Prefabricated Shelters: Points

to Consider

Presentation at the Sustainable Disaster

Relief Housing Conference,

Oct. 28, 2011

Eddie Argenal Shelter and Settlements Advisor, USAID/OFDA

• NOT Housing, but Shelter

• NOT just Shelter, but “S&S”

• NOT just “S&S,” but Links to

DRR and other Sectors

• Lesson from Haiti

Session Agenda

OFDA: Lead USG Agency for Int‟l Disaster Assistance Since 1964

1963, Irazu Volcano in Costa Rica

1963, Skopje EQ, Former Yugoslavia

USAID/OFDA Mandate

Save Lives

Reduce Suffering

Reduce the Economic and Social Impacts of Disasters (OFDA’s “Third Phrase”)

OFDA Criteria for Response

Host country must ask for, or be willing to accept, USG assistance

The disaster is of such magnitude that it is beyond the host country‟s ability to respond adequately, and

It is in the interest of the USG to provide assistance.

Quick Review of OFDA Activities

• In FY ‟10 spent $1.3B (5.8% of total USAID budget)

• 73 “declared disasters” (1 every 5 days)

• Worked in 56 countries

• 250 employees in 25 offices

• FY‟08 = $550M

• FY‟12 = ???

Some of OFDA‟s

Operational Partners

NGOs

ICRC

OTHER UN

AGENCIES IN

COUNTRY

USAID

Other Nation

Military

HOST

NATION

SECURITY

FORCES

EU/

ECHO

US Military

NGOs

NGOs NGOs

OTHER

DONORS USAID

UNHCR

UN

OCHA

UNJLC UNDP

WFP

A Challenging Work Environment: The Fog of Relief

IOM

OFDA Grant Funding 2003

25%

65%

10%

UN Agencies NGOs/PVOs Int'l Orgs

Not an Atypical Pattern of Recent OFDA Grant Funding to

Implementing Partners…

OFDA Does NOT Engage in Housing Reconstruction or Development, But Rather

Humanitarian Shelter Assistance

“Full Reconstruction” Exceeds “HA” Mandates and Capacities

“Full Reconstruction” in Response Phase May Appear to Close Gap, But Few “HA” Actors Know How to do it, so… MORE PROBLEMS

Transitional Shelter

• More than a tent, less than a house

• Jump-starts and re-engages affected populations in the incremental, longer-term process of housing development

• Means of Promoting DRR and Livelihoods (platform for other sector interventions), and

• Unlike other sectors, no easy handoff to development. With programmatic vacuum, all the more reason to emphasize CONTEXT and TRANSITION.

Transitional Shelter,

Indonesia

Back to the Big Picture: SETTLEMENTS, the

“Where?” of “Our” Mandate

Where Settlements are located, How they have developed, How rapidly they grow, How strong their economies are, and How well they are managed, esp. in times of crisis…

Will largely determine whether they become the sites of future disasters -- and possible USG responses

The TRENDS Affecting Settlements Are Many, and Include…

• The Future Is Urban. Global population will increase from 6.2 billion to 8.3 billion, ’03-’30; equiv. of nearly 100% located in the cities of developing countries, increasing pop. from 2 to 4 billion!

• Persistent Poverty. Over 3.3 billion people -- 48% of humanity -- survived on per capita incomes of no more than $2.50/day in 2005. The poverty level was 2.5 billion in 1987.

• Increasing Strains on Basic Social Services and Institutions

• Growing Environmental Decline, Coupled with Limited Economic Growth

• HIV/AIDS, Bird Flu, Swine Flu, Pandemic Influenza, etc. increasingly a feature of settlements

ANYONE SEEN…

• Conditions depicted are experienced

by nearly 1 of every 6 human beings

• By 2030, nearly 1 of every 4!!!

• Context: 2X urban pop., 3X urban land; LOTS of issues with growth

• Chronic and acute needs are merging more and more every day

• Disasters/crises accelerate and exacerbate the urbanization process, and

• How to address urban displacement?

Implications for OUR Work…

Example: Kabul, „00-‟10: 3X Pop., Maybe 6X Area

The Importance of Settlements

• Settlements provide context for shelter interventions

• Unit of Analysis changes with a settlements approach; no longer a near-exclusive focus on households and shelter, but neighborhoods and larger communities, and

• Change in Unit of Analysis particularly useful in urban areas.

