Putting houses in place:1 rebuilding communities in post‐tsunami Sri Lanka

This paper interrogates the social and political geographies of resettlement and reconstruction of temporary and permanent shelters, which are fundamental to rebuilding tsunami‐affected communities. War and ethnic cleavages are an endemic feature of Sri Lanka's social polity, and uneven development processes in the country are clearly visible. This paper draws attention to these spaces of inequality by drawing on in‐depth interviews and participant observation carried out in Eastern and Southern Sri Lanka. It argues that communities' concerns and anxieties regarding displacement and resettlement have tended to be articulated against prevailing fault lines of war and inequality. This is the backdrop against which communities negotiated the recovery process. My fieldwork shows that it is critical to understand that disaster and development relief are ingrained within context specificities. Relief efforts therefore need to recognise that the process of ‘putting houses in place’ should be embedded within local social relations.     

Responding to security threats: livelihoods under protracted conflict in Sri Lanka

Populations affected by violent conflicts often withstand threats to their security as well as threats to their livelihoods. Their response to the former threats nontrivially affects their response to the latter threats, and vice versa. This paper examines the interplay between protection and livelihood strategies using a sample of households selected from the Anuradhapura district of Sri Lanka. The fieldwork for this study was completed in 2008, producing evidence that the protection and livelihood strategies employed by households affected by the protracted conflict in Sri Lanka are interlaced. In addition, the research discovered that Muslim and Sinhalese households largely responded to the protracted conflict in ways that are unique to their ethnic group. Certain vulnerabilities that impinge on protection and certain opportunities that support livelihoods are shown to be ethnicised. Hence, the final livelihood outcome, which is defined narrowly here as the household's income, also appears to be ethnicised.     

Post-disaster community tourism recovery: the tsunami and Arugam Bay, Sri Lanka

Tourism is highly vulnerable to external, non-controllable events. A natural disaster can affect the local tourism industry in numerous ways, and such events are particularly devastating for small communities whose local economy is heavily dependent on the sector. Loss of infrastructure plus negative media stories can have long-term ramifications for the destination. In spite of the economic importance of tourism, post-disaster recovery efforts in this sector are often overlooked by non-governmental organisations (NGOs), which focus on more traditional livelihoods such as agriculture or fishing. This paper describes Mercy Corps' support of tourism recovery activities in Arugam Bay, a remote village on the east coast of Sri Lanka, following the 2004 tsunami. The local economic base is built largely on two sectors: community tourism and fishing. As many other actors were supporting recovery in the local fishing industry, Mercy Corps concentrated on revitalising the tourism sector.     

Lessons for long-term social recovery following the 2004 tsunami: Community,livelihoods, tourism and housing

The Indian Ocean tsunami of 2004 galvanized world attention like no other natural disaster before. Unprecedented amounts of aid were given and a record number of international aid agencies were involved in relief and recovery operations. Major reviews of the response to the disaster have suggested that the immediate relief effort was better than expected. However, weaknesses in the longer term recovery work were identified within months of the disaster and yet the same weaknesses were being confirmed four and five years later. Even though many studies have been published on the tsunami disaster there are still many lessons to be learnt, particularly in relation to social recovery as distinct from the restoration of destroyed or damaged infrastructure. This paper presents an overview of the findings of a study that was conducted over a period of four years across five different tsunami-affected local areas of Sri Lanka and southern India. The study focused on lessons to be learnt in relation to rebuilding community, restoring livelihoods, recreating an appropriate tourism industry and providing relevant housing and planned settlements for disaster survivors. The paper argues that ‘build back better’ is possible, but only if ‘asset replacement’ strategies are replaced by integrated physical and social planning to address local needs in culturally appropriate ways. Much of what the authors advocate may seem to be little more than ‘common sense’ and many of our findings echo those of many other post-tsunami evaluations. Yet patient and well-integrated approaches to disaster recovery are all too rare in a world that is experiencing so many natural disasters. Because the 2004 tsunami evoked an unprecedented global response it is important to ensure that the lessons of the recovery effort are clearly learnt and this paper aims to convert research findings into a clear strategy for long-term social recovery.     

