Shelter After Cyclone Sidr

Shelter Working Group’s Lessons (2007-2009)

Impact of Cyclone Sidr 2007•Category 4, Wind Speed: 200-240 kilometres/hour

•Affected districts: 30; Affected people: 8.9 million

•Deaths: 3406; Missing: 871; Injuries; 55,000

•Houses damaged and destroyed: 1,522,077

•Trees uprooted: 4 million

fully damaged self recovery

21%

fully damaged needing support

12%

fully damaged allready supported

5%

partial damage needing support

17%

partial damage self recovery

45%

Shelter Working Group’s Objectives

• Field perspectives with a strategic level documentation to record what has been implemented and how.

• Learning tool for future family shelter response.

• So that,

‘We as the Shelter Working Group are better prepared for the next disaster’

•Worked with at least 1000 families

•Innovative process (such as: prefabrication, advocacy and support for landless families, shelter training).

Agency Selection Criteria:

  Selected Agencies Location Information shared1 Disaster Management Bureau

Saudi Govt. - Govt. of Bangladesh

Dhaka, Head OfficeDokhin Amragachia, Mirzaganj

Interviews, discussion

2 ACF -Sangram Noltola, Barguna Sadar Interviews, documents

3 Action Aid Bangladesh Dhaka, Head Office Interviews, documents

4 BRAC Baroikhali, Morelganj Telephone discussions, documents

5 British Red Cross - BDRCS - Documents

6 CARE Bangladesh Baroikhali, Morelganj Interviews, documents

7 Caritas Baroikhali, Morelganj Interviews

8 Concern-Sangram Betagi, Barguna Interviews, documents

9 Danish Church Aid - -

10 Habitat for Humanity International

Dokhin Amragachia, Mirzaganj

Interviews, documents

11 IFRC – BDRCS Mahishkata, Mirzaganj Interviews, documents

12 Islamic Relief - -

13 Muslim Aid Shubedkhali, Mirzaganj Telephone discussions, Interviews

14 Spanish Red Cross- BDRCS Poshchim Shoralia, Morelganj

Interviews, documents

15 Swiss Red Cross- BDRCS - -

16 UNDP-various partners Barguna Sadar Interviews, documents

17 World Vision Bangladesh Baroikhali, Morelganj 

Interviews, documents

Process

1 Strategic Plan

2 Programme Objective

3 Coordination

4 Assessment

5 Funding and Resources

6 Implementation Plan

7 Monitoring, Evaluation, Accountability

8 Handover

9. Exit strategy

Product

1 Site Selection and Planning

2 Shelter Design Options

3 Construction Options

4 Safe Building Promotion

5 Water, Sanitation Options

6 Public Health Promotion

7 Disaster Risk Reduction

8 Owners’ Response

Shelter Programme

Government Approach

• Immediate Cash Grant 5000Taka/ family

• Core Shelter for the families with land

• Barracks/Asrayan/Abashon for the landless families

Govt. Approach: Core Shelter

• Saudi Govt. funded houses for those with land.

• Not a transparent and accountable process

• Could not collect the technical drawings.

• Initially a permanent house with latrine and kitchen was promised, but no one in the village knows what happened.

‘I had to spend 5,000Taka to get my name in the list. If I waited longer, I could have had a better

house built by other agencies, like my neighbours got.

I was also told that I will receive a 1 lakh taka house, with a latrine but this house costs 40,000 taka and I had to add extra materials on my own expenses’

Government Housing for the Landless

Photo 1: ‘Abashon Prokolpo’ with income generating opportunity (Source: Taraqual Islam Bhuiya/UNDP).

Photo 2: Contractor built housing with communal sanitation facilities, Mirzaganj 2009.

Photo 3: Housing built outside the embankment got damaged by tidal surge of cyclone Sidr, Patharghata 2007.

Transitional versus

Permanent

Owner-built or

Agency built

Agency Responses

Partnering or Subcontracting?

Transitional Core Shelter

 Cement pillar with horizontal timber members and timber roof frame- One room

Permanent Core Shelter

RCC frame Structure- One room

Permanent Core Shelter

Brick masonry structure-two rooms with a veranda

Transitional Core Shelter

Timber frame structure - One room

Equity?

Beneficiary and Site Selection

‘We had to spend from 10,000Tk-80,000 Tk, by taking loans from many different agencies to prepare the relocation land.

This agency helped us to build a permanent brick house worth 1 LakhTaka, of which 10,000Tk is from our own pocket, some of us decided to move to a safer ground. But now we are worried how to repay these loans.’

- Shah Poran Village Community, Mirzaganj

Photo 5: A Landless woman is receiving Khas landownership documents from land registry Office at Kalapara, Patuakhali. (Source: Action Aid)

A Landless woman is receiving khas land ownership documents from land registry Office at Kalapara, Patuakhali.

A portion of landless people who received Khasland are Standing in front of Land

registration office at Kalapara, Patuakhali.

Permanent settlement of khas lands for 107 landless families, while they are living and waiting in their temporary shelters.

Advocacy for Khas land by Action Aid Bangladesh

Material Selection

‘I’m afraid that the thinner CGI Sheet we provided for the walls will be used for veranda when people extend the house. And it might cause the same problem of roof flying away and injuring people during cyclone’.

- NGO field staff

Quality: Disaster Risk Reduction?

Improvements

Prefabricated Construction

Production centre in Mirjaganj (Source: Habitat for Humanity International- Bangladesh)

Shelter Training Topics:

·      Roof

·      Wall

·      Joints

·      Bracing

·      Foundation

·      Protection by vegetation

·      Questions from participants

Source:IFRC/BDRCS

DRR Process and Product Toolkit distribution:

Water and Sanitation: Process• Process: Public Health Promotion• Case by case / design review?

