Better Building. Housing and building information
centres serve as a continuous source of information
to the public, e.g. the Building Centres programme
in India, under HUDCO (see: http://www.hudco.
org), which also plated an important role in
supporting reconstruction following earthquakes
in Maharashtra in 1993 and Gujarat in 2001. The
establishment of community resource or learning
centres that cover a wider range of subjects is
more common. Some have been set up with donor
funding in developing countries. Most common are
telecentres, usually run on a commercial basis; but
the poorest have neither the skills nor the money
to make use of them. In India, the Self Employed
Women’s Association (SEWA) runs a network of
centres with internet access, the Sanskar Kendra,
across Gujarat. Here women homeworkers can
get information on rights and entitlements and
opportunities to gain income or access markets,
as well as ICT training; see http://www.sewaict.org/
SEWA_Sanskar_Kendra.asp
7. Prioritising environmental
sustainability.
Incorporating environmental sustainability into
reconstruction projects involves looking at: how
settlements are being produced; how they are used;
and how they are disposed of at the end of their
useful life. Some information on this can be found
on the ProAct web site: http://proactnetwork.org/
proactwebsite.
Sustainable housing has been in the spotlight
for at least two decades, though more in the North
than in the South. The concept has extended
to all three phases of housing: production, use
and disposal. A number of methods have been
developed, for example lifecycle analysis and rating
(see Taipale (2010)). Some of these methods
are also being tested or adapted in developing
countries; e.g. India has its GRIHA rating system
for buildings. Large reconstruction programmes
create huge demand for materials and may have
negative environmental consequences. When
this is feared, the emergency market mapping
and analysis (EMMA) tool (Albu, 2010) can be
used to explore this further. Some NGOs working
in the South have a strong record in sustainable
construction; these include Ecosur/Ecosouth, which
is mainly active in Latin America (http://www.
ecosur.org) and Development Alternatives in India
(http://www.devalt.org) which also runs the basin
South Asia building information network
(http://www.basinsa.net/taranet/websitepages/
basinsadefault.aspx).
The energy used during the lifespan of a house,
for cooking, lighting, heating, cooling, productive
uses etc. is another environmental concern. Poor
people will use most of the energy they consume
for cooking. Excellent sources of information on
energy use for cooking are the Household Energy
Network, HEDON (http://www.hedon) and the
magazine Boiling Point (http://www.hedon.info/
BoilingPoint:Archives). Other energy uses in the
house can often be reduced by proper design.
When buildings reach the end of their lifespan,
they need to be disposed of. There is an increasing
body of literature in the North on how that can be
best done, and emerging experience in the South,
see: http://buildnet.csir.co.za/cdcproc. The ProAct
network (undated) has produced a useful guide for
planning building waste management in disaster
settings; see:
http://www.proactnetwork.org/proactwebsite/en/
policyresearchtoolsguidance/brief-technical-guides/
building-waste.
8. Setting appropriate standards and
regulations, and complying with them
The legal instruments put in place by authorities
to regulate the quality of construction can both
help and hinder the poor in their housing and
reconstruction processes; see Yahya et al., 2001.
Construction experts often argue that imposing
stricter disaster-resistance standards and
regulations will reduce the impact of disasters, but
in practice, the constraints they pose commonly
undermine the benefits. In particular:
• Standards often do not apply everywhere, e.g.
many rural houses are not covered;
• They are unaffordable to more than half the
urban population in many countries. Failure to
meet the regulations often also means that the
ensuing houses cannot be formally registered,
with two negative consequences: (1) those
unable to meet the standards and regulations,
and thus at risk of demolition, are less inclined
to invest in better housing which makes them
vulnerable, and (2) not being registered is
depriving inhabitants from reconstruction aid;
• In many countries, standards are a colonial
legacy, more suited to upper and middle class
housing than low-income housing, for example,
they favour modern materials over vernacular
technologies or require complete houses, rather
than allowing for the incremental housing so
often practised by the poor;
• Standards take a long time to develop or
change; it is difficult to fast track this process
after a disaster;
• Adherence to standards needs to be controlled;
in some countries the capacity to do so is
lacking. Control also provides an opportunity for
corruption, allowing builders to get away with
poor quality work, sometimes with devastating
consequences in a disaster.
In countries where standards and regulations
do not apply to or cannot be afforded in most
housing, a reconstruction strategy that hinges on
compliance is doomed to fail. What will be more
effective in such cases are guidelines encouraging
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