Building Back Better

"This is another powerful book written by many different contributors. I contributed a chapter that focuses on the advantages of empowering affected house owners to solve humanitarian challenges. Broadly, Building Back Better argues the case for changing the power structure relating to reconstruction. The people with resources – that is, governments and aid organisations, are in total control of reconstruction programmes. On the other hand, those that are directly affected by the disaster are also capable of managing their own recovery and often have their own ideas about how to do so. The only thing they lack is money. The affected people and powerful people must work together more closely and become involved in participatory, democratic planning. The recovery system is complex due to donor reporting rules and there is an apprehension that the media may accuse such organisations of constructing poor quality buildings. And some are of the belief that if money is given directly to those affected, they are likely to spend it on drink and that they will construct low quality buildings. But there are many real life examples where local people have been trained and assisted by governments and aid workers, who facilitate the process rather than controlling it. More often than not, the quality of these buildings was superior to those built by large contractors, who build houses in a uniform style without considering many things that may be important to a particular community. Once, while visiting a reconstruction project in Myanmar, I asked the local people which house they would be moving into. ‘We don’t know, we haven’t been told yet,’ was the reply. There was no involvement with the local people whatsoever. When I spoke to those involved in the reconstruction project, I was told that there was a terrible deadline from the donor. The whole system is not designed in a helpful way. Furthermore, when participatory planning took place, the community benefited because the money was invested back into the local economy. Sadly, such practices are rare in comparison to the number of disasters that have occurred – perhaps one in every hundred reconstruction projects. Building Back Better argues that there is no reason why owner-driven reconstruction cannot be done in large-scale disasters."