La Réponse d'Abri et la Récupération du Logement dans les Deux Premières Années Après le Séisme de 2010 en Haïti: Qu'avons-nous Appris?

Public Disclosure Authorized Public Disclosure Authorized Public Disclosure Authorized The Shelter Response and Housing Recovery in the First Two Years After the 2010 Haiti Earthquake WHAT DID WE LEARN? Public Disclosure Authorized The Shelter Response and Housing Recovery in the First Two Years after the 2010 Haiti Earthquake The Shelter Response and Housing Recovery in the First Two Years After the 2010 Haiti Earthquake WHAT DID WE LEARN? © 2016 The World Bank 1818 H Street NW Washington, DC 20433 Telephone: 202-473-1000 Internet: www.worldbank.org This work is a product of the staff of The World Bank with external contributions. The findings, interpretations, and conclusions expressed in this work do not necessarily reflect the views of The World Bank, its Board of Executive Directors, or the governments they represent. The World Bank does not guarantee the accuracy of the data included in this work. 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Table of Contents Foreword������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������ vii Preface ��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������viii Acknowledgments ���������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� ix Acronyms ������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������ xi Executive Summary������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������ xiii I. Introduction A. Purpose of the Report������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������ 1 B. Development of the Report��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 2 C. First 24-Month Timeline �������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 2 II. Overview of the Haiti Earthquake Shelter and Housing Response A. The Context of the Earthquake Event ���������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 5 B. Recovery and Reconstruction Policies and Goals ������������������������������������������������������������������ 15 III. Analysis of the Shelter and Housing Effort A. The Shelter Response ��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 27 B. The Housing Response �������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������45 C. Risk Reduction in Post-Disaster Reconstruction��������������������������������������������������������������������65 D. Land and Urban Development Issues ��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������79 E. Recovery and Reconstruction Finance�������������������������������������������������������������������������������������97 Appendix 1. Excerpts from the Haiti PNDA ...............................................................................115 Appendix 2. Larger Housing-Related Projects including Permanent Housing Commitments..............................................................................................................................117 IV. Conclusions A. Summary of Findings ���������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������121 B. Recommendations from the First Two Years of Response and Recovery in Haiti ������������ 129 C. Final Questions ������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������ 135 ANNEXES ANNEX I: Haiti Housing Recovery Case Studies Case Study 1: Katye Neighborhood Upgrading and Recovery Program in Port-au-Prince ���������� 141 Case Study 2: Experience with Rental Assistance Programming ������������������������������������������������� 147 Case Study 3: The Canaan Settlement in Croix-des-Bouquets ������������������������������������������������������151 Case Study 4: The Rehabilitation of 16 Neighborhoods and Voluntary Return of Residents from six Camps Project���������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 155 Case Study 5: The Logement-Quartiers (Housing-Neighborhoods) Working Group��������������������160 Case Study 6: Haut Damier New Settlement Project in Cabaret�������������������������������������������������� 162 Case Study 7: Urban Neighborhood Upgrading Projects PRODEPUR and PREKAD���������������������164 Case Study 8: Santo Development Project in Léogâne�����������������������������������������������������������������168 Case Study 9: Simon Pelé Project in Port-au-Prince����������������������������������������������������������������������171 Annex II: Haiti Shelter and Housing Timeline���������������������������������������������������������������������������175 Bibliography������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������ 181 List of Tables Table 1: Average Annual Disbursement of ODA by Top 10 Bilateral and Multilatera Donors, 2009-2013 and 2007-2008................................................................................................ 13 Table 2. Haiti Earthquake PDNA: Summary of Recovery and Reconstruction Requirements Years 1–3, in US$.................................................................................................................18 Table 3. Summary of Original and Revised Requirements, Emergency Flash Appeal 2010, and Consolidated Humanitarian Appeal 2011 (US$ million)................................................... 30 Table 4. Building Conditions by Category and Building Type..........................................................47 Table 5. Building Condition by Unit Type.........................................................................................47 Table 6. Reports of T-shelter, Housing Repairs, Retrofits, and New Construction, and Rent Subsidies.............................................................................................................................60 Table 7. Types and Impacts of Natural Disasters in Haiti since the Eighteenth Century...............67 Table 8. Criteria for Mitigation Based on Zoning.............................................................................74 Table 9. Damage and Losses for Housing and Community Infrastructure (in US$ million)......... 