Conflict, camps and coercion: the ongoing livelihoods crisis in Darfur

This paper presents the findings of a study commissioned by World Food Programme (WFP) in early 2006 to enhance understanding of how the conflict in Darfur has affected livelihoods and markets, and of the effects of food aid. The livelihoods of many in Darfur were devastated early on in the conflict, principally through the widespread looting or destruction of assets and highly restricted population movements, which struck at the heart of pre-conflict livelihoods. Livelihood strategies for most people are now restricted, poorly remunerated and often associated with high risk of attack. Patterns of coercion and exploitation have also become entrenched; and markets and trade, the lifeblood of Da fur's economy pre-conflict, severely disrupted. Against this backdrop the impact of food aid on livelihoods in Darfur has been overwhelmingly positive. The paper proposes a number of preconditions for investment in recovery in Darfur, and recommends ways in which livelihoods can be supported in the current context of ongoing conflict.     

Constructing a holistic approach to disaster risk reduction: the significance of focusing on vulnerability reduction

As a result of the increase in natural disaster losses, policy‐makers, practitioners, and members of the research community around the world are seeking effective and efficient means of overcoming or minimising them. Although various theoretical constructs are beneficial to understanding the disaster phenomenon and the means of minimising losses, the disaster risk management process becomes less effective if theory and practice are set apart from one another. Consequently, this paper seeks to establish a relationship between two theoretical constructs, ‘disaster risk reduction (DRR)’ and ‘vulnerability reduction’, and to develop a holistic approach to DRR with particular reference to improving its applicability in practical settings. It is based on a literature review and on an overall understanding gained through two case studies of post‐disaster infrastructure reconstruction projects in Sri Lanka and three expert interviews in Sri Lanka and the United Kingdom.     

Housing anxiety and multiple geographies in post-tsunami Sri Lanka

Tsunami intervention has been an extraordinary and unprecedented relief and recovery operation. This article underlines the complexities posed by shelter and housing intervention in post-tsunami Sri Lanka, revealing a pragmatic, reductionist approach to shelter and housing reconstruction in a contested and fragmented environment. Competition, housing anxiety and buffer zone implementation have resulted in compulsory villagisation inland, stirring feelings of discrimination and tension, and becoming major obstacles to equitable rebuilding of houses and livelihoods. A new tsunami geography has been imposed on an already vulnerable conflict-based geography, in which shelter has been conceived as a mono-dimensional artefact. An analysis of the process and outcomes of temporary and permanent post-tsunami housing programmes yields information about the extent to which shelter policies and programmes serve not only physical needs but 'higher order' objectives for a comprehensive and sustainable recovery plan.     

Ethnicity, politics and inequality: post-tsunami humanitarian aid delivery in Ampara District, Sri Lanka

The provision of humanitarian aid at times of disaster in multi-ethnic community settings may lead to conflict, tension and even the widening of the distance between various ethnic groups. That aid agencies distribute humanitarian aid directly to affected communities, to speed up recovery, may often lead to chaos and the intensification of ethnic sentiments. The new distribution mechanisms introduced for the delivery of tsunami aid in Ampara District, Sri Lanka, did not recognise local networks and the culture of the ethnically mixed community setting. This paper analyses post-tsunami aid distribution in Ampara and shows how such an extemporised effort in an ethnically cognisant context increased ethnic division, inequality and disorder, while marginalising the poor segments of the affected population. It recommends the inclusion of local networks in aid dissemination as a measure for improving ethnic neutrality and social harmony in disaster-hit multi-ethnic communities.     

Lessons from a microfinance recapitalisation programme

Following a major disaster, microfinance institutions (MFIs) often face high levels of bad debt, which may require the institutions to be recapitalised. This paper describes a recapitalisation programme implemented by the SANASA movement of Sri Lanka in 390 microfinance societies following the December 2004 tsunami, and highlights lessons for other similar programmes. MFI recapitalisation is a good use of funds in post‐disaster situations. To create successful programmes, donors should expect to relax some of their usual project requirements and MFIs should focus on maintaining credit discipline.     

Arts as a vehicle for community building and post‐disaster development

Use of the arts in international aid is common in an ad hoc form, but it has not been systematically theorised or evaluated. The arts have the potential to be a culturally contextualised and sustainable intervention for adults and children in the aftermath of war or disaster. On the micro level, the arts are a method to enable the retrieval and reprocessing of traumatic memories that are often encoded in images rather than in words. On a macro level, they can help to reconstruct a group narrative of a disaster as well as mobilise people back into control of their lives. This paper researches a long‐term project using arts in Sri Lanka following the civil war and tsunami. A central finding is the need to understand arts within their cultural context, and their usefulness in strengthening the voices and problem‐solving capacities of the victims of the disaster.     

