The Indian Ocean tsunami was a disaster on an unprecedented scale and elicited local and international responses which went well beyond the experience of previous disasters. The widespread efforts which ensued provided a test-bed for some of the prevalent ideas, beliefs and practices of the early years of this century concerning the management of natural disasters and their relation to development.
Through implementation and debate, these experiences both triggered and coincided with deep reflections on the part of multilateral and bilateral agencies, governments, international NGOs, civil society and scholars over their priorities and approaches to vulnerability reduction, short-term relief and temporary shelter phases, and post-disaster reconstruction. In consequence, new actors have entered the sector; it has come to include more, larger actors, who were either new to housing or new to disasters; and who practice housing reconstruction on a larger scale than previously. Many actors from all sectors have adopted the practice and language of participatory and integrated development to describe their new strategies and activities.
The book has been developed through ongoing collaboration between Practical Action, London South Bank University, and the International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies. These organizations sought to bring together practitioners, academics and donors to reflect on this turning point in approaches to post-disaster reconstruction, and to draw lessons for future practice, policy and advocacy. The process has included a major international conference held in London in March 2009 and a number of international workshops and its outputs include a tool-kit for practitioners, a position paper for activists and academic articles.
The key contribution of this volume is to analyse the potential for large-scale reconstruction to be participatory and developmental, for and of ordinary people – ‘people-centred’ reconstruction. Focusing mainly, though not exclusively, on major natural disasters, the various chapters address the study from a number of perspectives drawn, in part, from the sphere of development. These include the nature of participatory processes practiced in housing reconstruction today; the increasing scale on which work is undertaken and the barriers and opportunities to the large-scale adoption of participatory approaches; the changing role of actors in the planning and implementation of housing reconstruction; and the implications of these matters for ordinary people affected by a disaster, often poor and marginalized, in the process of reconstructing their lives and attempting to break the cycle of poverty and vulnerability.
Because it is during this period that large-scale, people-centred, participatory reconstruction has become a realistic – and in some cases a real – policy option, the chapters in this volume reflect critically on practice in the field mainly during the period 2005–8. However, four earlier case studies, set in Colombia, Peru, India and Turkey, are included because of the particular insights they provide. Because it is an attempt to reflect critically on practice, the authors of Part One are a practitioner, a professional and an academic; and of the ten case studies presented in Parts Two and Three of this book, seven have been written by practitioners, and three have been co-authored by practitioners and academics. Several of the chapters discuss a particular approach to people-centred reconstruction current at the time of writing – ‘owner-driven reconstruction’, or ODR. It should be stated from the outset that the focus of this volume is broader than a specific policy approach, and several of the case studies come from other policy contexts.