99 Table 10. IHRC Estimates of Funding Needs for Housing and Neighborhood Reconstruction.......101 iv List of Figures Figure 1. Map of Haiti and Its Environs...............................................................................................6 Figure 2. Topographic Map of Haiti....................................................................................................10 Figure 3: Composition of Official Development Assistance to Haiti, All Donors, 2005-2012, in millions of USD................................................................................................................ 12 Figure 4: Humanitarian, Peacekeeping and Development Aid 2000-2008, in millions of constant 2007 USD......................................................................................................... 13 Figure 5 Distribution of Gross ODA Disbursements by Major Sector, 5-year average, 2009-2013...........................................................................................................................14 Figure 6. Was your organization working in Haiti before the earthquake? ..................................... 15 Figure 7. What did your organization use as its national-level policy framework to design its recovery or reconstruction interventions? ................................................................... 17 Figure 8. Haiti Response Emergency, T-shelter, and Recovery Solutions Provided, January 2010–August 2011 in thousands of units.............................................................29 Figure 9. Did the organization you worked for provide support to host families?.......................... 36 Figure 10. Example of T-Shelter Elevation...........................................................................................38 Figure 11. How would you rate the effectiveness of the coordination mechanisms in which you participated?..................................................................................................42 Figure 12. What were your organization’s principal recovery and reconstruction activities related to shelter, housing, and urban development? (42 responses)............................. 50 Figure 13. IDPs in Camps by Tenancy Status 2010-2012....................................................................51 Figure 14. Reasons for Leaving IDP Camps, reported by Sample of Leaver Population, March 2011..........................................................................................................................52 Figure 15. What could have been done to improve government’s capacity to manage recovery and reconstruction?.............................................................................................................58 Figure 16. How clear were government’s goals and standards for DRR and “building back better”?.......................................................................................................72 Figure 17. For each type of intervention, which urban challenges did you find the most difficult?.......................................................................................... 84 Figure 18. Downtown redevelopment as envisioned by Duany Plater-Zyberk and the Prince’s Foundation for the Built Environment............................................................................... 86 Figure 19. Neighborhood rehabilitation as envisioned by Caribbean architects.............................. 86 Figure 20. Port-au-Prince reconstruction as envisioned by Centre Haïtien de Recherche en Aménagement et an Développement (Haitian Center for Research in Planning and Development) and Groupe Trame...................................................................................... 86 Figure 21. Funds Raised and Disbursed in Support of Haiti as of December 2012..........................102 Figure 22. For what purposes were funds channeled directly to beneficiaries or host families by your organization?....................................................................................................... 108 Figure 23. IHRC Regular Housing Project Submissions 2010-2011, in US$ million....................... 111 v List of Boxes Box 1: Recovery Framework Objectives......................................................................................... 17 Box 2: Vision and Approach for Haiti’s Rebuilding.......................................................................19 Box 3: Immediate Actions for the Future...................................................................................... 20 Box 4: Sample of Performance Indicators Used by Shelter and Housing Agencies in Haiti, 2010–2013..........................................................................................................................23 Box 5: Revised Flash Appeal (February 2010)..............................................................................28 Box 6: The Urgent but Complex Task of Debris Management.......................................................33 Box 7: Host Family Assistance in Earthquake Affected Haiti........................................................37 Box 8: Meeting Shelter Needs....................................................................................................... 40 Box 9: Constituents and Terminology of Risk............................................................................... 66 Box 10: Risk Assessment in the 16/6 Project in Port-au-Prince: From Risk Information to Risk-Informed Planning..................................................................................................74 Box 11: Relocation to Secondary Cities...........................................................................................91 Box 12: Terminology of the PDNA................................................................................................... 98 Box 13: Haiti – Economy: The project “Kay pam” increases from 30 million to 500 million gourds................................................................................................................................ 