Still Standing?: Looking back at reconstruction and disaster risk reduction in housing (Open Access) - Hardcover

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 185339839X ISBN 13: 9781853398391

Verlag: Practical Action Publishing, 2016

Inhaltsangabe

Huge levels of aid are spent on reconstructing housing after disasters. Have these houses withstood the test of time and hazard? Just as important from the point of view of their owners, has the reconstruction process played a part in restoring their livelihoods and social networks?

Unfortunately, aid agencies rarely go back to assess the impact of reconstruction in the longer term. The research upon which Still Standing? is based has done just that. Agencies that undertook projects 3–35 years ago in countries throughout Asia and Latin America have gone back to record changes and to interview beneficiaries, builders, authorities and other agencies in their project areas. This book describes the stories of the project beneficiaries and how their houses have changed, within contexts that have kept changing too.

Still Standing? is essential reading for architects and engineers involved in humanitarian fieldwork as well as students and researchers concerned with disaster risk reduction.

Über diesen Titel

Über die Autorinnen und Autoren

Theo Schilderman is a Senior Researcher at the Building and Social Housing Foundation, UK. He is an architect with over 40 years’ experience of low-cost housing and reconstruction in developing countries.

Eleanor Parker is a principal lecturer in the department of Geography, Environment and Disaster Management, Coventry University.

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Still Standing?

Looking Back at Reconstruction and Disaster Risk Reduction in Housing

By Theo Schilderman, Eleanor Parker

Practical Action Publishing

Copyright © 2014 Theo Schilderman and Eleanor Parker
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-1-85339-839-1

Contents

List of Figures and Tables, 
Acknowledgements, 
Foreword, 
1 Introduction: What do we really know about the impact of reconstruction? Theo Schilderman, 
2 Emerging stronger? Assessing the outcomes of Habitat for Humanity's housing reconstruction programmes following the Indian Ocean tsunami Victoria Maynard, Priti Parikh, Dan Simpson, and Jo da Silva, 
3 Looking back at agency-driven housing reconstruction in India: Case studies from Maharashtra, Gujarat, and Tamil Nadu Jennifer Duyne Barenstein with Akbar Nazim Modan, Katheeja Talha, Nishant Upadhyay, and Charanya Khandhadai, 
Part I Asian Case Studies, 
4 A market-based programme to improve housing in the mountains of northern Pakistan: Addressing seismic vulnerability Nawab Ali Khan and Charles Parrack, 
5 India: Gandhi Nu Gam, an example of holistic and integrated reconstruction Yatin Pandya with Priyanka Bista, Abhijeet Singh Chandel, and Narendra Mangwani, 
6 Challenges for sustainability: Introducing new construction technologies in post-tsunami Sri Lanka Eleanor Parker, Asoka Ajantha, Vasant Pullenayegem, and S. Kamalaraj, 
7 Reconstruction in Vietnam: Less to lose! Examples of the experience of Development Workshop France in Vietnam Marion MacLellan, Matthew Blackett, Guillaume Chantry, and John Norton, 
8 Integrated people-driven reconstruction in Indonesia Annye Meilani, Wardah Hafidz, and Ashleigh King, 
Part II Latin American case studies, 
9 Guatemala: Knowledge in the hands of the people Kurt Rhyner, 
10 Honduras: 'La Betania', resettlement of a flooded neighbourhood Kurt Rhyner, 
11 Nicaragua: reconstruction with local resources in an isolated region Kurt Rhyner, 
12 A roof for La Paz: reconstruction and development in El Salvador after the 2001 earthquakes Claudia Blanco, Alma Rivera, Jacqueline Martínez, and Jelly Mae Moring, 
13 Peru: building on the vernacular Theo Schilderman and Max Watanabe, 
14 Conclusions: How does our approach to reconstruction need to change? Theo Schilderman, Eleanor Parker, Matthew Blackett, Marion MacLellan, Charles Parrack, and Daniel Watson, 
Appendix, 
Search terms, 

CHAPTER 1

Introduction: What do we really know about the impact of reconstruction?

