KEYNOTE ADDRESS: LALITH LANKATILLEKE RECONSTRUCTION: A COMMUNITY-BASED APPROACH THROUGH THE PEOPLE’S PROCESS OF DEVELOPMENT LALITH LANKATILLEKE UN-HABITAT Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific, Fukuoka 1. WHAT IS PEOPLE’S PROCESS OF DEVELOPMENT? From the time men and women emerged from the caves, they have been building shelters and creating settlements. Over the centuries people have improved their shelter to the form of the “house” that we know today. In simple terms development is about what people do for themselves to improve their lives. Therefore development is fundamentally based on the basic intelligence of people to respond to their needs and their ’creativity and ingenuity’ to meet these needs. People’s desire to improve their lives is the driving force of development, whether it be in science, technology, arts or philosophy. The discussion of this paper deals with the area of housing and settlements and in the context of reconstruction in the aftermath of a disaster. Remains and archaeological evidence of housing and settlements amply demonstrate that people have built these settlements with skills they had acquired over generations. These settlements also reveal that the resources that have gone into the creation of housing and settlements have been obtained by the surrounding environment and in effect creating very organic forms. Evidence further tells us that people had established certain norms, standards and a mutual understanding of the community to create these settlements. This is what is recognized as the people’s process of housing. With the centralization of authority with governments assuming responsibility for the welfare of the people, this process gradually disappeared especially in the developed economies. The state and the private sector backed by professional bodies took over the responsibility of housing the people. In developing countries, however, people by far are still the major producers of housing. In the seventies and eighties when Governments of developing countries were confronted with the ever increasing urban populations and consequently slums, they began to realize that people are the best producers of housing. Therefore instead of trying to compete, Governments adopted and supported the people’s process of housing. During this time there were several examples of successful projects and programmes in several countries. The Million Houses Programme of Sri Lanka (1984 – 89) is one example, where the Government supported the People’s Process on a national scale. During the course of implementation of the Million Houses Programme, many participatory methodologies of supporting communities were developed in partnership with UN-HABITAT and reputed academic institutions like the DPU, MIT School of Architecture and others. Following the successful lessons learned from this experience, several participatory tools like Community Action Planning, Community Contracting were introduced by UN-HABITAT to many Asian and African countries. 2. OWNER DRIVEN HOUSING AND THE PEOPLE’S PROCESS A clear understanding of the “Owner Driven” approach and People’s Process is necessary in the light of the current development debate. “Owner Driven” intrinsically implies that the family owning the house (or the plot) is fully responsible for the construction of the house with external support in the form of technical advice and funding. This certainly gives the family the freedom to decide on how to build the house within resources available, which they do, to meet their needs. Families, however are not homogeneous entities. In low-income communities there are many female-headed households. Families, do not live in isolation; they live in communities, which place them in a position of responsibility to each other. By tradition and in resource-constrained societies, this responsibility is inherent. They also need services such as water, sanitation, roads, power and civic facilities. In addition they need child-care and elderly-care support from the community. These have to be addressed through a collective effort. Therefore naturally it becomes a community approach where every family has to participate in the development of their housing, their settlements and their living. This extension from the individual to the community is what is articulated as the People’s Process of housing and settlement development. DEVELOPMENT FROM DISASTERS: SCALING UP OWNER-DRIVEN RECONSTRUCTION CONFERENCE AND WORKSHOP . LONDON SOUTH BANK UNIVERSITY . 19TH-20TH MARCH 2009 3.01 KEYNOTE ADDRESS: LALITH LANKATILLEKE 3. CONTROL PARADIGM AND SUPPORT PARADIGM Active support to the People’s Process from the state, local governments and NGOs is essential for it to realize its full potential. Support is needed in the form of assistance in mobilization and empowerment, recognition, technical and financial assistance. Development driven by Authorities: the Control Paradigm and development driven by People: the Support Paradigm can be compared by the following conceptual framework. “Projects” with the authorities at the centre of the process are designed by professionals with controls established by bureaucrats. They consume more time and money thus impacting lives of limited number of people. When people are placed at the centre of the process of decision-making and action, supported by the authorities, they optimize resources with a greater degree of satisfaction, reaching a larger number of people. Evidence has also shown that when women are given the space to articulate their own need and priorities, and have the strength to negotiate them, power relation within the family and the community change. The support paradigm promotes gender equality by recognising the different needs of and benefits for both men and women. 