Water and Sanitation: Products • Water Filter• Tube-well• Rainwater Harvesting• Latrines

Handover and Ownership

Owner’s Respons

e

Now I have changed the look of the ‘relief house’ to a home, as my daughter is getting married soon. I hired carpenters and worked myself with the children to turn the veranda into an extended room and add a kitchen on the side.

I had to bring the shelter materials by myself with my two children, as the agency delivered them to a common collection point and provided me the money to hire transport. The RCC pillars were so heavy to carry even from the nearest road that for the next two days I was laid with back pain and could not move.

‘I am happy with this durable house, although the it is not complete, I can finish it slowly and can add a latrine myself later.’

– A Core House Owner

‘I received this timber frame structure from an agency and added the CGI sheet walls and a veranda myself from the salvaged materials. I’m not sure how to put on windows, as the house gets quite hot now. I’m afraid to take off any of these wooden cross bracings, to put windows on the wall. As I fear that my house might fall down or it might break the structure, which is quite strongly attached together. The NGO ‘s staff explained its importance to me, I also added the cross bracing in the veranda which I believe will make my house strong for the next cyclone.’

Cyclone Aila’s Impact

Barguna 2009 (Source: ACF)

Disaster Preparedness

Poster of the Safe Shelter Awareness and Repair Training (Source: BDRC-IFRC).

•Shelter Training materials

•House Repairing Toolkits

•Preparedness Training

Key Challenges 1. Materials- availability, cost, 2. Unable to work for the landless 3. Climate -Rainy Season, Cyclone Aila 4. Lack of clear reconstruction policy and design

guidelines from the government or the Shelter Working Group

5. Access6. Tender process7. Contractors- delay and availability8. World Economic Recession

Top-down Challenges:Programme Design: ‘We are given a prescribed design from the International Agencies to implement. Our opinion are too late to be heard as they started the procurement process already, so the Bill of Quantities cannot be changed’ - Partner NGO staff

Donor Demand:

‘According to the donor, our proposed shelter design was too permanent in nature, as it had cement pillars. Even a year after the cyclone, we had to revise the shelter design to make it more transitional. I wish we could say no to their demands, but we couldn’t as people need some sort of a shelter.’ – NGO staff

Programme Leanings:

Assisting self recovery: House Repair Kit and Training

‘The toolkits we distributed to each families were used for repairing the damaged houses for Cyclone Aila.’

Contingency Planning ‘ We wasted a lot of time in the beginning to

respond to the shelter need. If we were able to make decisions faster, then we could have responded to shelter need earlier.’

Policy Leanings:Working with the Local Government -‘Where we

received cooperation from the DC and the TNO, we were successful in acquiring land for the landless to build houses on.’

Advocacy to the Government – ‘We do not have a housing policy for the post disaster context to ensure the rights of the most vulnerable people, but we are now working on it.’

‘Ensuring Quality and Standards – ‘We followed the Shelter Working Group’s recommended standard as it was endorsed by the government.’

Success

‘New people brings new ideas’- NGO staff

‘We have enough technical experience from disaster response over many years and this includes shelter construction.

– NGO staff

Success: Coordination

‘For the first time in the disaster response history in Bangladesh, we were able to coordinate and respond to the family shelter need in an organised way.

I hope we can continue this effort, as majority of the affected families are still in need of houses.’

- Shelter Working Group Coordinator

Ways forward:Disaster Risk Reduction • National Post Disaster Reconstruction Policy and Guidelines to be developed with

various options of family shelter assistance in consultation with house owners, donors and shelter providers.

• National Housing Policy for the landless population: Settlement planning for the landless should be an ongoing process involving the government, agencies and the landless families.

• Legal advocacy work should continue for land rights of the landless marginalized families .

• Donors need to have tangible The donors and the central government should prioritise contingency planning so that agencies together with local government and the communities are well prepared to respond effectively from recovery to reconstruction phase.

• commitment to implement the ‘build back safer’ strategy into action and to lead a flexible process to accommodate various types of shelter assistance options (not only ‘transitional shelter’ measures) with flexible timeframe.

Ways forward: Cultural Acceptance

• Develop a people centred and bottom up reconstruction process for future responses.

• Community Action Planning and environmental assessment to be done prior to any shelter reconstruction project.

• Follow-up and address the issue of unequal shelter response by having a community-led evaluation on ‘what worked well and what did not; how else to respond’.

• Community capacity building for advocacy on land rights and for making local government and local agencies accountable.

• Community awareness training and construction capacity building on how to build safe houses by improving local construction practices.

• Focus on environmental health and environmental protection.

Ways forward: Structural Soundness

• Define and set a benchmark and timeframe for types of shelter responses- Core, Transitional or Permanent.

• Communities and agencies themselves should understand the hazard resilient shelter construction practices through field research and technical training.

• Structural calculation of various types of core houses should be done to measure cyclone and tidal surge resilient capacity by engaging academic institutes and structural engineers who have experience of working in non-engineered rural construction.

 

Post-Cyclone Sidr Family Shelter Construction in Bangladesh: A Documentation of Plans and Processes

2007-2009

Available in UNDP Bangladesh website:http://www.undp.org.bd/projects/prodocs/DRF/Post-Cyclone Sidr Family Shelter Construction in BGD _Final

version.pdf

Thank You, Rumana Kabir, Bangladesh, 24th January

2011Email: rumanakabir2003@yahoo.co.uk