110 vi Photo credit: UN-Habitat Foreword The World Bank and the Global Facility for Disaster Reduction and Recovery (GFDRR) and their partners, the International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC), UN-Habitat, and Habitat for Humanity International, joined forces in 2013 to analyze what was learned from the 2010 Haiti earthquake shelter response and housing recovery experience. This report is the outcome of that process. It is based on candid conversations and reflections among the people and organizations that helped shape and deliver the international community’s urban shelter and housing assistance programs following one of the major urban disasters of recent times. This report is not a formal evaluation, but rather a synthesis of the experiences, observations, and recommendations of a large group of experienced post-disaster shelter and recovery experts gathered from interviews, surveys, and direct discussions, and information derived from a desk review of the wide variety of available evaluations and reports. The shelter response and housing recovery efforts in Haiti during the first two years after the earthquake have been widely scrutinized. There is certainly much that could be questioned—with respect to timeliness, policy orientation, equity, and cost-effectiveness. There were also aspects of these efforts that worked well, despite some initial delays. Lessons learned have already been incorporated in subsequent post-disaster recovery responses and have motivated organizational reforms. It has become almost a cliché to say that we live in an increasingly vulnerable world. Haiti embodies many of the factors that contribute to global vulnerability: it is rapidly urbanizing, low-income, hampered by fragile governance mechanisms and institutions, supported by an economy that is largely informal and that exhibits extreme disparities, and highly dependent on its external partners for both social and economic support. Worldwide, population growth and unplanned urbanization in the fragile cities of developing economies, combined with the impacts of climate change, are causing a concentration of urban risk. Helping the countries most at risk become more resilient and better prepared for more effective urban crisis response is a collective responsibility. We hope this report can contribute to that effort. Members of the Steering Committee Sylvie Debomy Lead Urban Specialist, World Bank Group Michel Matera Senior Disaster Risk Management Specialist, World Bank Group Priscilla M. Phelps Consultant, World Bank Group and GFDRR Jean-Christophe Adrian Former Director, UN-Habitat Office for Liaison with European Institutions Filiep Decorte Chief Technical Advisor, UN-Habitat New York Liaison Office Xavier Genot Consultant, IFRC David Lallemant Consultant, GFDRR; Assistant Professor, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore vii Mike Meany Chief Operating Officer, Habitat for Humanity Haiti Graham Saunders Head, Shelter & Settlements, IFRC Kip Scheidler Senior Director, Disaster Risk Reduction and Response, Habitat for Humanity International Maggie Stephenson University College London Photo credit: IFRC, Eric Quintero Preface Kay koule twompe soley soley men li pa twompe lapil. A leaky house can fool the sun, but it can’t fool the rain. (Haitian proverb) Many of us left Haiti after our completing our work on post-earthquake recovery with feelings of regret. These regrets had much to do with leaving Haiti and its people behind. But they had also to do with our acknowledgment that the results we had accomplished did not reflect the effort we had made. Moreover, we faced criticism from some Haitians and perplexed questions in our home countries that we sometimes struggled to answer: “Where did the money go?” “Is there as much corruption as they say?” “Why couldn’t they do it themselves?” “Why did you stay so long?” “Why did you leave so soon?” These questions, and many others that we asked ourselves, do not have easy answers. Perhaps the experience should be stored away with the files and mementos we brought back. But for some of us, examining the experience in detail, and discussing it collectively, seemed like it could be useful both to ourselves and to others who may participate in future recovery efforts. The agencies involved in this initiative, led by the World Bank and the Global Facility for Disaster Reduction and Recovery (GFDRR), graciously provided the time and resources to allow this analysis to be carried out. The Steering Committee provided invaluable support. A large number of individuals and organizations, Haitian and foreign, gave their time, feedback, and materials (see the Acknowledgments). Hopefully this report conveys the good intentions that motivated the work on recovery in Haiti, while explaining how it was often undermined by the complex situation that faced Haitians and external actors alike. It describes successes and failures, including the difficulty of thinking long term while dealing with so many urgent requirements. It shows how, in the effort to show results, equity and accountability were too often sacrificed. And it demonstrates that urban disaster recovery will require new approaches and skills. This is one of many reports produced by agencies hoping to better understand the impact of their involvement in Haiti in the aftermath of the devastating January 2010 earthquake and how to apply the lessons taken from this experience to future recovery programs. My hope is that it contributes something uniquely useful, and that the observations, findings, and