generated from the fourteen most affected districts in Nepal following the 2015 earthquake. It took months to clear them. It is also costly; for instance, the cost of handling the disaster debris following Hurricane Katrina exceeded USD 4 billion.

Without a solid integrated plan, all stakeholders tend to work to deliver programs that they feel comfortable about it. Shelter agencies will provide temporary shelters or support to rebuild houses once the government has a clear plan for housing recovery. Then, the progress will be halted at some point due to debris, including hazardous ones, needing to be removed by government-appointed agencies. It might take months due to the debris containing human remains and hazardous wastes such as asbestos, concrete rubble, wood, and many more. All of those may result in delays, will affect costs and lead to inflation, and uncontrolled ruble dumping leads to health problems and environmental issues. 

Hence, shelter/housing agencies, environmental agencies, and local government should develop a plan as a preparedness measure. Shelter/housing agencies should develop plans to maximize the reuse of salvaged material and plan for repair or retrofitting rather than build a new construction. This approach may retain the building material within the area. This will reduce the amount of transportation needed to dump the waste and bring material from neighboring areas. 

The environmental agencies should assist in building the capacity of local entrepreneurs to reuse, reduce, and recycle (3R). Without proper support, people would not have any idea how to manage the pile of rubble and change it into useful materials for reconstruction. Moreover, these activities bring more local income and retain the area's money circulation. If the initiative can be successful, it might bring a multiplier effect beyond economic activities such as providing access to public services such as better education and health facilities. 

The government should endorse those initiatives. The endorsement should be stated in the government policy and budget. Hence, instead of rushing to provide temporary shelter or supporting new house reconstruction, recovery should be planned by incorporating environmental principles to ensure sustainable recovery.

Arwin Soelaksono

Video: Post-liquefaction area in Palu, Indonesia. 2018.