Post-tsunami reconstruction in villages near Banda Aceh, Indonesia
Six months after the Indian Ocean tsunami of December 2004, CAP workshops were organised in 3 villages near
Banda Aceh. A team of Indonesian planners and development workers facilitated the workshops, led by Dr Reinhard
Goethert, an internationally renowned expert in community-based planning. The villages had been affected to different
extents, and one was semi-urban with quite a diverse population in terms of income levels and housing types. Two of
the villages were almost completely destroyed. The work was supported by GTZ and the German Development Bank
KfW.
CAP workshops were organised and attended by 50-60 village representatives. The villagers were initially sceptical
about the intentions of the CAP team, but became more enthusiastic as the process went on, and eventually it became
quite difficult to accommodate the number of people who were observing and participating. The CAP process tapped
into traditional practices of holding village meetings to deal with local problems, known as musyawarah.
During the meetings, participants:
• Produced models showing standing and destroyed houses, buildings and infrastructure
• Produced a vision for each village
• Made an inventory of village facilities and infrastructure according to whether they were intact, damaged or
destroyed
• Drew up a list of problems, prioritised the list, and agreed a set of actions
• Assessed whether the actions could be carried out by themselves or not
• Decided where the planned actions should be carried out
• Built models of how their houses might look
• Set up a Village Development Committee to take the actions forward.
Important decisions were made such as the need to keep escape routes to the hills clear in case of a future tsunami.
At the end of the process, a folder of the materials produced was made for each village leader to keep. They
presented the folders to the government’s reconstruction agency, so that development could be done according to the
community’s plans.
After the pilot, the Indonesian facilitators formed an NGO called Yayasan Cipta Aksi Partisipatif (Foundation for the
Creation of Participative Action) to disseminate and implement CAP in other reconstruction projects across Aceh. The
NGO went on to do more CAP work supported by the German Red Cross, German Caritas, and UNDP.
For more information see summary in GTZ Aceh Rehabilitation and Reconstruction Programme (2009); and process
and outcomes described in Goethert, R (2006).
Post-tsunami resettlement of displaced people, The Maldives
When the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami hit the low-lying islands of the Maldives, some of them were completely
submerged and, after the waters receded, a number were left uninhabitable. 12,000 people were internally displaced
and were housed in camps or with host families on neighbouring islands. Some would eventually return to their original
islands, while others would need to settle on another island.
There were barriers to introducing participation in the reconstruction process. The tsunami was an unprecedented
event in the Maldives. Communities did not know how to deal with it, many felt powerless, and most expected the
government to provide for their needs. At the same time, engineers and architects felt they lacked the skills to support
participation, or felt that it had political overtones.
Despite this, limited amounts of participation were used and had beneficial outcomes.
The IFRC together with the local Red Cross recruited a team of 10 local enumerators to assess people’s entitlements
to assistance. This team got a lot of useful help from the chiefs of the displaced communities, even though they had
not expected or requested this. During the surveys, the teams were able to answer a lot of people’s questions about the
reconstruction process. It became clear that the community were poorly informed, and false rumours were circulating.
The IFRC, local Red Cross, island chiefs and displaced communities decided to produce a Community Involvement
Plan, outlining how they would like to be consulted about the reconstruction and resettlement process. Initially the
team arranged for videos and photographs to be sent to the displaced community of the new island where they would
be moved. Later on some members of the community visited the site. They provided feedback through a satisfaction
survey. Informal visits were made to community members and a dedicated phone line was set up for people to raise
concerns and obtain information. A particular concern for the displaced community was beneficiary selection, and who
would qualify for a house. A simple visual aid was produced to show this.
Author’s note: The level of participation in this example might seem modest – perhaps in the category of ‘informing’
on Arnstein’s ladder. The new settlements were contractor-built and not designed in collaboration with the community.
However, the participation did help to address people’s main concerns about which families would qualify for a house,
and how construction was progressing. The project helped people to get the information they needed, despite the very
challenging reconstruction context.
For more information see: Environmental Planning Collaborative (2004).
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