recommendations included here will be taken in the constructive spirit in which they are offered. Priscilla M. Phelps Consultant, World Bank Group and GFDRR Report Project Manager viii Photo credit: UN-Habitat Acknowledgments The production of this report is the result of the collaboration of many people and organizations working through a variety of media from various places around the world. The authors and Steering Committee wish to express their deepest gratitude to those mentioned here and to others who have been inadvertently omitted. Contributors included Harry Adam, Tahir Akbar, Ali Y. Alwahti, Willy Amisi, Raja Arshad, Joseph Ashmore, Vlatko Avramovski, Jennifer E. Duyne Barenstein, Benoist Bazin, Clement Keke Belazaire, James Bellamy, Sandra Berberi, Elizabeth Blake, Ugo Blanco, Aurélie Boukobza, Caroline Broudic, Aby Brun, Eric Calais, Giovanni Cassini, Samy Checcin, Kenneth Chulley, Carolina Cordero Scales, Tom Corsellis, Kate Crawford, Luca Dall’oglio, Gilles Damais, Odnell David, Francois Desruisseaux, Alexis Doucet, Erdem Ergin, Jessica Faieta, Lilianne Fan, Jeff Feldmesser, Emmett Fitzgerald, Marcel Fortier, Therese Foster, Fenella Frost, Ross Gartley, Marcia Urquhart Glenn, Grégoire Goodstein, Marjorie Greene, François Grünewald, Rose-May Guignard, Judith Hermanson, Niels B. Holm-Nielsen, Chantefort Igor, Chantal-Sylvie Imbeault, Yvon Jerome, Chedler Joseph, Damien Jusselme, Michele Keane, Jim Kennedy, Siobhan Kennedy, Earl Kessler, Anna Konotchick, Vera Kreuwels, Marie Le Gac, Ann Lee, Josef Leitmann, Esteban Leon, Simon Levine, Christopher Loan, Wilson Louis, Legrand L. Malany, Suranga Mallawa, Ascension Martinez, Juslain Mathieu, Gregg Mcdonald, Bradley Mellicker, Rodrigo Melo, Jared Mercadante, Kathleen Miner, Felipe Munevar, Claude-André Nadon, Achala Navaratne, Adriana Navarro-Sertich, Rafael Mattar Neri, Carline Noailles, Daniel Oneil, Takuya Ono, Michele Oriol, Emmanuel Pajot, Ayaz Parvez, Philippe Philius, Del Pinto, Natalia Rodriguez, Amelia Rule, Jude Saint-Natus, Victoria Salinas, Arcindo Santos, Irantzu Serra, Charles A. Setchell, Samba I. Sidibe, Mark South, Margaret Stansberry, Kate Stohr, Samantha Stratton-Short, Gerhard Tauscher, Melvin Tebbutt, Jean Frantz Theodat, Kelogue Therasme, Saincius Thony, David Tordjman, Brian Leo Treacy, Eduard Tschan, Noll Tufani, Kulendra Verma, Anna Wachtmeister, Christopher Ward, Anna Wellenstein, Antje Wemhoener, and Paolo Zorzoli. Particular credit goes to members of this report’s Steering Committee that oversaw this effort, and to the organizations they represent or work for, for their commitment, patience, and willingness to provide feedback and resources: Jean-Christophe Adrian (UN-Habitat), Sylvie Debomy (World Bank), Filiep Decorte (UN-Habitat), Xavier Génot (International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies [IFRC]), David Lallemant (Global Facility for Disaster Reduction and Recovery [GFDRR]), Michel Matera (World Bank), Mike Meaney (Habitat for Humanity Haiti), Priscilla M. Phelps (World Bank and GFDRR), Graham Saunders (IFRC), Kip A. Scheidler (Habitat for Humanity International), and Maggie Stephenson (University College London). ix Photo credit: UNOPS, Adriana Navarro Acronyms 16/6 Rehabilitation of 16 Neighborhoods and Voluntary Return of Residents from 6 Camps AFD Agence Française de Développement APNRDH Action Plan for National Recovery and Development of Haiti BBB Building Back Better BMPAD Bureau de Monétisation des Programmes d’Aide au Développement (Office of Monetization of Development Aid) CBO Community-Based Organization CCCM Camp Coordination/Camp Management CHAP Consolidated Humanitarian Appeal CIAT Comité Interministériel d’Aménagement du Territoire (Interministerial Committee for Territorial Planning) CIDA Canadian International Development Agency CNGRD Comité National de Gestion des Risques et des Désastres (National Risk and Disaster Management Committee) CNIGS Centre National d’Information Geo-Spatiale DALA Damage, Loss, and Needs Assessment DGI Direction Générale des Impôts (General Tax Office) DRF Disaster Recovery Framework DRM Disaster Risk Management DRR Disaster Risk Reduction DTM Displacement Tracking Matrix ECAP Emergency Community Assistance and Planning EERI Earthquake Engineering Research Institute EPPLS Entreprise Publique pour le Logement Social ER Early Recovery ERC UN Emergency Relief Coordinator EU European Union FAES Fund for Economic and Social Assistance FTS UN OCHA Financial Tracking Service G11 Group comprising the EU, World Bank, Inter-American Development Bank, International Monetary Fund, United Nations, Canada, Spain, France, the United States, Japan, and a rotating representative of Argentina, Brazil, and Chile GC Global Communities GDP Gross Domestic Product GFDRR Global Facility for Disaster Reduction and Recovery GPS Global Positioning System HCT Humanitarian Country Team HFHH Habitat for Humanity Haiti HFHI Habitat for Humanity International HLPWG Housing Land and Property Working Group HNRSP Housing and Neighborhood Reconstruction Support Program HRF Haiti Reconstruction Fund HSDP Haiti Strategic Development Plan IASC Inter-Agency Standing Committee IDB Inter-American Development Bank xi IDP Internally Displaced Person IFRC International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies IHC Interministerial Housing Commission IHCSR Interim Haiti Commission for Shelter and Reconstruction IHRC Interim Haiti Recovery Commission IHSI Institut Haïtien de Statistique et d’Informatique (Haitian Bureau of Statistics) ILO International Labor Organization INA Integrated Neighborhood Approach IOM International Organization for Migration MAST Ministry of Social Affairs and Labor MEF Ministère de l’Economie and des Finances (Ministry of Economy and Finance) MICT Ministry of Interior and Local Government MINUSTAH UN Stabilization Mission in Haiti MPCE Ministère de la