Housing and Resilience: Case Studies from Sri Lanka

Research on housing and disasters indicate a critical need for assessing the resilience of permanent housing built after disasters. A survey of current research in this field led to the development of an evaluation tool for that purpose. The analytical framework of the tool consisted of five main factors—Inputs, Output, Result, Impacts and Effects, and External Factors—which are explained in this chapter. The severe impact of the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami on housing in Sri Lanka and the consequent abundance of housing reconstruction projects allowed the testing of the evaluation tool there. Two case studies of post-tsunami housing reconstruction projects implemented by international NGOs were examined in Galle, southern Sri Lanka. Using the tool, it was found that both the projects had improved the resilience of the beneficiary communities. However a number of challenges were also evident, particularly in meeting the wider needs of the beneficiaries and coordinating with local government authorities. The importance of the evaluation tool is underscored in the global context of widespread disaster occurrence and their devastating impact on the housing sector, and the multiplicity of post-disaster housing reconstruction projects by humanitarian agencies.