Together We Stand

[ 60 ] In Madagascar, adopters of cyclone-resistant construction practices were more likely to have taken on additional work after the disaster, such as making and selling charcoal or casual labour. Adopters were also more likely to have sold cash crops to buy materials and pay carpenters. “I saw the CRS carpenter soaking the wooden posts in engine oil, setting them deep in the earth and pressing down the earth and stones around them, but I could not afford those extra materials,” said Zafy Perline of Manahoaka village, Brickaville, Madagascar. “I had some savings from before the cyclone but that was not enough. It took me over a year to save up the rest from selling milk and corn.” Our recommendations are as follows. It is important to ensure that the hazard-resistant practices we promote are easy to access, both financially (via savings, cash-for-work, livelihoods or other means) and physically (access to materials and skilled labour). This requires a substantial departure from the concept of provid- ing a small proportion of disaster-affected families with new homes while others, who may be similarly poor and vulnerable, do not receive any support to help them build back safer. We must use a lower-cost, easily replicated model for the newly-built homes, with locally appropriate — that is, needing minimal technical expertise — construction practices using locally available low-cost materials. Construction prac- tices should be kept as simple as possible without jeopardizing the structural integrity. We recommend the dissemination of materials that use easy-to-understand images of construction practices with different costs, so that households can make informed budget decisions. We should help families to increase their capacity to buy materials and labour, both immediately after a disaster and through long-term livelihood interventions. Cash grants or vouchers for specific items, as well as cash-for-work programmes, can help, and these can be linked with aware- ness-raising on safe construction practices. We can increase people’s capacity to access locally avail- able materials and skilled labour. This includes exploring ways to support local manufacturers to produce construction components, increasing the number of locally skilled workers through trainings on hazard reconstruction, and informing families of the possibility of a phased approach to reconstruc- tion, so they may recover over time if their finances do not allow for all activities at once. Perceived risk When people felt that their community would be affected by another disaster and recognized that the construction of their home made them more vulnerable, they took action to construct a safer home. Just recognizing that another hazard was likely to occur was not enough to prompt people to change their construction practices; understanding the impact of the construction of their homes made a difference. We recommend action to increase understanding about the relationship between hazard events and construction prac- Image: David Snyder for CRS Dukhiram Dalai and his wife Sukanti decorate their hew home, built using flood resistance techniques, in Raipur, Orissa, India T ogether W e S tand