Planification et de la Coopération Externe (Ministry of Planning and External Cooperation) MTPTC Ministry of Public Works, Transport, and Communications NDC Neighborhood Development Council NGO Nongovernmental Organization NRHRF Neighborhood Return and Housing Reconstruction Framework OCHA UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs ODA Official Development Assistance OFDA Office of U.S. Foreign Disaster Assistance OSE UN Office of the Special Envoy for Haiti PCI Project Concern International PDNA Post-Disaster Needs Assessment PMC Project Management Contractor PNGRD Plan National de Gestion des Risques et des Désastres (National Risk Management Plan) PPR Plan de Prevention des Risques (Risk Prevention Plan) PREKAD Port-au-Prince Neighborhood Housing Reconstruction Project PRODEPUR Urban Community-Driven Development Project RRS Return and Relocation Strategy RSCG Rental Support Cash Grant SAG Strategic Advisory Group SILQ Système d’Information du Logement et des Quartiers (Housing and Neighborhoods Information System) SNGRD Système National de Gestion des Risques et des Désastres (National Disaster Risk Management System) SPDH Strategic Plan for the Development of Haiti SPGRD Secrétariat Permanent de Gestion des Risques et des Désastres (Permanent Secretariat for Disaster Risk Management) TWIG Technical Working and Information Group U.S. United States UCLBP Unité de Construction de Logements et de Bâtiments Publics (Housing and Public Building Construction Unit) UN United Nations UNDP United Nations Development Programme UN-Habitat United Nations Human Settlements Programme UNOPS United Nations Office for Project Services USAID U.S. Agency for International Development WASH Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene All dollar amounts are U.S. dollars unless otherwise indicated. Figures without source information are based on the survey conducted for this report. xii WHAT DID WE LEARN? The Shelter Response and Housing Recovery in the First Two Years after the 2010 Haiti Earthquake / xiii Photo credit: World Bank Executive Summary The Haiti Earthquake: Unprecedented Damage in an Urban Context When Haiti was hit by a 7.3 magnitude earthquake at approximately 5:00 pm on January 12, 2010, the effects were stunning: hundreds of thousands of people dead or wounded and damage to buildings and infrastructure later estimated at $7.8 billion, a figure that exceeded the country’s entire gross domestic product (GDP). Housing was the sector most affected, with total damages estimated at $2.3 billion. Disaster risks in Haiti were well understood, but the country was not prepared for an event of this scale. Listed by the World Bank as a natural disaster hotspot, with particular exposure to seismic and hydro-meteorological hazards, Haiti is one of the most vulnerable countries, due to such factors as topography, environmental degradation, poverty, and uncontrolled urbanization. The Post-Disaster Needs Assessment (PDNA) estimated that 1.5 million people were directly affected by the earthquake. Around 105,000 buildings were destroyed and more than 208,000 were damaged. Educational buildings, hospitals, and health centers were lost, as were the presidential palace and the buildings of parliament, the courts, and many ministries. While the earthquake affected the entire country, Haiti’s urban areas were especially hard hit. There was widespread physical destruction in the Port-au-Prince metropolitan area and in cities in the southwest and southeast parts of the country. xiii xiv / EXECUTIVE SUMMARY The Challenge of Response and Recovery: Planning and Coordinating in the Absence of Policy International assistance was offered to Haiti following the earthquake at a level not seen since the 2008 Indian Ocean tsunami. The Inter-Agency Steering Committee (IASC) immediately mobilized the cluster system, and a flood of financial and technical assistance began to arrive. In the immediate aftermath of the earthquake, the focus was on the humanitarian crisis, but by the time the donor pledging conference was convened at the United Nations (UN) in New York in March 2010, the Interim Haiti Recovery Commission (IHRC) had been created, and attention turned to the reconstruction and recovery effort. The 2010 Haiti earthquake recovery demonstrated that, in spite of the level of assistance made available, good recovery from a major disaster does not just happen. It depends on important decisions being made at critical moments, and on diligent planning and coordination among all involved. The Shelter Response: Laudable Efforts in the Early Weeks and Months The emergency shelter response following the January 12, 2010, earthquake was successful. A straightforward initial “Shelter Sector Response Plan” was developed by the Shelter and Non-Food Items Cluster (hereafter referred to as the “Shelter Cluster”) that had been established by the IASC. The plan had three clear objectives—emergency shelter within three months, before the hurricane season; full transitional shelter within 12 months; and plans for durable shelter for the entire affected population developed within 12 months—and was supported by both the Haitian government and the international community. The original emergency shelter goal of providing emergency shelter for 100,000 families before the hurricane season was met. The success factors included a strong mobilization effort and implementation capacity, the early coordination framework, and agreement on the three objectives. In the early months, Haitians and international actors worked in concert. After initial effective collaboration, overall coordination weakened as a result of, among other things, lack of familiarity by Haitian actors with the IASC cluster system and a failure of clusters to adapt to Haitian requirements; limited government resources to coordinate with numerous international actors, since many