There are various approaches on supporting affected people to recover from disaster. Some organizations and also governments have specific approaches that they will apply as policies or strategies to support housing recovery. They use similar approach in almost every recovery since they have experience with it in the previous interventions. Governments and organizations introduced slogans as mantra of post-disaster reconstruction program. The most famous reconstruction slogan is Build Back Better[i], which was introduced in 2006 during the Asian tsunami recovery.[ii] Later on, Building Back Safer has been proposed as an alternative as “safer” provides a clearer goal for post-disaster reconstruction.[iii] During this decade there were another slogan which intended to encourage more environment friendly, faster, stronger, and more equitable.[iv] Each slogan will have its own approach. But the most important aspect is which approach will be best for the community to be easily understood and applied on their self-recovery.
This
writing is intended to share my learning and my experience on supporting the
disaster affected people to rebuild their houses. With appropriate approach and
modality, and proper strategy, owner-driven housing recovery is achievable. Even
there will be challenges along the process, there are various options to fit
the activities with the situations to ensure the achievement are within the
planned timeframe.
Expectation
on better housing recovery
Many people
perceived that housing reconstruction as the opportunity to improve public
housing. People can have robust structure to withstand disasters such as
earthquake and typhoon. Enhancement of health and livelihood always to be
expected to have the same direction with improvement of housing.
As massive
housing recovery will need extensive construction material. For instance, on
Aceh post-tsunami reconstruction, around 1.72 billion high quality red bricks
were needed[v].
There was environmental concerns about timber use in brick production. During
2005-2006 at least 266,000 hectare of Aceh forest was deforested since the wood
was used as construction material and brick production.[vi]
Ideally, the recovery should achieve greening housing ecosystem to reduce greenhouse
gases. The aim, each house should be a building that has 20% less energy, water,
and material consumption.[vii]
From
political side, many governments want to have faster recovery. The delayed
reconstruction process might bring issues on local political stability. On the
other hand, from the socio-economic perspective, reconstruction is the
opportunity to have more equitable community. Those who are most vulnerable can have same assistance as
those who are more resourceful on participating in the recovery.
There are
many expectations for better outcome of the housing recovery. From all of those
mentioned above, the overarching idea is to prevent re-creating or exacerbating
pre-disaster vulnerabilities in the process of reconstruction.[viii]
But on the implementation side, it is enormous for the affected people to cover
all aspects. On the other hand, if all aspects have to be fulfilled by the
government or by the recovery agencies, it will create dependencies and
diminish the owner-driven recovery initiatives. Moreover, due to budget
constraint, only small number of affected people can receive the assistance.
The bigger part of the community will be left behind without support.
Choosing
the approach and modality
From the
housing recovery experience within a period of two decades the evidence shows
the top-down approach turn to be less successful compared to the otherwise. For
instance, from the Aceh post-tsunami housing recovery. Even the program has
huge budget USD 7.7 billion, which was the biggest funding ever committed for the
relief effort,[ix]
the community ownership was less compared to other recovery program. In
Yogyakarta, following the earthquake 2006, the community shared their
responsibility and initiative with the recovery agencies on building back their
houses. The result was they took the ownership and responsibilities ensuring
their houses will be built following the standard.
Shifting
the top-down approach to the people centered housing recovery can be done if we
endorse the rights of the affected people as the basis of recovery initiative. It
is their life, their house, and their future that they will decide on how to
recover. Government, humanitarian organizations are present to fill the gap on
their capacity. Even those people are affected by the disaster which caused
substantial loss on their assets, they still have coping mechanism. In their
survival mode they still have self-recover capacity, even it could be small.
Then,
considering their low capacity on self-recover but we need to respect their rights
on the process, what would be the most suitable approach and modality for
intervention?
Using Build
Back Better (BBB) as the approach might overwhelmed them during the process.
Therefore, government and shelter agencies need to use approach that might fit
with their condition. Then, it leaves the Build Back Safer (BBS) should be
promoted to the houseowners. With BBS approach, the houseowner has the
responsibility to ensure that they will have robust and safer houses.
Most of
houseowners are construction layman. They have no idea on putting foundation,
laying bricks and construct an earthquake resistance house. But, with proper
guidance and oversight, the houseowners and their builders can build houses
that withstand disaster.
