people to build better and safer, allowing them to
do so incrementally, and incorporating vernacular
technologies with proven disaster resistance (see
case study).
In urban areas, this would have to go hand
in hand with a strategy of recognising informal
settlements and avoiding demolition of sub-
standard houses, which is already in place in
many countries. If they would also allow land
and home ownership to be registered quickly and
without insisting on compliance with all standards
and regulations, that would enhance urban
reconstruction.
In countries where most houses are already built
according to standards and regulations, it is still
worthwhile considering how these can be changed
to accommodate greater numbers of people,
and better disaster-resistance, e.g. by moving
to performance standards and accommodating
incremental construction.
Applications
Case Study 1: Communities are contracted for post-tsunami reconstruction works in Sri Lanka
The Community Rehabilitation and Reconstruction Partnership (CRRP), co-ordinated by the IFRC and
UN-Habitat, and funded by 12 national Red Cross societies, was the largest post-tsunami reconstruction
programme in Sri Lanka. It built on the experience of the one million houses programme implemented
in the country 15-20 years before. As was the case then, there was an important role for Community
Development Councils (CDCs). Supported by CRRP mobilisers, these CDCs were responsible for community
action planning (CAP) from the start. Not only was the CAP important for housing reconstruction, but also
to determine the use of an infrastructure fund allocated to each community. The prioritised works were
implemented through community contracting (Lyons, 2010).
UN-Habitat not only applied the principles of community contracting to Sri Lanka, but also to post-
tsunami reconstruction in Aceh, and post-earthquake reconstruction in Pakistan, under the heading: “the
people’s process of reconstruction”, which is applied to houses as well as infrastructure. They list the
advantages of the approach, compared to conventional contracting, as follows:
Comparative advantages of community contracts (Lankatilleke, 2010)
Process
Planning
Design
Physical works
Labour
Experience
Quality of work
Profit margin
Feeling of ownership
Conventional contract
Outside professionals
Outside professionals
Outside contractor
Machine intensive
Goes out of community
Chances of being inferior
High
None
identify and locate
Community contract
Community
Community assisted by professionals
Community
Labour intensive
Stays within community
Good, it’s their own
Low
Very high
Case Study 2: Communities drive land adjudication in Aceh
The Boxing Day 2004 tsunami not only caused huge damage, but also great problems in land registration
in Aceh. Many of the registries were destroyed, or their records illegible. People lost their title deeds
with their houses, and landmarks and boundaries were washed away. Local government capacity was also
crippled. This created a major bottleneck for the people-driven reconstruction process that the Indonesian
government proposed. In partnership with the World Bank, the government launched the Reconstruction
of Land Administrations in Aceh and Nian programme in August 2005. This put communities in the lead
of a process of “community-driven adjudication”. At settlement level, survivors were brought together
to discuss property locations and boundaries. These were then mapped out, and community leaders as
well as survivors signed the map as being a true record of the settlement. The plots were then marked
out by surveyors and legal titles issued by the BPN. By early 2009, it was estimated that about 120,000
households had been able to rebuild on plots determined by a community mapping process.
See OXFAM in the Resources section
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