One Solution Does NOT Fit All

• Return to safe shelter

• Return to safe, cleared sites

• Stay with host family

• Stay in proximity site with host community, and

• Relocate to planned sites

The Basic of a Settlements Intervention

• Shelter-led

• Multi-sectoral, reflecting multi-faceted character of context (i.e., settlements)

• Opportunistic with regard to livelihood promotion and “DRR” (e.g., rubble removal)

• Cognizant of gender, environment, local organizations, and social relations • Transitional, by linking relief and developmental concerns, and • Accountable to local governing structures

CONTEXT, CONTEXT, CONTEXT Poorest country in the hemisphere, about

149th of 182 countries listed in the UN's Human Development Index, just below PNG

80% unemployed or underemployed

60% below the poverty line, making less than $2/day per capita

In PAP, 70% of population doesn‟t officially exist (rent, lease, squat, but don’t own land)

In PAP slums, 11 sq. m. for 6 people

Limited institutional capacities, and

High vulnerability to flooding, landslides, hurricanes, and, yes, earthquakes.

USAID/OFDA Shelter Outputs Emergency Phase:

-- Plastic sheeting distributed to estimated

500,000-600,000 people

Transitional Phase: -- Hosting Support to est. 17,500 HHs (HA community doesn‟t track totals, but OFDA share thought to be notable)

-- House Repairs for 7,181 Families (Approx. 80% of HA community output, via 5,081 repairs)

-- Transitional Shelter for 28,326 HHs (as of 10-1-11. Also, approx 33% of HA community output)

-- Completed approx. 112% of 47,500 identified “shelter solutions” (as of 10-1-11)

Habitability Assessment and Yellow-Tag House Repairs

• USAID/OFDA supported UN Habitat and PADF/Miyamoto to conduct/manage assessment of 403,176 structures

• USAID/OFDA supported PADF/M and WCDO to repair 3,908 houses as of 3-9-11, approx. 80-90% of humanitarian community (HC) output; will repair approx. 2,000 more houses, and

• 94,002 yellow-tag houses, but current HC plans only call for repairs to fewer than 10,000 structures.

“CCC”: UNDAMAGED Rural House,

Mirebalais Area

UNDAMAGED Rural House, Leogane Area

CHF Transitional Shelter for Leogane and West

ADRA “TS” Project, Carrefour

Context, Context, Context!

Tents Typically Not Large Enough

Good Tents Expensive

Complex logistics could make deployed “Pre-fabs” More Expensive

Schools = Poor Shelter

Local Options are Familiar, Available, Often Inexpensive, thus Accepted.

RE-Learned Lessons Become “New” Guidance…

RE-LEARNED LESSON:

THINK BIG, OR YOU‟LL MISS THE “BIG PICTURE”

How Much Rubble in Haiti?

1,000 Truckloads a Day for 1,000 Days – Minimum!

EMERGENT LESSON

• Few want to deal with rubble, and it‟s expensive to address, so it could take years to remove/dispose

• Yet rubble is ALSO the most effective land use management tool most countries will ever have: where you don‟t clear, you don‟t build, and

• Surgical, neighborhood-based focus preferred over “clear cut” efforts; will require creative “S&S” work, like land sharing, land readjustment, and two-story T-shelters.

EMERGENT LESSON: THINK SMALL, OR YOU

WON‟T FIT (SPHERE) INTO CITIES

3.5 sq. m. per person is NOT

based on comfort, but is

considered “minimally

adequate” to

promote health,

privacy, and

human dignity

A = ± 3.5 m2/p

A First: Two-Story

Transitional Shelter, Haiti,

5-12-11

• Response to site conditions and need

• Platform for DRR (structure, evac routes, and WASH opps)

RE-Learned Lessons

• Shelter is the Easy Part; the Much Tougher Issue is LAND

• Shelter Delivery Made More Difficult with Rubble. Affected Communities Effectively Smaller in Area Because Rubble is on top of Land, and

• In Haiti, PAP alone “lost” an estimated 30% of land area, making sheltering all the more difficult. (Ravine

Pintade 18 AC/7.3 HA, covered with 120k cubic m to height of 5‟/1.64 m)

RE-Learned Lesson: Hosting (“STEALTH” Shelter)

Really Does Work • Primarily socially defined, based on

family, friends, neighbors, etc.

• Commences before humanitarians arrive on the scene, i.e., self-selected

• Cost-effective, flexible means of sheltering

• Buys time for longer-term solutions to emerge, and

• Often transitions to permanent shelter.

Host Family Support, Mirebalais

(New self-built shelter in family compound is on right)

RE-Learned Lesson: Land Policies and Institutions

Are Often Dysfunctional, at Best

• In many countries, land management (e.g., planning, measuring, recording, documenting, regulating, taxing) is ineffective, and

• Policy makers know steps “A and Z”, but not steps B, C, D, etc. Problems are so complex that they overwhelm existing capacities.

THANK YOU FOR YOUR TIME AND PATIENCE

EARGENAL@USAID.GOV