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International Recovery Platform:
better rebuilding for resilient recovery
Sanjaya Bhatia, Knowledge Management Officer, International Recovery Platform Secretariat, Japan
O
ne of the most important requirements for a resilient
recovery is to allocate sufficient time for it to take place.
Following the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, for example,
some donors initially allocated less than one year, whereas for
the Haiti earthquake in 2010 a recovery process of ten years
was proposed.
If the timeframe is too short, the danger is that the recovery proc-
esses may build back vulnerabilities or even increase them, while
risk reduction will amount to little more than a series of add-on
training programmes.
1
Short-term planning and rapid disburse-
ment also tend to focus on projects rather than adopt a systematic
programme approach.
2
One frequent problem is a conflict between donor timeframes
and real timeframes. Donors are under pressure to disburse funds
quickly, typically within two or three years, whereas the recovery
phase for a major disaster is likely to be three to five years. The
period required will depend on a number of factors, including the
goals of the recovery and how far the countries in question have
progressed with pre-disaster Hyogo Framework for Action (HFA)
policies. Much too will depend on the capacities of communities
and local government and leadership – and a number of underlying
risk factors.
3
Governments in disaster-hit countries have to observe
both timetables, balancing the political expediencies of
short-term measures against the need for longer-term
recovery. The World Bank’s evaluation of its disaster
assistance notes: ‘It often happens that activities that
might contribute greatly to the recovery effort (and to the
borrower’s subsequent long-term development) are not
included in Emergency Recovery Loan projects because
they cannot be completed in the three years allotted.’
4
It takes time to build institutional capacity, to main-
stream disaster risk reduction and climate change
adaptation into development policies, and to align initia-
tives with local or national government budget cycles. It
also takes time to pass the necessary laws and build the
mechanisms to enforce local regulations. After the tsunami
in Aceh, Indonesia, for example, most people under-
standably wanted to get on with their lives. However,
reconstruction can take far longer than anyone would
like or might imagine. The Agency for the Rehabilitation
and Reconstruction of Aceh and Nias (BRR) has called
for education about the challenges and the length of time
required to deliver an effective post-disaster reconstruc-
tion programme. BRR was able, with time, to reduce some
of the pressures to show faster progress that could have led
to bigger programmatic problems.
5
Local governments should therefore set the timeframe
based on community capacities and communicate this
to donors and other stakeholders. Recent large disasters
have shown that donors are becoming more aware of such
concerns. For example, during the response to the Gujarat
earthquake, the UK’s Disasters Emergency Committee
initially increased themaximumperiod during which funds
should be spent from six to nine months. An evaluation
criticised even this period as being too short and suggested
doubling it to 18 months. For the 2004 tsunami response,
the DEC raised such a large sum that it increased the period
of expenditure to three years. An evaluation proposed
raising this to five years, though this was not accepted.
6
A window of opportunity
Before a disaster, progress on the HFA is often constrained
by poor governance, weak policy and regulatory frame-
works, and low political and administrative will and
capacity – as well as by nonchalant attitudes towards
disasters. After a disaster, however, attitudes change from
‘it will not happen to us’ to ‘what can we do about it?’
2022
A twinning project for housing has been set up between Shangdong Province and
Beichuan County in China
Image: International Recovery Platform 2009