interactions took place outside of cluster coordination; turnover and instability in the cluster system itself; discontinuity in decision making during the election and early post-election periods; and language and cultural barriers. The initial shelter strategy was not adjusted sufficiently as the situation evolved. While the IASC cluster system was fully activated in Haiti, there was significant variation in capacity from one cluster to another and weak inter-cluster coordination, which contributed to the fragmentation of the response. Further, the clusters were humanitarian mechanisms that had no mandate for housing recovery and reconstruction. Decision making on the recovery approach needed to come from the government. With no government platform assuming responsibility for recovery coordination and planning, the transition from shelter to recovery faltered. WHAT DID WE LEARN? The Shelter Response and Housing Recovery in the First Two Years after the 2010 Haiti Earthquake / xv Ultimately, shelter resources were concentrated on two options: camp support and a massive “T-shelter” program. These two options reflected more what agencies could provide than what the population needed, preferred, or was capable of doing for itself. The T-shelter strategy, and the disproportionate funding it absorbed, supported property owners more than renters, since T-shelters required access to land. Miscalculating the capacity for self-recovery and the resilience of the urban property market resulted in an underfunding of solutions for renters and landlords, for hosting arrangements, and for support to safe self-recovery. The humanitarian shelter and housing recovery strategies needed to be developed jointly, with the government. Doing so would have ensured that the two phases reinforced each other and that they were manageable and managed by the government. Better knowledge of the housing culture in Haiti and better analysis of how the shelter strategy would affect recovery and would ultimately wind down could have contributed to a shorter humanitarian phase that transitioned more effectively to housing recovery. Instead, the humanitarian phase continued for years after the earthquake. Housing Sector Recovery: Households and the Informal Sector Led Housing Recovery The government had no policy framework on which to base the housing reconstruction strategy. There was also no agency of government to which the responsibility for planning and coordinating housing recovery would have naturally fallen. Housing reconstruction planning required clarity about reducing disaster risk, a topic never systematically addressed by national agencies. Debates ensued over relocation versus rebuilding in place. Project proposals overemphasized the need for agencies to build housing, rather than to create the conditions for housing recovery. Time was lost analyzing fundamental housing recovery issues. There was a scarcity of data for planning housing reconstruction. By late 2010, as the result of building safety assessments overseen by the Ministry of Public Works, Transport, and Communications (MTPTC), there were good data on building conditions, but there were limited data on affected households, except for those in camps. While the range of situations of households was understood (renters versus owners, types of displacement, etc.), there was no guidance on which households or types of households should be helped first, and in what way. It was not until 2012 that the Système d’Information du Logement et des Quartiers (Housing and Neighborhoods Information System) was launched by the Centre National de l’Information Géo-Spatiale (National Geospatial Information Center) with support from the Housing and Neighborhood Reconstruction Support Program (HNRSP). This will be useful data for future disaster recovery planning, but most recovery aid had already been programmed by the time the data were available. Household self-recovery was the predominant form of recovery. Large numbers of affected Haitian households displayed their characteristic resilience and found housing solutions on their own. Self recovery of housing was the principal method utilized by households in the first two years. This included repair and continued occupation of damaged buildings, rebuilding by households with the financial means, and acquisition of owned and rented housing through normal housing market forces. Market-based options grew to include renting out T-shelters and shelters in internally displaced person (IDP) camps. xvi / EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Put another way, the informal sector was the biggest player in housing recovery. Housing construction in newly settled informal areas, housing repair and reconstruction in informal urban neighborhoods, and non-permitted construction of new rental units throughout the country were three major sources of housing units for those displaced by the earthquake. While agencies aspired to promote higher housing standards and to formalize housing production activities, the existing informal system set about providing housing for the displaced population. Disaster Risk Reduction in Recovery: The Challenge of Mainstreaming Disaster Risk Reduction The earthquake created a renewed awareness of the need to strengthen disaster risk management (DRM). Although significant work on DRM had taken place in Haiti before the earthquake, the urgency of additional institutional strengthening became clear to everyone afterward. Areas to strengthen include, among others: (i) the capacity of national DRM agencies and local governments in disaster risk reduction (DRR) and recovery (in addition to disaster response), (ii) the engagement of civil society and the scientific community in DRR policy, (iii) the norms and capacity for risk-informed urban planning, (iv) architectural and construction sector capacity for safe building, and (v) enforcement of building codes and construction supervision. The building safety assessment process was successful and provided data that were used in unanticipated ways. In March 2010, MTPTC launched the building safety (or habitability) assessment process to assess the condition of all buildings in the earthquake-affected area. The assessment process demonstrated that, with adequate assistance, a high-quality assessment process can be conducted even when technical experience is limited. While the focus was on speed and consistency, greater attention might have been paid to communications and the collection of additional information, given the multiple uses for which the data were later used. There were significant efforts to improve construction methods, but the related knowledge didn’t reach important target groups. The government worked on critical DRR issues with external assistance following the earthquake: guidelines for repair and construction of small masonry buildings were completed by January 2011, retrofitting guidelines were published in 2012, and significant resources were dedicated to training masons in improved building methods. These masons then found work on many donor projects. Nevertheless, the benefits of these efforts were not fully realized because the guidelines were not widely distributed and little effort was made to require production of the quality construction materials that the guidelines called for. While many masons were trained, few were involved in self-recovery projects, where their expertise could have improved the safety of the majority of houses that were built or rebuilt by families themselves. Assistance to the government did not sufficiently strengthen its regulatory capacity. Technical support on reconstruction guidelines, building codes, training, and related matters was welcomed by government agencies. While this assistance helped build short-term technical capacity, government’s enabling and regulatory roles in DRR were rarely strengthened by these efforts. Without a strong lead agency for DRR, government policy on DRR in recovery was unclear in the first two years, even within the government, and DRR in recovery was implemented in a somewhat ad hoc manner. One result of this leadership gap was that no agreement was ever reached on what key concepts such as “building back better” (BBB) and “acceptable risk” meant in the Haitian reconstruction context. WHAT DID WE LEARN? The Shelter Response and Housing Recovery in the First Two Years after the 2010 Haiti Earthquake / xvii DRR standards should have been more widely communicated and self-enforcement promoted. Instead of being promulgated through minimal but credible norms and regulations, the DRR imperative was pursued almost exclusively on a project-specific basis. The policies applied were based on good international standards, but they benefited only a small percentage of the affected population. In effect, DRR was treated as a “private good,” not a “public good” accessible to all. Given that most households were not assisted by any reconstruction project, but instead recovered on their own, much more emphasis should have been put on making DRR a public good: communicating DRR messages, regulating the quality of construction inputs, and promoting self-enforcement of safe building practices at the household level. This communication program could have begun with engineers carrying out the building safety assessments, since they visited every affected neighborhood. Using conditional financing to incentivize safe construction practices—an international good practice—should also have been much more extensively employed. Post-disaster DRR policy needed to have been established in advance. The post-disaster period is not the right time for DRR research or policy making; it must be done before a disaster strikes. In addition, responsibility for DRR must be clearly assigned. While the disaster motivated donors to provide more support to the Système National de Gestion des Risques et des Désastres (SNGRD) (National Disaster Risk Management System), recovery policy was not within its mandate. Haiti has established a number of good DRR practices as a result of the earthquake recovery, but most still need to be codified in national policies or regulations. Land and the Urban Context: Managing the Spatial and Economic Dimensions of Urban Recovery The urban nature of the earthquake had wide-ranging effects on recovery. Government and development partners were unprepared for the spatial, physical, and institutional challenges associated with recovery from such a large-scale urban disaster as the earthquake. Weaknesses in urban planning, land management, and development regulation; difficulty in removing rubble; and lack of space for emergency shelters and transitional housing were all issues specific to the urban context that affected the pace of recovery decision making, the relevance of prior experience, and the speed of implementation. Initially, urban economic realities and their impact on recovery were not well understood. The nature of economic vulnerability and the cash economy, and their implications for recovery, were not well understood by many recovery actors. Agencies were not always prepared for such situations as families occupying both housing and camps or the exploitation that took place between those with and without income or among gangs. While agencies came to understand urban survival strategies and how they affected their recovery projects, in some cases these dynamics caused the abandonment of agency interventions. Tools to more carefully assess the urban economy, its incentives, and the implications for urban recovery interventions should be employed early in future urban disasters. Agencies and government used reconstruction to improve neighborhoods. Realizing that rebuilding housing was not enough, agencies