Aside from
engineering capacity, they also have financial issues. As they have
considerable loss of assets and might also loss their livelihood, they have not
enough resource to finance the reconstruction. Then how to enable them to
kick-start the construction and then complete it but at the same time, the supporting
agencies still respect their rights? By giving cash as part of the construction
cost. The houseowner will have the authority on how to spend the money if they
committed to complete their houses according to standard. This modality called
Cash Transfer Programming (CTP) combined with Technical Assistance.
Empowering
the community on Build Back Safer
Recovery
effort should be understood by the affected people, and it should within reach
of them. All intervention given to the
affected people should be focused on how to strengthen their capacity as
individual and also their community. Since all parties need to respect their
rights on self-recovery the intervention should be people centered housing
recovery. All interventions with dictating construction products or house
design should be avoided. In people-centered housing recovery should be
characterized by housing design and form that meet people's needs; genuine
participation of empowered residents in decision-making and construction; and
holistic policies accountable to all residents.[x]
On the BBS
approach the first step is by building the capacity of builders and the
homeowners. They need to be trained on how to build robust house. This training
will be the opportunity to change the poor construction practices which done by
the builders for many years which result to vulnerable houses. The training
should be inclusive to the whole community since community marginalisation from
reconstruction exacerbates local vulnerabilities and associated disaster risks
and impacts.[xi]
Diagram of Ecosystem of Safer Housing Recovery
with CTP Support
From the diagram above showing how community capacity can be developed and strengthened. The inner circle is the community capacity. The capacity can be formed from Household number 1 (HH1), started to build the house, they gone through the construction process and then they made it finishing the house. Learned from their neighbour, Household number 2 (HH2) also start the house and completed the house. Then the work continues to Household number 3 (HH3) then continues to the whole community. Inspired by their neighbours the demand of owner-driven getting stronger. It is like a growing spiral, more households participating in reconstruction which, also means the community capacity is increased.
But, the
demand would stuck if there is no growing supply available. Then, what are the
components of supply? Those are builders, construction material and service
providers.
To begin
with the builders. Builders are those who are trained and have sufficient
skills to build robust house. Builders become an issue if they persistent on
using their old construction practices which result to house damage due to
earthquake. Another issue if their number is not sufficient compare to the
demand of reconstruction. By deliver training to the homeowners prior the
construction starts, it gives knowledge and confident to the homeowner on
monitoring the quality of builders workmanship.
Then, construction
material. Construction material should always available locally and sufficiently
and in good quality. If it is insufficient, mostly during the peak of recovery,
their price would become very expensive due to inflation. Many of shelter agencies cannot provide
materials but the organizations can collaborate with other NGOs to manage
supply chain. The homeowners will have stabilized price and will have
sufficient construction material to complete their houses.
Lastly is on
the supply part is the service providers. It is those who can deliver the cash directly
to the homeowners. It can be bank, local
cooperative, post-office, electronic wallet as long as their service can
accommodate the need of the homeowners.
Those 3,
the builders, construction material and the service providers are the supply.
Combination of both Supply and Demand we call it as market.
The market
should grow, since there will be many beneficiaries to be supported. It can be
hundreds or thousands depend on the magnitude of the disaster and the
vulnerability of houses in that area. The market is just like an organism which
need supportive environment to live and to make it stronger and bigger. As a
shelter and settlement practitioner our call is to ensure that our strategy can
strengthen the market.
What are
the element of supportive environment or enabling factors? Firstly, it is the technical
assistance as can be seen in the diagram. Shelter agencies have to have a good
engineering team to serve owner driven recovery. If the number of beneficiaries
are thousand, let us say more than 3,000 beneficiaries meant that we are
potentially would have 1,000 to almost 2,000 of house design. Since everyone
and everything is unique. Also, the engineers have to support on the Budget
Calculation. They have to monitor and oversight the process since the recovery
will be done by the homeowners and their builders. It is a tough job to ensure
quality and at the same time changing bad practices in the field.
Secondly, the project management support. Shown at the diagram at the right-bottom. It would not be sufficient on just providing technical assistance. It should be combined with the project management support. S-Curve as a tool for planning and monitoring would be helpful in this process. Based on our S-Curve we can tell our finance team, how much money they need to prepare for next month disbursement or for the next quarter. Also how many engineers and social mobilizers should be deployed. Proper project management support will ensure we can build and maintain the momentum. The nature of housing recovery always needs momentum otherwise every disruption will flatten the curve. More on the S-Curve as a tool for managing humanitarian construction. Click here
On the diagram, the top-right is the Government Policy. The policy should be clear from the very beginning. Also, should be doable in the field. Both unclear and impractical policy will put the progress on-hold. This will be a huge impede, once the construction process stopped it would be costly to resume. Another important policy which usually expected by beneficiaries and shelter agencies in the field is the policy on addressing the most vulnerable. More on policy on supporting the most vulnerable. Click here
Lastly is on
the diagram are the donor or CSR program or financial institution. It is
expected that they would be flexible and more adaptive to field situation.