4. FROM DISASTER TO DEVELOPMENT Application of the principles of the People’s Process in post disaster and post conflict context has proved to be the most effective means to literally get the affected back on their feet in the shortest possible time. If people are mobilized and organized from the time of disaster, THE TRANSITION FROM RELIEF TO RECOVERY TO RECONSTRUCTION AND DEVELOPMENT IS SEAMLESS. This process builds on the ingenuity and creativity of the people to be directed for the rebuilding of their lives and their physical assets. What are the keys to unlocking this huge potential? Firstly, the CONFIDENCE to cross the psychological threshold, secondly, empowerment through MOBILIZATION, thirdly SECURITY; a place to call their own, fourthly, some form of FINANCIAL ASSISTANCE to get them started, lastly, TECHNICAL ADVICE to build better housing. These will complete a cycle of support to the people to rebuild their lives and their homes1. 1 “People’s Process in Post-disaster and Post-conflict Recovery and Reconstruction ” UN-HABITAT 2008 DEVELOPMENT FROM DISASTERS: SCALING UP OWNER-DRIVEN RECONSTRUCTION CONFERENCE AND WORKSHOP . LONDON SOUTH BANK UNIVERSITY . 19TH-20TH MARCH 2009 3.02 KEYNOTE ADDRESS: LALITH LANKATILLEKE 5. EXAMPLES OF APPLICATION OF THE PEOPLE’S PROCESS IN RECONSTRUCTION The success of these projects has generated the interest of disaster management agencies, both governmental and nongovernmental in the recent years. At this point it may be useful to consider a few examples and the lessons learned from them. In the post-tsunami reconstruction programme in Sri Lanka, numerous organizations came forward to assist the people. Many of them took the conventional path: build a house and give it to the affected. They were confronted with costs, standards, problems with contractors, material and labour, etc. resulting in long delays. At the same time UN-HABITAT followed the People’s Process of reconstruction and the families were building their houses very quickly to their satisfaction. This breakthrough led to the establishment of the partnership between IFRC and UN-HABITAT known as Community Rehabilitation and Reconstruction Partnership (CRRP). Over 6,000 families have been assisted to rebuild their houses under this programme and the results show that the families have optimised the resources available to them and built houses that they are satisfied with. A similar approach was adopted by UN-HABITAT in the post-tsunami reconstruction programme in Aceh-Nias Settlement Support Programme. Assessments have shown that in terms of beneficiary satisfaction, families were much happier than those who received built houses. Pakistan’s post earthquake Rural Housing Reconstruction Programme can be identified as one of the most successful post disaster reconstruction programmes. The Government of Pakistan with the technical assistance of UN-HABITAT and financial support from the World Bank adopted a policy of Owner Driven Reconstruction uniformly over the entire affected area. The Earthquake Rehabilitation and Reconstruction Authority (ERRA) ensured that all development partners followed this policy. The role of the development partners was that of supporting the families to rebuild their housing. To ensure that the families rebuilt to earthquake resistant standards, UN-HABITAT carried out a massive information and training programme for home builders and artisans. Technical guidelines were developed for standards that are affordable for the people and also for local construction technologies. Over a period of 3 years, 486,000 houses were rebuilt in very difficult terrain. Of these 102,000 houses were rebuilt with traditional “dhajji dewari” construction meeting earthquake resistant standards. DEVELOPMENT FROM DISASTERS: SCALING UP OWNER-DRIVEN RECONSTRUCTION CONFERENCE AND WORKSHOP . LONDON SOUTH BANK UNIVERSITY . 19TH-20TH MARCH 2009 3.03 KEYNOTE ADDRESS: LALITH LANKATILLEKE 6. WHAT ARE THE KEY LESSONS LEARNED FROM THESE CASES? Application of supporting the people’s process for post disaster reconstruction has proved to be the most effective means to development from disasters. Firstly, it has helped the affected people to recover from the trauma of the disaster. It gives them the energy and confidence to cross the psychological threshold. It has been proved that people have the ability to rebuild their housing if they are provided with technical and financial support. People had the freedom to build according to their traditions and social norms associated with the design of the house. The process can also allow traditional local technologies to be used with improvements. The above examples also demonstrated that people, though may be poor, have the ability to mobilize resources to add to the house. These additional resources come from relations well wishers, access to second hand and salvaged material, labour from the community and different other sources. Invariably people were able to build back better. Majority of the families in these cases were living in poor quality housing, however, in the process of reconstruction they were able to build better housing with proper sanitation with the technical guidance provided. Some people do struggle to rebuild their houses but the sense of achievement after completion gives them pride and dignity. Even a cursory assessment would indicate that the capital asset created in the form of a house is far more valuable than the monetary investment made. One important lesson is that people can be re-housed at much lower cost adopting the people’s process than the conventional contractor driven process. One outstanding feature of the process is equity and transparency. The financial grant to each family is the same amount and the families manage their money very prudently. 