David Sanderson

Cities, disasters and livelihoods

This paper describes the impacts of recent disasters in urban areas and their contribution to poverty, and highlights how little attention urban development planning and disaster relief organizations give to disaster mitigation. It also describes CARE International’s Household Livelihood Security (HLS) model and how this allows an urban livelihoods approach to integrating measures for reducing poverty with measures for reducing risks from disasters. It pays particular attention to supporting low-income groups and community organizations in building and diversifying their asset bases. A focus on reducing household vulnerability to shocks and stresses (including disasters) also reveals the supporting actions needed from municipal authorities and disaster relief organizations.

Winners and losers from the 2001 Gujarat earthquake

This paper(1) looks at some of the winners and losers in the reconstruction efforts following the 2001 earthquake in Gujarat. It reviews some of the consequences of different approaches to reconstruction and these are illustrated by the experiences of three villages. It ends with a discussion of the lessons that are repeatedly ignored after disaster.

Developing building for safety programmes : guidelines for organizing safe building improvement programmes in disaster-prone areas

Summarizes the basic principles to be considered in the planning and implementation of community-based building improvement programmes for small dwellings in disaster-prone areas. Including case studies illustrating suggestions made.

Building livelihoods to reduce risk among the most marginalized in urban areas: Strategic approaches from Dhaka

Urban poverty is mired in complexity, with a vast range of choices of issues for NGOs to become involved in. Within the generic grouping of ‘urban poor’ are large disparities, concerning income, status, access and control of resources and respective levels of vulnerability and discrimination. At the ‘bottom’ are the most marginalized. These are the ‘hated poor’ and include sex workers, drug users, the elderly and disabled, among others. For these, access to almost anything is a daily challenge, and the basic need of dignity remains elusive. For such people, good shelter, effective services and land ownership may be a distant dream. This paper seeks to identify the most marginalized within Dhaka, and from that outlines the strategic approach developed by one NGO, CARE Bangladesh, to work with them. It ends with a brief discussion on NGO approaches to urban marginalization.

NGO permanent housing 10 years after the Gujarat earthquake: revisiting the FICCI–CARE Gujarat rehabilitation programme

The January 2001 earthquake that struck the state of Gujarat in India damaged or destroyed some 8,000 villages and 490 towns. In the months and years after the earthquake, many organizations undertook widespread reconstruction programmes. One such collaboration between the NGO CARE India and the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) built 5,554 permanent houses as well as schools and community centres in 23 villages. This paper revisits 10 of the 23 villages that were partially or fully rebuilt by FICCI–CARE, 10 years after the earthquake. It finds that while the houses remain structurally strong and are mostly in use, residents’ levels of satisfaction, perception and usage are mixed. A central theme concerns the initial prioritization of seismic safety, which has sacrificed longer-term considerations of comfort, adaptability and the environment. The paper describes the houses that were built and presents findings according to structural condition, engagement in design, adaptations, house selling and perceptions of safety. The discussion presents four issues that emerge from the findings and wider research. The paper ends by proposing a simple equation for good housing, which places people’s involvement in building processes as the vital component.

Whose reality counts?: Shelter after disaster

To say that the provision of shelter after disaster by humanitarian aid actors is costly, complicated and fraught with problems would probably be one of the greatest understatements in humanitarian...

Harnessing time: Reflections on constraints to development

This short piece argues that a series of progressive developments in our understanding of aid after disasters, and how we should seek to deliver and manage it, calls for a review of accountability systems in the sector.

Reducing risk as a tool for urban improvement: the Caqueta ravine, Lima, Peru

This paper presents a description of the Caqueta district in Lima and describes the methodology and research methods used. It presents the key findings of the project and concludes with a brief discussion of mitigation as a tool for urban development. The paper seeks to reinforce the key point of the project: that adherence to “top down” interventions can ignore community level initiatives and the positive inputs of other actors; also that risk reduction can be used as a tool in uniting key actors to focus on protecting livelihoods, as well as lives, in the promotion of sustainable urban development. This paper results from a recently completed project entitled “Reducing Risk In Vulnerable Communities, Lima, Peru. Phase One: Caqueta Pilot Project”. The principle aim of the project was to identify and subsequently develop, with the participation of key “stakeholders”, sustainable risk reduction measures for Caqueta, a particularly low-income area of Lima, Peru, vulnerable to landslides, earthquakes and fire.

Principles, Practice and Lessons From Haiti for Urban Post-Disaster Shelter Recovery Programs

David Sanderson1, Anshu Sharma2, Jim Kennedy3 and Jeni Burnell4 1Professor, Faculty of Architecture and Fine Art, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Trondheim, Norway E-mail: davidsanderson100@gmail.com 2Director, SEEDS Technical Services, New Delhi, India E-mail: anshu@seedsindia.org 3Independent Shelter Consultant, Oxford, UK E-mail: jpk18269@hotmail.com 4Research Associate, CENDEP, Oxford Brookes University, Oxford, UK E-mail: jburnell@brookes.ac.uk

Implementing area-based approaches (ABAs) in urban post-disaster contexts

This paper examines area-based approaches (ABAs) in urban post-disaster contexts. After introducing the main features of ABAs, the paper discusses current practice in humanitarian response, and the need within urban areas to draw lessons from urban development approaches, from which ABAs have emerged. The paper then presents lessons from research concerning the application of ABAs in relation to phases of the project management cycle: assessment and design, implementation, and monitoring, evaluation and learning. The paper ends with a brief discussion. Overall, it argues that for ABAs to be effective, they need to draw on longstanding lessons from urban development, plan for a longer timeframe for their actions than is otherwise often the case in recovery operations, and consider the need to scale up actions for wider city application.