CHAPTER 2 Essential 10: Recovery and Rebuilding Communities
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• Carry out activities that enable the city to return to levels of normalcy as quickly as possible, including the reopening of schools. • Ensure that action and programmes include counselling to support the economic situation in the aftermath of disasters.
Recovery is an opportunity to build back better and improve development • Evaluate the city’s strategic plan, designating as priority those areas that are most affected by and sensitive to development; apply disaster risk reduction criteria as a crosscutting measure. • Reformulate programmes and projects as needed, strengthening those that lead to resilience; define mechanisms, laws and a solid institutional and political framework for the city. • Create and strengthen capacities, with an emphasis on local capacities, and strengthen development from within, using local knowledge and resources. • During the recovery process, don’t overlook the protection of natural and cultural resources and values. • Pay special attention to transitional shelters, ensuring that they are resilient and compliant with local regulations and that they do not become permanent slums.
Seek resources, strengthen alliances and ensure sustainability • Prepare a resource management strategy to initiate the reconstruction process. Convene national and international cooperation agencies, businesses and other potential partners. • Strengthen existing or seek new partnerships and networks to contribute to reconstruction, looking at ways to create new capacities and take advantage of technical and scientific innovation to reduce future risk and increase resilience.
Examples
Sri Lanka: An Owner-driven Approach to Reconstruction
The December 2004 tsunami completely destroyed approximately 100,000 dwellings in Sri Lanka and damaged 44,290. The State Task Force used an innovative owner-driven approach to support reconstruction, providing grants directly to the owners to rebuild; owners supplemented this grant with other donations. Most activities related to planning, layout, design and construction were delegated to local beneficiaries, who were supported by technical staff, allowing groups of beneficiaries to negotiate down their costs. In contrast, a donor-assisted programme that followed a contractordriven approach, without involvement of the community, had a much lower satisfaction rate. Owner-driven reconstruction produced more houses, more quickly, of better construction quality, and at less cost. Space standards were generally better and the design, layout, and location more acceptable to beneficiaries. The programme appears to have fostered a cooperative local social fabric and institution. Read the report at http://tinyurl.com/chjv6ps.