Publisher(s) CARE International
Sector(s)
Location(s) Philippines
Disaster(s) Typhoon
Rights Copyright: CARE International UK
Creative Commons: CC-BY-NC
Find more on these topics Self recovery, shelter, settlements, technical assistance
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On the 8th of November 2013 super typhoon Haiyan, known in the Philippines as Yolanda, made landfall in the Philippines. It proceeded as a category 5 typhoon across the central Philippines, causing widespread devastation. The typhoon severely damaged or destroyed over one million houses. Over 16 million people were affected by the storm.CARE Philippines responded with emergency food, shelter and livelihoods programmes. This report presents the findings from CARE’s Emergency Shelter Team’s internal evaluation of the early recovery shelter programme undertaken by CARE Philippines and its partners.The evaluation’s key findings were that:
- The programme correctly identified and assisted the most vulnerable and beneficiaries are well on their way to recovery:
- They have mostly achieved dignified and safe shelter after the typhoon
- Beneficiary ownership of the recovery process and of their houses is very high
- Most are confident that they will complete their houses to meet their household’s requirements, although the time this will take varies considerably
- Houses are stronger and safer than the houses people had before:
- There is a high level of awareness of build-back-safer principles
- All houses have some build-back-safer principles incorporated
- The majority of houses have high levels of incorporation of build-back-safer principles The approach met the urgent needs of the population while catalysing the recovery. Self-recovery support is a good way to empower communities to take charge of their own recovery, if justified by a rigorous analysis. A model where materials and cash are provided based on an analysis of needs, capacities and local markets, and coupled with strong community engagement and technical assistance which continues throughout the recovery process, allowed cost-effective reconstruction of shelter at a significant scale.While programmes of this type do not provide fully engineered buildings built to western standards, they provide sufficient support for households to build houses which are stronger than they had before and will offer more resistance to future hazards. In doing so, they provide support to far more people than expensive fully engineered building programmes can and allow buildings which are tailored to meet the housing and other needs of households. There are no unoccupied buildings as a result, and waste is minimal. Ownership of and pride in the process and the product of the programme, by the beneficiaries, was exceptionally high.