Measuring revealed and emergent vulnerabilities of coastal communities to tsunami in Sri Lanka

This paper presents the important findings of a study undertaken in two selected tsunami-affected coastal cities in Sri Lanka (Batticaloa and Galle) to measure the revealed and emergent vulnerability of coastal communities. International risk studies have failed to demonstrate the high vulnerability of coastal communities to tsunami in Sri Lanka. Therefore, indirect assessment tools to measure pre-event vulnerability have to be complemented by assessment tools that analyse revealed and emergent vulnerability in looking at the aftermath and impact patterns of a real scenario, as well as in examining the dynamics of disaster recovery in which different vulnerabilities can be identified. The paper first presents a conceptual framework for capturing vulnerability within a process-oriented approach linked to sustainable development. Next, it highlights selected indicators and methods to measure revealed and emergent vulnerability at the local level using the examples of Batticaloa and Galle. Finally, it discusses the usefulness and application of vulnerability indicators within the framework of reconstruction.     

Financing of internal displacement: excerpts from the Sri Lankan experience

This paper investigates how internally displaced persons (IDPs) in Batticaloa, Sri Lanka, financed their first year of displacement. We conducted extensive fieldwork in August 2007 in numerous welfare centres in Batticaloa that have received persons displaced from the Mutur divisional secretariat (DS) in the Trincomalee district. The sample was selected from the village of Sampur in Mutur DS. The displaced from Sampur are of Tamil origin and our findings reveal certain coping strategies that may be particular to this community, including the selling or mortgaging of gold jewellery to address the effects of displacement. We found that the IDPs in this region rely heavily on jewellery and other forms of savings to ensure their survival. There is also strong evidence to support the critically important coping role played by livelihoods. These coping strategies have enabled the IDP households in the present sample to live marginally above the poverty line.     

Resilience in the context of tsunami early warning systems and community disaster preparedness in the Indian Ocean Region

This paper discusses insights from post-tsunami early warning system (EWS) development in Thailand, Sri Lanka and Indonesia by analysing selected elements of resilience, based on the Coastal Community Resilience (CCR) framework, and by distinguishing between the cognitive, normative and procedural dimensions of EWSs. The findings indicate that (1) recent calls to develop participatory and people-centred EWSs as promoted by the Hyogo Framework for Action 2005—2015 have not been sufficiently translated into action in the implementation of national policies and strategies for early warning; (2) policy and guidance places significantly more emphasis on the procedural compared to the normative and cognitive dimensions of EWSs; (3) practitioners engaged in early warning and disaster risk reduction operate in contexts shaped by multiple stakeholder agendas and face considerable challenges in negotiating diverse needs and priorities; and (4) few platforms currently exist that enable stakeholders to coordinate and reconcile agendas, negotiate joint targets, share knowledge and critically reflect on lessons learnt, and to improve the integration of early warning with other priorities such as livelihoods improvement, natural resource management and community development.     

Livelihoods,precarity, and disaster vulnerability: Nicaragua and Hurricane Mitch

How livelihoods determine vulnerability to disasters is a recent topic of inquiry. Few quantitative works have been produced to date. The empirical analysis that follows draws on household‐level data available for Nicaragua, preceding and following Hurricane Mitch, a devastating Category 5 storm that made landfall in Central America in October 1998, to examine differentials in disaster recovery outcomes vis‐à‐vis household livelihood profiles. Livelihoods are distinguished according to economic sector along with ownership of productive means, a central mechanism of vulnerability under sociological labour frameworks. The findings indicate uneven recovery outcomes in relation to livelihoods. During the year immediately following the event, agricultural wage earners and agricultural owner‐producers experienced marked losses owing to the disaster, whereas business owners saw an improvement in condition. Analysis of long‐term recovery reveals that households reliant on agricultural wage employment exhibit lagged recovery relative to other livelihood profiles. The findings are discussed with respect to the dynamic pressures posed by contemporary developmental processes.     

Civil society development versus the peace dividend: international aid in the Wanni

Donors that provide aid to the Wanni region of Sri Lanka, which is controlled by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), are promoting initiatives that seek to advance the national peace process. Under the rubric of post-conflict reconstruction, the actions of political forces and structural factors have led to the prioritisation of two different approaches to peace-building: community capacity-building projects; and support for the 'peace dividend'. Both of these approaches face challenges. Cooperation with civil society actors is extremely difficult due to intimidation by the LTTE political authority and the authoritarian nature of its control. Peace-building successes with respect to the peace dividend are difficult to measure, and must be balanced against the negative effects of misdirected funds. Aid organisations must be careful not to consider the tasks of peacebuilding, humanitarian relief and community empowerment as either interchangeable or as mutually reinforcing endeavours.     

