Journal of International Peace Operations
Volume 6, Number 1 – July/August 2010
Rebuilding Haiti will be an uphill task.
IN managing post-disaster reconstruction, a complex series of decisions need to be made almost immediately by all those involved. Despite this pressure, one must remember that these decisions will have long-term impacts on those affected by the disaster. Ideally, reconstruction policy would have been defined by government before the disaster, but there are few countries where this is the case. Therefore, defining and deliberating over the reconstruction policy will generally occur in the precious time after the disaster.
The Communities Group International (TCGI) was contracted by the World Bank, beginning in 2008, to prepare a handbook on post-disaster housing reconstruction. The World Bank intended the handbook to assist government policy makers and government and donor project managers engaged in large-scale post-disaster reconstruction programs make decisions about how to reconstruct housing and communities after natural disasters.[1] This article describes the key findings and recommendations from the handbook, and proposes what a reconstruction project in one town in Haiti that conforms to the best practices identified in the handbook might look like.
International experience — and the case studies in the reconstruction handbook — clearly demonstrate that reconstruction policy defined by government should encompass five key areas: the Institutional Strategy, the Financial Strategy, the Community Participation Approach, the Reconstruction Approach and Risk Management. At the same time, it also shows that local communities can and usually want to be put in charge of many of the operational practicalities of the reconstruction process. This combination of “top-down policy” and “bottom-up operations” has repeatedly been shown to be the most effective and efficient way to manage reconstruction.
Put another way, this means that there are tasks related to reconstruction that communities do best — such as assessing local damage, accounting for their members, looking out for the most needy, identifying suitable relocation sites, re-planning neighborhood layouts, overseeing and/or carrying out reconstruction, even managing the funding at the local level. And there are tasks that government does best — such as defining the reconstruction approach, coordinating with international agencies, establishing minimum and maximum standards for reconstruction and rules for the equitable distribution of assistance, programming and tracking the money and making sure the entire reconstruction enterprise is adequately monitored over time.
A critical fact of housing reconstruction is that it is not just about “the house.” For that reason, the reconstruction handbook focuses on housing and community reconstruction. Of course, the community on which it focuses is not a physical entity, like a neighborhood. The community entails the social fabric that holds the neighborhood together; the livelihoods that make it possible for people to maintain their households; the sense of place, heritage, and security and a basic quality of life and level of community services. Planning and carrying out successful reconstruction means that all these aspects of community — as well as the house — must be attended to at more or less the same time. One emerging practice is that of “transitional shelter,” whereby the attention is put on stabilizing the community through provision of a minimum shelter solution that allow households to safely return to their neighborhoods, while more permanent reconstruction takes place. Because a community must regain its footing after the trauma of a disaster, the processes of transitional sheltering and reconstruction, properly organized, can play a big part in helping to make social recovery happen.
Now where do all the other players, such as civil society organizations (CSOs), nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), and the private sector fit into the scenario just described? Everyone wants to help. Many even have the funding to do so. NGOs and CSOs with established relationships with communities in the disaster location can easily work with those communities to define what needs to be done. The private sector may also have established relationships within the affected communities that will give them the ability to identify local needs they can support. More complicated is the surge of private and non-profit altruism that follows a major disaster, particularly those sometimes referred to as “celebrity disasters,” from organizations that may not have roots in the disaster-affected region.
The reconstruction handbook identifies some critical success factors related to private sector and NGO/CSO involvement. These are detailed below.
Firstly, let markets work. Interventions that distort markets or keep them from reestablishing themselves should be avoided after a disaster. In the case of materials provision, the handbook urges an effort to identify the bottlenecks in the supply market and pinpoint the minimum intervention necessary. Vendors with new technologies they would like to introduce into the construction market face an interesting challenge with this approach. It may be necessary to associate with existing suppliers, manufacturers or construction firms to introduce new products.
Secondly, manage competition among agencies involved in reconstruction. Competition can often contribute to undesirable outcomes, as agencies “compete” for “customers” (i.e. homeowners or communities) in the reconstruction assistance marketplace. Good practice is for governments to set some limits on the form and cost of assistance to households, so that resources are equitably distributed, and to monitor results.
Third, support demand-driven reconstruction. Some of the most efficient post-disaster reconstruction projects provided financial resources to households or communities and let them (with technical assistance) make reconstruction plans and oversee implementation. In a country such as Haiti where construction is normally incremental, this may be more difficult, but household satisfaction with reconstruction organized this way — even when it takes longer — is generally much higher.
Fourthly, given the ubiquity of risks in reconstruction projects, it is critical to manage these risks. They range from environmental risks in site selection, risks associated with substandard reconstruction, to corruption risks in contracting and financial assistance delivery. Even donated goods and services may create risks that make these offers unattractive. For instance, introduction of unfamiliar construction practices without sufficient training may exacerbate existing vulnerabilities. Explicit programs of risk management should be established in reconstruction projects. NGOs, CSOs and private entities that present proposals identifying and mitigating risks (i.e., by providing third-party monitoring or conducting pilot projects before scaling up) may find a warmer reception for their ideas.
Finally, make it sustainable. No long-term benefit accrues from post-disaster investments that cannot be maintained. Nor do projects that exacerbate pre-disaster environmental problems have much merit. Therefore, sustainability of several types are key reconstruction considerations. These include environmental sustainability, economic sustainability (will the local government be able to maintain the sewage system once it is installed?) and institutional sustainability (can local communities guarantee that risk mitigation measures such as early warning systems will be sustained?).
TCGI is proposing to partner with two neighborhood groups, a local NGO and one or more local microfinance institutions, and with local professionals, to plan and oversee the execution of two projects in Haiti that demonstrate the principles put forth in the reconstruction handbook, including a participatory approach to relocation and community development, starting with transitional shelters and minimal services.
In these projects, both shelter and services will be improved over time as additional resources become available. These projects are also intended to train a cadre of build-environment professionals who can replicate and scale up an approach that can contribute to the goal of the Government of Haiti of de-concentrating Port-au-Prince by supporting the growth of sustainable secondary cities.
To protect against loss of life, camps must be relocated to safer sites as soon as possible. The proposed transitional communities are intended to move families and their transitional shelter to safer sites, while allowing permanent, healthy, economically viable communities to be planned and developed during the longer reconstruction period. Using a plan designed by the community as the framework, the project will focus on ensuring that the community is capable of advocating for its own interests and raising resources for the plan over time.
A team composed of the local community, local organizations, local officials and local and international planners, will coordinate a process of participatory planning, and define replicable financial and development strategies in these demonstration communities. Households will lead the planning and participate in the development of neighborhoods that initially will include basic services such as minimal roads, water, sewerage and power; public facilities such as markets, community gardens, schools and health facilities; and facilities and support restoring livelihoods.
With local economic development as a principal goal, residents will receive training in construction and other skills needed to develop the demonstration community and replicate it elsewhere, as well as for jobs and entrepreneurial activities that can contribute to the growth of the local economy. The model is based on community planning methodologies that have been carried out as part of community revitalization projects in cities around the world, but will be adapted to the Haitian context.
Disasters are terrible occurrences. Even so there are opportunities, as former U.S. President Bill Clinton has put it, to “build back better.”
Endnotes
[1] Safer Homes, Stronger Communities: A Handbook for Reconstructing after Disasters, was published in January 2010.
