Supporting the most vulnerable in owner-driven house reconstruction setting – Lessons learned from Nepal

On every houses reconstruction post-disaster there is always challenging situation where there are some people will potentially left behind. The most difficult to assist are those who are the landless or those whom will be relocated. Their timeline and reconstruction cost will be much higher compare to those who are on-site reconstruction. Based on this circumstances both landless and relocated will not be discussed in this article. Therefore the scope of discussion are those who will rebuild their houses in their previous land or upon their own land. Even though there are families with economic vulnerability, whom struggling to fulfill their daily needs. There are also families without workforce, the old people and people with disabilities which made them have no confidence to rebuild their houses. When the government launch the recovery program across the affected area these people most probably will only wait for the right time to start but soon will they realize it is already late. These people are based on common criteria[i] known as the most vulnerable.

But there is always possibility on supporting the most vulnerable families to rebuild their houses. Even most of them don’t have confidence that they might even start the construction. There are many question on their capability to rebuild their houses in owner-driven setting. To answer the question, firstly we need to understand how they perceive their limitation and perception on reconstruction.

Different timeline

The most vulnerable families have different timeline on rebuilding their houses. They might think for months to have decision to ground-breaking. They might worry once they start and then they could not finish it. For instance, in Nepal one room house can be completed within 2 months or even less. But for most vulnerable families might take a year to complete. Nepal government provide cash assistance for all eligible beneficiaries to rebuild their houses in 4 tranches. For those who can afford to buy construction material or pay the labor they can use their own resource to keep the construction going. But not with the most vulnerable, which they can only work when they have the cash assistance on their hand. It happened many times there were time lag which made them to wait[ii].

Therefore since we know that the most vulnerable need more time to rebuild their houses, the support should be start earlier. Whatever the support to them such as the top up or other assistance should be started sooner. The recovery assessment should identify the most vulnerable and work at the earliest to get buy-in from their own community and local government.

Start the ball rolling

My first question when we conducted the assessment 3 months after the earthquake who will do the land clearing when we visited old people. They seems did not have man power for land clearing. The access also difficult to bring the material to their houses. If the job should be done by labor, they don’t have money to pay the wages. They stuck in this condition and need external support from government or humanitarian organization. This external support needed to start the ball rolling.

There are various ways on supporting the most vulnerable that they might kick-start the rebuilding. There was cash top up as per government plan to support the most vulnerable. Some organization using the local custom to gather several homeowners to form a group to build their houses. They started from one house then to another house as they agreed. It went well since it is traditional practice, but it takes time. They need to finish one house at certain stage then to move to other houses. It take even longer time due to seasonal work in the village[iii]. Some organizations provide construction assistance through training for builders. The training was started from land clearing until the house completed. The homeowners just provide the material. The builders get the benefit of experience to work on complete construction; on the other hand, the beneficiaries’ also get the benefit since they have their houses constructed in good quality. It went well but the number of beneficiaries not so many.

After several studies and discussion with several organizations in the HRRP[iv], the most effective support was provision of mobile mason. Mobile mason is providing a group of mason who works up to certain level of construction. The masons will clear the land and dig foundation. They will work to construction of the foundation until the foundation beams are concreted. Up to this level the beneficiaries are entitled to get the cash disbursement which is the largest tranches of government scheme. Once the ball rolling they will continue to finish their houses. This intervention was the most efficient since it took only a week[v]. Also it is cost effective since the beneficiaries can provide their salvage material to be used for construction of foundation. They only need to purchase steel rebar and cement for the foundation beam. For the organization who support the most vulnerable this is also cost efficient since they have to pay labor for a week to finish the work. But the organization have to provide construction expert to provide technical assistance to the homeowners and the builders.

Therefore the most vulnerable people will have their capacity. The government and the humanitarian organizations need to break their limitation by providing accurate support. We need to respect their time line and at the same time help them to build their confidence and to kick-start  their house construction.

Arwin Soelaksono

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[i] Every organization have their own criteria which based on their organization mission. The criteria might be old people, people with disabilities, single headed women, family with children, food security etc.

[ii] There is a process that they can receive the cash after at certain stages their construction work can be verified based on quality checklist. After the verification there will be several steps in local government process to ensure eligibility and correct amount to be disbursed. These process always take time and in some area it might take longer due to local capacity.

[iii] There were planting and harvesting and also festivals. There were also monsoons which hamper the transportation due to landslides.

[iv] The Housing Recovery and Reconstruction Platform (HRRP) is the organization who provides coordination services for the National Reconstruction Authority (NRA), Ministry of Urban Development (MoUD) and Ministry of Federal Affairs and Local Development (MoFALD) Central Level Programme Implementation Units (CL-PIUs), other relevant government authorities, and Partner Organizations (POs).

[v] The American Red Cross in March 2017, supported 7 families by providing mobile mason in Thulogaun. The support was from land clearing to the completion of the foundation. Therefore the beneficiaries can proceed to obtain the second tranche cash grant which is the largest chunk of government support. It took around 7 months up to  a year for them to complete their houses.