Their flexibility is needed since not all aspects are covered during the
planning. For instance, political situation and other disaster occurred in the
area which might need change of program which affect the timeframe and the
budget.
More comprehensive intervention from Area-based Approach of Build Back Better
The good
thing on construction work is most of the activities will boost economic growth.
Not only in the area where construction take place but also surrounding area
which have resources to support the construction. For instance, construction
material providers whether it is manufactured or taken from the quarry. As long
as the transportation allows, the multiplier effects can deliver benefit to
broader community.
On the
other hand, the construction process might be harmful to the environment. For instance,
the impact to the waste and deforestation. For shelter agencies this situation is
more than they could handle. As UCLG note it, the current humanitarian
architecture is built around sector-specific planning and short-term funding
and program cycles. This is not appropriate in the highly complex and dynamic environments
witnessed in urban crises, where humanitarian best practices point instead to
holistic, longer term action and higher levels of engagement with sub-national
actors.[xii]
Example on attempting to achieve greener recovery,
in Nepal following the 2015 earthquake, an NGO, Build Up Nepal,
set up a Compressed Stabilized Earth Bricks (CSEB)[xiii]
factory which material can be used by the community to rebuild their houses.
Since the factory located nearby to the area of reconstruction, the community will
have the material with more affordable prices. The material itself is more environmental friendly compare to the red brick. More decisive on protecting the environment, other NGO or
entrepreneur would set up construction material made from plastic waste.
On the utilities, local government might have to join forces with NGOs on clean water
provision. The problem which usually occur on the reconstruction in the
relocation area. Or in the area which water distribution affected by the
disaster.
All of
those need to be solved through coordination in area-based approach. The interaction
should lead by the local government, to have coordinated effort with the whole stakeholders
within the area. Local government will play as the key-role on the success of
the recovery. On area-based approach, it is recognized that successful
improvements rely on people-centered approaches that take time and involve
negotiation with local governance structures.[xiv]
If all stakeholders committed to deliver assistances that will be plenty of opportunities to explore. Every stakeholders know their positions and whether the approach is BBB or BBS, each stakeholder can fit in to their role on supporting the community. It means all actors are collaborating to deliver more comprehensive solution to the community in the area. And it will multiply the impact of enabling factors that might strengthen the market and improve the quality of owner-driven recovery.
Arwin Soelaksono
[i] Build
Back Better (BBB): The use of the recovery, rehabilitation and reconstruction
phases after a disaster to increase the resilience of nations and communities
through integrating disaster risk reduction measures into the restoration of
physical infrastructure and societal systems, and into the revitalization of
livelihoods, economies, and the environment (United Nations General Assembly,
2016 ).
[ii] Fernandez,
Glenn. Ahmed, Iftekhar. “Build back better” approach to disaster recovery:
Research trends since 2006. 2019
[iii] Ibid.
[iv] Ibid.
[v] UNDP.
Construction Boom Analysis Pilot analysis for bricks Banda Aceh (Jan 2006)
[vii] Harrison,
Dao. Balancing Public and Private Sector Engagement in Housing Sector to Boost
Economic Growth. World Bank at Indonesia Housing Forum. 2021
[viii]
Fernandez, Glenn. Ahmed, Iftekhar. “Build back better” approach to disaster
recovery: Research trends since 2006. 2019
[ix]
Jock McKeon, “Aceh Reconstruction Expenditure Update June 2007 data” The World
Bank, November 2007
[x] Fernandez,
Glenn. Ahmed, Iftekhar. “Build back better” approach to disaster recovery:
Research trends since 2006. 2019
[xi] Imperiale,
Angelo Jonas. Vanclay, Frank. Top-down Reconstruction and the failure to “build
back better” resilient communities after disaster: lessons from the 2009 L’Aquila
Italy earthquake. 2020.
[xii] IMPACT and UCLG , Consultations on humanitarian responses in urban areas: perspectives from cities in crisis, page 10. 2016
[xiv] Sanderson,
David. Implementing area-based approaches (ABAs) in urban post-disaster
contexts. 2017.
