Achieve the sustainable post-disaster reconstruction through owner-driven setting and cash transfer programming

It is always a question on how to rebuild houses after disaster in more sustainable way and in the same time obtaining safer houses. It depends on the magnitude of the disaster which determine type of supports will be given to the affected people. Approach such as massive donor driven house reconstruction as in Asian tsunami 2004 is not viable anymore. But the need on ‘Build Back Safer’ (BBS) is still the primary objective underlining every rebuilding initiatives. Based on current rebuilding approaches, beneficiary satisfaction is higher on ‘Owner‐Driven Housing Reconstruction’ (ODHR) approach compared to the donor‐driven approach[i].

Naturally construction activities need well-functioning market system. Builders, construction materials and money are the main components which should be presence in the market (see diagram below). Based on the experiences across this decade in several countries, ‘Cash Transfer Programming’ (CTP) is the best way to infuse the market and directly support the affected people.

This article discusses how to strengthen connection of ODHR and CTP. From the diagram, the aim of ODHR is to Build Back Safer (BBS). To ensure BBS can be achieved the beneficiaries need to have certain capacities to apply the building code and manage the construction. Certainly most of affected people need external support for engineering services such as house design, applying compliances on construction engineering practices and budgeting. Other external support is needed to ensure the cash from the CTP can be received timely. This can be achieved if the all stakeholders in this process such as local authority, banks and supporting organizations can streamlined the mechanism of cash disbursement. 

Reconstruction in disaster affected area is not business as usual

No one can plan or design post-disaster housing reconstruction as a business as usual. Market collapse, local government not fully function and construction companies or builders are insufficient compare to the recovery needs. Those mentioned are only some part of the complex situation and usually even worse in rural or underdeveloped areas.

In this article land less issues and political issues will not be discussed. Landless are those who have not land title or those who live in unsafe land that have to be relocated. Political issues always following the disaster. Intervention from politicians might improve the recovery initiative or on the other hand might aggravated the problem.

Construction market might not functioning usually due to unavailability of material and no purchasing power of the affected people. In many case roads might have heavily damaged hence no construction material can be delivered to the market. Similarly, builders might not have access to the affected area to work there. On the other hand affected people might losing their livelihood hence most of their money will go for food or other priorities but not house rebuilding. Since recovery needs long process - might be years – the next challenges would be the inflation. The supply and demand situation will make at some point those who are less resource might difficult to obtain the construction material. Those who has more money will buy up all those material due to bigger houses they might need. Competition amongst those who have money will push the price up.

Other than market concern, bad construction practices need to be changed. In earthquake disaster, for instance, most of the collapse houses are due to ignorance of building code. Mostly in rural where many the house were built not following the proper practice including the absence of quality monitoring. Therefore in this decade the terms of ‘Build Back Safer’ (BBS) become more prevalent for housing recovery. Then for government and organizations who support housing post-disaster recovery, there always two important undertaking which should be implemented simultaneously. Those are revitalizing the construction market and provision of engineering services. It is always an enormous task and too huge to be carried by a single organization without partnering or build synergy with other actors.

Sustainable recovery needs natural way of process

Actually there is very rare in such a ‘natural way’ in post-disaster housing reconstruction. The bigger the disaster more external input is needed. But in the light of sustainability this ‘natural way’ should be pursued.

To achieve BBS, capacities of the homeowners and their builders should be developed. For the homeowners they need to be aware how much the rebuilding will cost them. Therefore they have to understand what kind of house they will have including its size.  For builders they have to get rid their bad practices, change it to seismic resilience practices. This new practices cannot be easily obtained just by participating several days training. This new behavior should be shaped by mentoring. It will take months! It also need homeowner participation that they will not sacrifice the safety in order the reduce house cost. Therefore each home owner has to be trained as well.

Construction material also need to be provided sufficiently. Supply chain could be more difficult in rural area which has transportation issues. In urban area – they have wholesalers - these construction material can be purchase in bulk therefore the price can be reduced. In rural – only retailers are available - more support is needed to maintain the reasonable price. Therefore if there is support for ‘demand aggregation’[ii] the community can have more bargaining power on obtaining construction material.  

Improving recovery pace

As mentioned above, the longer recovery process, inflation would be serious issue. It means just to make the process become natural would not sufficient. The market capacity should be increased to serve more demand and deliver more goods and services. Therefore volume of cash should be increased. But this ideal condition is difficult to achieve because the limitation of the local capacities i.e. the homeowners and the local builders.

Enlarging the local capacities can be perceived from local builders’ point of view. Builders need to have steady income. They need their clients – the homeowners – pay them just after they reach certain progress. The builders also need assurance that if they finish one house the next client will be available waiting their services. In order their work not interrupted they need to have all material available on site. The homeowners need to provide all those material beforehand. These builders at some extent would overwhelm with their work they would other builders or helpers to help them finish their job.

The condition above which is growing of the construction market i.e. the services provided by builders and the material provided by retailers can be achieved if the cash can be provided on time.  Cash Transfer Programming (CTP) in house reconstruction usually disbursed in several stages. It could be in two, three or even four stages. Every country has their own strategy on stage of disbursement. But whatever the stages the most important aspect is the timely disbursement. The retailers need to be paid very soon in order they can immediately order they can replenish their stock. The builders need to be paid straightaway after they fulfill their work.

Importance of construction project management

In order to have well functioned CTP system and construction practice which abide with the code, construction project management is the key. This project management should be modified in order to be applicable for post-disaster setting and also applicable in rural. The plan should be inform to key stakeholders thus there would minimum hindrance during the process. There are at least three important tasks need to be developed and strengthened during this recovery implementation. The first is the quality assurance. This initiative covers site selection, house design, homeowners training and builders mentoring. Second is coordination with local leadership to streamline all monitoring process. The CTP always have field check list and paperwork. Both checklist and paperwork are mandatory to ensure the certain quality is achieved and ensure the cash is disbursed according the requirement. Lastly is establish connection on supply chain mechanism. This will be various initiative such as working with other stakeholders on demand aggregation or creatively using various local available material.

Arwin Soelaksono

[i] Gayani Karunasena, Raufdeen Rameezdeen, (2010) "Post‐disaster housing reconstruction: Comparative study of donor vs owner‐driven approaches", International Journal of Disaster Resilience in the Built Environment, Vol. 1 Issue: 2, pp.173-191, https://doi.org/10.1108/17595901011056631

[ii] Demand aggregation is an economic term that encompasses the total amount of goods and services consumers want at an established overall price level and within a given period of time. Local government or local organization can provide supply chain management to collect construction material needs from each homeowner. The organization will aggregate for each specific material and will facilitate to connect homeowner with the retailers. This initiatives are expected to get bulk discount.