Theo Schilderman

The need for a longer-term approach to reconstruction and recovery

The Philippines were hit by a typhoon in November 2013, the intensity of which they had not experienced before. According to the International Disaster Database, EM-DAT (2014), the number and intensity of hydro-meteorological disasters is increasing steadily. Financial damage attributed to disasters also shows an upward curve. Disasters and development are closely interlinked. On the one hand, disasters regularly wipe out years of development (Schilderman, 1993; IEG, 2006), an impact we strive to reduce. On the other, development gone wrong creates the vulnerabilities that turn natural hazards into disasters (Wijkman and Timberlake, 1984; Grunewald et al., 2000; IEG, 2006). Even in recovery, people sometimes end up struggling more with underlying development problems such as a declining economy or poor governance, rather than simply rebuilding houses (Cosgrave et al., 2009).

Disasters are not neutral; they are known to affect the poor more (Guha-Sapir et al., 2013; Arnold and Burton, 2011). Reconstruction and recovery can be very difficult for the poor and may further increase pre-disaster inequalities; those longer-term impacts, though, often remain hidden from the outside world because the attention of donors and the media has shifted elsewhere (IEG, 2006; Arnold and Burton, 2011), and can vary hugely. A recent report by a special rapporteur to the United Nations (2011) concluded that reconstruction and recovery too often focus on physical structures (houses), whereas for those affected the recovery of livelihoods, social networks, or services is frequently a higher priority than houses. Predominant approaches to reconstruction and recovery seem to be short-term and reactive, where they ought perhaps to take a longer-term view and pro-actively seek to reduce pre-existing and post-disaster vulnerabilities, not just of houses, but of affected people.

The full impact of recovery and reconstruction on people's livelihoods and resilience can only be truly understood in the longer term. Yet, agencies rarely return to locations where they were supporting projects. Much of our knowledge about impact comes from project evaluations or end-of-project reports produced shortly after projects ended. There have been far fewer longitudinal studies of impact. This chapter is largely based on a literature review that aimed to take stock of such longitudinal studies. Of the 99 documents reviewed, only 15 were written more than five years after the end of reconstruction, 40 within four years; the remaining often covered several projects and a more variable timespan, but were rarely found to include long-term lessons.

For us to be able to develop more effective long-term approaches to reconstruction and recovery in the housing sector which consider their contribution to general development and to a reduction of vulnerabilities, especially of the poor and marginalized, we need to learn more lessons from the past. That is why the Building and Social Housing Foundation (BSHF) and its partners undertook the research that forms the basis for this book.

Developing the research

BSHF was established to identify innovative housing solutions with a proven track record, through research and a competition, and to promote their transfer to potential users worldwide. Its sources of funding are limited. We, therefore, could not opt for a quantitative approach, e.g. interviewing hundreds of households. Instead, we adopted a more qualitative method, interviewing small numbers of people as individuals and in groups, but verifying the reliability of their answers through triangulation. Our aim was to begin to understand what issues and factors had the greatest impact on the long-term resilience of people in disaster areas and their houses, illustrate them with some real-life examples, and communicate these to reconstruction agencies. Hopefully, this would then help them to design better projects in the future, identify indicators to measure success during and after the life of projects, and identify gaps in understanding to be addressed by additional research.

Through its annual World Habitat Award (WHA) competitions, BSHF has developed resources, including databases of excellent projects dating back to 1985, and of professionals involved in housing, many of whom have been involved with us in networking, exchanges, or collaborative research. A number of these dealt with reconstruction or disaster mitigation of housing. For most, we also had a project summary that had adequate information on the end-of-project situation and the lessons and impacts at that stage, which we could use as a 'baseline' with which to compare the current situation of each project. Fieldwork could provide evidence not only for changes in housing and livelihoods over time, but also stakeholder perspectives on factors influencing those changes. The 'baseline' and the fieldwork could then be used to write a story of change for...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Practical Action Publishing
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2016
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 185339839X
• ISBN 13: 9781853398391
• Einband: Gebundene Ausgabe
• Anzahl der Seiten: 264
• Herausgeber: Schilderman Theo, Parker Eleanor
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: preigu; mail@preigu.de; ; Lengericher Landstr. 19; Osnabrück; 49078; Deutschland