Krisanthi Seneviratne

Managing disaster knowledge: identification of knowledge factors and challenges

Purpose – Knowledge management can play a vital role through ensuring the availability and accessibility of accurate and reliable disaster risk information when required and through effective lesson learning. Identification of key disaster knowledge factors will be an enabler to manage disasters successfully. The purpose of this paper is to present key knowledge factors relating to disaster management cycle, and explore a few challenges relating to identified disaster knowledge factors.Design/methodology/approach – A list of disaster knowledge factors was first identified through a comprehensive literature review and later semi‐structured interviews were conducted among few disaster management practitioners to explore the influence and challenges relating to identified knowledge factors.Findings – Technological, operational/managerial, economic, social, legal and environmental factors seem to have direct influence over the disaster management cycle, while the influence of institutional and political facto...

Post conflict housing reconstruction: Exploring the challenges of addressing housing needs in Sri Lanka

Purpose – Despite the role of post conflict housing reconstruction in establishing the development of peace in conflict affected countries, there are many issues which hinder its success. While the inconsideration of housing needs in post conflict housing reconstruction has directly or indirectly given rise for most of the issues, the countries emerging from conflicts face many challenges in addressing such housing needs. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to explore the management of housing needs in post conflict housing reconstruction. This paper aims to focus on identifying the challenges in addressing housing needs within the context of post conflict housing reconstruction in Sri Lanka. Design/methodology/approach – The study used the grounded theory approach to collect and analyse the data collected through 37 in-depth interviews, conducted with policy makers, practitioners, academics and housing beneficiaries in Sri Lanka. Primary data were verified through a documents review. Findings – The p...

Managing housing needs of post conflict housing reconstruction: Sri Lankan perspective

Purpose Post conflict housing reconstruction is crucial to development and peacekeeping. However, the success of it, is hindered by a number of problems related to a lack of addressing housing needs. The purpose of this paper is to explore how such housing needs can be effectively managed in post conflict housing reconstruction in Sri Lanka. Design/methodology/approach Using the grounded theory method as the research strategy, unstructured interviews were conducted with policy makers, practitioners, beneficiaries and academics in Sri Lanka. Data were analysed using open, axial and selective coding to develop the theoretical framework. Findings The study reveals the challenges, contributing factors and strategies in addressing housing needs of accessibility, habitability, affordability, location, facilities, cultural considerations and security of land tenure. It also identifies the gaps and recommendations. The paper establishes the links between these and presents a theoretical framework for managing housing needs effectively in post conflict housing reconstruction in Sri Lanka. Practical implications This research enhances the success of post conflict housing reconstruction through addressing housing needs effectively, which contributes to sustainable housing development after conflicts. Originality/value The study combines the literature from five main areas: conflicts, post conflict, post conflict reconstruction, post conflict housing reconstruction and housing needs and provides a better understanding on how the housing needs can be managed during post conflict housing reconstruction in developing countries based on empirical evidence.

Managing housing needs in post conflict housing reconstruction in Sri Lanka: gaps verses recommendations

Conflicts bring deaths and disabilities, population displacements, destruction of properties and changes to societies. Conflicts also devastate the economy, health, education and institutions. Within this context post conflict reconstruction contributes to overcome the legacies of conflict through reconstructing the enabling conditions for a functioning peacetime society. Post conflict reconstruction involves a wide range of interventions needed to reactivate the development process that has been disrupted by the conflict. With regard to the post conflict interventions, post conflict housing reconstruction plays a vital role in establishing the development and peace in conflict affected countries. Despite its importance, the success of post conflict housing reconstruction is hindered by a number of problems such as lack of community participation, lack of strategies to address the challenges faced by vulnerable people, lack of consideration of local and cultural conditions, lack of consideration of socio-economic conditions of affected people, poor technical oversight and a lack of security of land tenure. Consequently these problems have caused dissatisfaction resulting in some people to remodel or abandon the houses. Furthermore, it has been revealed that the lack of consideration of housing needs in post conflict housing reconstruction has directly or indirectly given rise to most of these issues. Therefore addressing these needs would contribute to minimising the issues of post conflict housing reconstruction and adequate housing measures provide guidelines in such situations in addressing housing needs in post conflict housing reconstruction. However, the countries emerging from conflicts have different characteristics that add a different dimension to post conflict housing reconstruction. Accordingly, addressing housing needs cannot be considered in isolation without considering the challenges pose by the characteristics of the post conflict setting. In this context, there is a need to understand how these particular housing needs can be effectively addressed. Accordingly, this study addresses this eminent need by exploring how can the housing needs be effectively managed in post conflict housing reconstruction. As Sri Lanka’s long lasting conflict came to an end in 2009 leaving a legacy of immense damage to housing, post conflict housing reconstruction remains prominent within post conflict interventions in the country. Accordingly, Sri Lanka provides a sound basis for this study and hence the study is centred on it. Ontological and epistemological positions of this study led to subjectivism and interpretivism respectively. Grounded theory approach was used as the research strategy. While unstructured interviews were used as the primary data collection technique, interviews were supplemented by creative visual images. Interviews were also verified through a documents review. Grounded theory data analysis procedure was used to analyse the unstructured interviews. The study reveals the challenges, contributing factors and strategies in addressing housing needs in post conflict housing reconstruction. It also identifies the gaps in managing housing needs and recommendations to minimise such gaps in managing housing needs in post conflict housing reconstruction. Furthermore, the study develops a theoretical framework that presents the associated challenges, contributing factors, strategies, gaps and recommendations to minimise such gaps in managing accessibility, habitability, affordability, location, facilities, cultural consideration and security of land tenure in post conflict housing reconstruction. Key words: Conflict, Post conflict, Post conflict reconstruction, Post conflict housing reconstruction, Housing needs and Managing housing needs.

Disputes in time bar provisions for contractors’ claims in standard form of contracts

Abstract The time bar clause facilitates informing the Engineer (Contract Administrator) in a timely manner of the occurrence of events that may result in delayed completion and/or incur additional costs. Such notices allow parties to mitigate any potential impacts in terms of time and/or cost. Nevertheless, the time bar clause forfeits a contractor’s claim, if the notice of claim is not submitted within the stipulated time in the contract, giving rise to numerous disputes. The purpose of this study is to identify the disputes surrounding the time bar clause in the FIDIC 1999 Red Book, which is an internationally used Standard Form of Contract (SFoC) for building and engineering works designed by the employer. After identifying the sources of disputes and modifications to the standard provisions via a comprehensive literature review, the researchers conducted an online questionnaire survey with 61 construction contract professionals (employers, contract consultants and contractors) and semi-structured interviews with four contract specialists to determine the level of agreement with the identified sources of disputes and modifications to standard provisions. Sources of disputes and modifications were ranked based on the Relative Agreement Index (RAI) from the survey. Interviews were qualitatively analyzed to identify agreement/disagreement and the reasons for the agreement/disagreement.