turned to the “integrated neighborhood approach” (INA) for reconstruction in existing neighborhoods. Community planning, never employed before the earthquake, was seen as the best way to organize INA. Agencies that were involved in community planning coordinated with both the national government and local governments and standardized xviii / EXECUTIVE SUMMARY their methods. Early community planning pilots helped the government develop replicable community planning and neighborhood upgrading models in the Rehabilitation of 16 Neighborhoods and Voluntary Return of Residents from 6 Camps (16/6) Project that can have important long-term urban development benefits for Haiti. An institutional framework will be needed for these activities, so that the capacities developed and outputs produced will be built on in the future. The time required for larger-scale planning was incompatible with the need to accelerate recovery. Government and external agencies agreed on the importance of using the recovery process to advance strategic development goals, but disagreed on the cost of delaying recovery to take time for urban planning. Even so, the plans that were prepared after the earthquake, such as those for downtown Port-au-Prince, have the potential to positively influence future development in the country, as does the National Housing and Neighborhood Strategy, approved in 2012. However, what was more critical in the first two years, which was never put in place, was an urban planning framework that could have increased the coherence of recovery projects at the local level and guided newly urbanizing areas, in order to maximize the contribution of these initiatives to strategic urban development goals. Land-related challenges consumed enormous resources and greatly affected recovery outcomes. The weakness of land regulation and tenure in Haiti may have contributed more than any other factor to the disaster. Attempting to address such conditions as informal ownership and the lack of records affected both the quality and the timeliness of international housing-related interventions and absorbed significant resources in new settlements projects. Addressing the lack of tenure security of most Haitians should be a national priority, and could be viewed in itself as a DRM strategy, since secure tenure encourages households to invest in such activities as retrofitting and safer construction. The participation of mayors and neighborhood residents and groups in recovery built local capacity that should be sustained. Resilience means having local systems capable of recovering from future shocks. A goal of any recovery program should be to strengthen systems for engagement and mutual support, including the planning and management capacity of the people involved. Haiti has slowly built rural capacity in aspects of DRM such as preparedness, but building capacity in the urban context is more complex. Significant efforts were made to engage local actors (e.g., mayors and neighborhood residents and groups), including through community platforms. These nascent efforts require evaluation and continued support to ensure their sustainability. Recovery Financing: Leveraging Scarce Resources to Stimulate Maximum Recovery Uncertainty about how to finance housing recovery began with the PDNA. The donor-led PDNA and the government-led Action Plan for National Reconstruction and Development of Haiti (APNRDH) reflected significantly different ideas of what government’s role would be in financing housing recovery. For example, the PDNA assumed the government would finance the contingent liability of housing reconstruction for low-income Haitians, whereas the government assumed a combination of humanitarian funds and credit would be used. The PDNA assumed repair and reconstruction in situ would be major cost items, whereas the APNRDH assumed the major costs would be for land acquisition and infrastructure for major relocation sites. WHAT DID WE LEARN? The Shelter Response and Housing Recovery in the First Two Years after the 2010 Haiti Earthquake / xix A housing sector recovery framework was needed to reconcile differences and to provide the basis for programming housing recovery funding. The APNRDH was not translated into a financing plan, so the differences between the PDNA and APNRDH were never addressed. Absent this reconciliation, agencies with funding were on their own to design housing interventions and program their funds. Many found costs rising as projects progressed, so the number of housing units declined, which resulted in fewer project beneficiaries. IHRC and Haiti Reconstruction Fund (HRF) support for recovery financing was limited. These agencies were viewed early on as a system for approving financing for projects. But in general this was not true, since donor contributions to the HRF were quite limited and often earmarked for specific projects. As a result, most proposed projects submitted to the IHRC lacked financing and a number were not financeable, due to issues with design or the experience of project sponsors, or both. IHRC staff reviewed projects and made suggestions, but greater effort to assist sponsors to design more financeable projects and to raise financing would have been useful and might have helped more locally generated housing recovery initiatives prosper. Tracking of agency financial commitments was not systematic in the IHRC or elsewhere. Good efforts established at the beginning of the recovery period to monitor the mobilization of recovery funds and coordinate humanitarian action were not sustained, making it difficult to monitor recovery expenditures and project outputs. With no systematic tracking, the collection of project data was limited, which undermined any effort to account to the Haitian people for the use of recovery funds. Public and donor funds were rarely used to leverage private investment. Co-fina