7. IMPEDIMENTS TO THE PEOPLE’S PROCESS: WHAT AND WHO IS STANDING IN THE WAY OF THE PEOPLE’S PROCESS? Development authorities run by bureaucrats and professionals have very little trust in the capacities of people. This misjudgement and the welfare mentality driven by political expediency, lead them to “provide” for the people. These remain as the main obstacles in formulating policies and programmes that give the ownership of development to the people. The provider approach is reinforced by professionals who believe that they have the solutions to the problems of the people. Therefore they have to design for the people and people have to accept what is supposedly good for them. The division of us, the designer and them, the recipient is thus created. “The terminology of the day emphasized this division: first world third world, under-developed, developed and developing. Development was thought could be engineered and brought to the people by those who know the best in the form of technology, money and moral values that would make life better. It was something that was done for others, something that was provided for others who cannot provide for themselves”2 The emergence of professional bodies to protect their vocations saw the gradual erosion of the people’s process over the years. Legislation and systems of licensing protected the vested interest of the professionals thus they became the initiators and designers of development, forgetting that development is about improvements that people make in their lives. Development driven by missions of welfare requires stricter controls to stop abuse. Based on this premise authorities acquire an obsession for controls. This acquired obsession prevents authorities from giving away development responsibility to the people. 8. SUPPORT METHODOLOGIES Experience tells us that the optimum results of the people’s process can be achieved when the process is actively supported. Over the last two decades UN-HABITAT has developed several methodologies of supporting the people to carry out their own development. Mobilization and Empowerment Immediately following a disaster, communities need to be assisted to organize themselves to initiate collective action for recovery. The mobilization process can start from the camps. Providing communities the space to take action will empower 2 Hamdi, Nabeel (2004) Small Change, Earthscan DEVELOPMENT FROM DISASTERS: SCALING UP OWNER-DRIVEN RECONSTRUCTION CONFERENCE AND WORKSHOP . LONDON SOUTH BANK UNIVERSITY . 19TH-20TH MARCH 2009 3.04 KEYNOTE ADDRESS: LALITH LANKATILLEKE them to take charge of their recovery and reconstruction process. The community organization can be formed of elected representatives of the affected community preferably a man and a women each representing 10 to 15 families (primary groups) living in close proximity. The community organization in the form of Community Development Council (CDC) can ideally cover 100 to 250 families living in a physically identifiable area. Recognition of the community organization through the registration or accreditation by the local authority is the first step to give the organization some form of legitimacy. Ensuring equal gender representation and representation of vulnerable families is an important consideration in the formation of community organizations. Community Action Planning (CAP) Communities can develop their own plan taking informed decisions on: what they need immediately, assessing damage and enumerating the affected, how to make the best use of external assistance, how to organize the clearing of debris, how to re-plan and reorganize the settlement, how to build the houses etc. Community Action Planning is a framework for the community organization to sit together, identify their needs, negotiate amongst each other and prioritize the needs to be addressed and prepare a plan to address their needs considering all options within a given resources framework. Together they can understand their present situation and work out means of overcoming their problems. It gives the opportunity for both men and women to articulate their differential needs and priorities. The objective is to achieve a qualitative difference in lives, ensuring safety and security for the future. The role of the Facilitator is critical in this process. He/she has to refrain from imposing what he or she thinks is right or good for the people and instead has to clearly articulate the trade-offs of the different decisions that the community is making. Finally the CAP has to be presented to the entire community for their inputs and to reach consensus. Community Contracting A community contract is a contract awarded to the community organization by a government agency or a NGO to carry out physical works that have been identified in the Community Action Plan. The works usually cover construction of houses and community infrastructure. If infrastructure or housing is built through conventional contracts the community benefits only from the output of the contract and not from the process of construction. Awarding the contract to the community has the advantages outlined in the table below. 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 Community Contract Community Community assisted by professionals Community Labour intensive Stays within community Good, it’s their own Low Very High Table : Comparative Advantages of Community Contracts 9. SCALING-UP OF THE PEOPLE’S PROCESS Scaling-up the People’s Process of Reconstruction requires attitudinal changes amongst decision makers, policy changes within governments and donors, system changes within administrations of governments and donors. Attitudinal Changes Firstly, decision makers have to intrinsically trust the people. The fundamental desire of an affected family is to get themselves out of their situation. The honour and dignity of the family cannot be questioned especially in the circumstances they are in. Secondly, recognize people’s organizations and their capacities. The underlying premise is that they do have the capacity to overcome the situation that they are in. Recognize that answers to the problems are with the people and the role of the external agents is to facilitate a process of realization and actions to deal with them. The recognition would naturally lead to strengthening mutual respects and dialogue. Professionals in this situation have to change from being “prescriptive” professionals to “support” professionals. Thirdly, cultivate a spirit of solidarity and community cohesiveness. Authorities should accept that responsibility for recovery and reconstruction rests with the families and the communities and that their role is to support the affected to achieve that. DEVELOPMENT FROM DISASTERS: SCALING UP OWNER-DRIVEN RECONSTRUCTION CONFERENCE AND WORKSHOP . LONDON SOUTH BANK UNIVERSITY . 19TH-20TH MARCH 2009 3.05
