1. Taking time: Though reconstruction should be
planned from fairly early on in the recovery
process (possibly starting 3 months after the
disaster), time is far less critical than in the
planning of the initial relief response (where
people’s survival depends on the timely arrival
of adequate medicine, food, water, tents etc). In
the rebuilding of people’s houses and livelihoods
it is more important to get it right than to do
it quickly. Therefore the assessment of needs
and resources must be undertaken thoroughly
and with the full participation of all those
affected, rather than just a sample population.
The proceeding section describes a number
of activities that could be included in an
assessment. These do not necessarily have to be
done all at the same time, but could be spread
out over a period.
2. Enabling participation: If people are to be at the
centre of reconstruction, they also need to play a
central role in determining needs, priorities and
the availability and requirement of resources.
There are only a few examples of communities
getting organised to carry out their own needs
and resources assessment such as: the Civil
Defence Committee of the town of Soritor
after the Alto Mayo, Peru earthquake of 1990,
and the community of Bojaya in Colombia
after a massacre in 2002 (see the section
on Applications). On other occasions, NGOs
have facilitated the community-implemented
assessment, for example Save the Children after
the tsunami in Sri Lanka.
3. Using appropriate methods: The methods used
in the assessment need to enable participation.
Lengthy questionnaires, requiring statistics
to compare or relate different variables may
not be suitable for community involvement.
Instead proven methods in Participatory Rural
Appraisal (PRA) or Community Action Planning
(CAP) may be adapted to needs and resources
assessments, see. PCR Tool 7: Planning with
the People. One appropriate approach may be
to meet with people in small groups, and to
encourage those groups to identify needs and
resources. This would help to identify the range
of reconstruction needs across communities,
and those groups in need of extra support. Short
individual questionnaires may then be used to
explore some of the details further. Alternatively,
other methods might be found to be more
suitable, for example it might be more practical
to have a community do a type of wealth
ranking exercise, than to ask it lots of questions
about incomes or assets. Group dialogues are
preferable to individual questioning, as they
allow further exploration of the qualitative
aspects of reconstruction.
4. Building trust and sharing information:
Building trust with and between communities
is necessary to facilitate the participatory
processes, otherwise people might be
sceptical or afraid to commit themselves fully
in participation. It must therefore be made
clear to community members from the onset
how the outcomes of the assessment will be
used, and under what ownership. If a series
of participatory activities are going to be
undertaken, starting with the less contentious
ones will help to build trust with a group. A
good example of such an exercise is producing
seasonal calendars or time schedules, or taking
stock of economic activities. The more difficult
activities, such as stakeholder analysis, are
better left to the end once trust has been
established. Occasionally, some people affected
by disasters may exaggerate their losses to try
to get more support. However, despite this,
fieldworkers should avoid a suspicious approach
- if the assessments are really participatory,
then communities themselves are likely to
question individuals who are not truthful
therefore the fieldworker should allow for this
process to unfold. For community members to
be capable of making informed decisions about
reconstruction, information gained from the
assessment should be shared by the fieldworker
with all involved, rather than taken to offices
and analysed on inaccessible computers.
5. Including everybody affected: Meetings with
communities dominated by one or two people
usually have limited value. Fieldworkers need to
be aware of such dominators, and ensure equal
attention is given to all participants. Dominators
may be those who are better educated, can
speak the language of the fieldworker, or who
are well-connected to local institutions or
politicians. However, they may not always be
truly representative, although they may claim
to be, and in particular may not represent
vulnerable groups. Therefore methods must be
used to ensure the voices and views of others
are heard; working in smaller groups for example
may encourage this.
6. Coordinating agencies to reduce duplication:
It can be very frustrating for an affected
community to see agency after agency
come by and ask the same questions about
reconstruction. Reconstruction agencies should
try to collaborate to avoid duplication and share
information.
There are often constraints to carrying out a
good assessment. Agencies should try to address
these before starting, as they can often be
overcome, as shown by the following examples:
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