The Role of Food Aid in Drought and Recovery: Oxfam's North Turkana (Kenya) Drought Relief Programme, 1992–94

Regional droughts carry the seeds of catastrophe: the immediate risk is famine; the long-term risk is destitution. Preventing both situations is an appropriate, if not essential, goal for relief agencies. In the past, responses to hunger in Turkana District (north-west Kenya) have taken the form of traditional feeding programmes. A better understanding of the boom/bust cycles in pastoralist systems has, however, produced new relief strategies. A central tenet of these strategies is the acceptance that relief aid should assume two roles: humanitarian—to overcome food deficits—and economic—to overcome 'income' deficits. Arguments in favour of a broader role for food aid are tested with a case study of a drought relief programme in north Turkana between 1992–1994. Field studies confirmed that when food aid is integrated as an asset into household resources, it can strengthen economic recovery. Ultimately, the extent to which relief operations are able to protect both people's lives and their livelihoods is the key to more sustainable development in drought-prone areas.     

Violence and complex humanitarian emergencies: implications for livelihoods models

This paper explores the nature of the violence that characterises complex humanitarian emergencies and the related implications for modelling livelihoods systems. While noting the importance of livelihoods approaches in complex humanitarian emergencies, it deliberates the limitations of sustainable livelihoods frameworks when applied in environments marked by protracted instability. Adaptations to the model are discussed, with a particular focus on the relationships among violence, assets and liabilities within livelihoods systems. Political economy of violence theories intimate that the assets on which livelihoods systems are constructed in peaceful times may instead become life-and livelihood-threatening liabilities in periods of conflict. Adaptations to livelihood systems in violent settings require that analysts consider violence from policy, institutional and process perspectives. It is suggested that vulnerability should be re-conceptualised as endogenous to livelihoods systems in violent settings. Building on the work of others, a livelihoods model adapted for complex humanitarian emergencies is presented.     

Examining the impacts of disaster resettlement from a livelihood perspective: a case study of Qinling Mountains,China

Disaster resettlement, as a mitigation and preparedness measure, entails significant economic, physical, and social impacts, which continue to challenge understanding of recovery from major events, especially regarding the extent of the context and environmental efforts to rebuild livelihoods. Based on a case study of Qinling Mountains, China, this research investigates the effects of disaster resettlement from a livelihoods perspective. Methodologically, it proposes a framework that combines the pressure–state–response framework and the sustainable livelihoods approach, and it employs a structural equation model to examine how specific factors affect disaster resettlement. The results indicate that conflicts may occur during and after resettlement owing to the difference or disparity between the concerns of resettled peasants and those of the government. Consequently, the risks related to livelihoods need to be taken seriously. Effective risk communication is critical to bridge the gap between different stakeholders. The paper concludes with some practical and policy recommendations.     

Social capital and the political economy of violence: a case study of Sri Lanka

This article examines the links between militarised violence and social capital (trans)formation. It first maps out emerging theoretical and policy debates on social capital and violent conflict and questions a number of the assumptions underpinning these debates. This is followed by an empirical analysis of several war-affected communities in Sri Lanka. The case studies illustrate that the links between militarised violence and social capital are complex, dynamic and context specific. It is argued that social capital cannot be understood in isolation from political and economic processes, and the belief that violent conflict inevitably erodes social capital is questioned. Finally, the implications for external agencies are highlighted. Rather than focusing on engineering social capital, external agencies need to focus on understanding better the preconditions for social capital formation and how they can contribute to the creation of an enabling environment. This requires as a starting-point a rigorous analysis of political and economic processes.     

Livelihoods,conflict and aid programming: is the evidence base good enough?

In conflict‐affected situations, aid‐funded livelihood interventions are often tasked with a dual imperative: to generate material welfare benefits and to contribute to peacebuilding outcomes. There may be some logic to such a transformative agenda, but does the reality square with the rhetoric? Through a review of the effectiveness of a range of livelihood promotion interventions—from job creation to microfinance—this paper finds that high quality empirical evidence is hard to come by in conflict‐affected situations. Many evaluations appear to conflate outputs with impacts and numerous studies fail to include adequate information on their methodologies and datasets, making it difficult to appraise the reliability of their conclusions. Given the primary purpose of this literature—to provide policy guidance on effective ways to promote livelihoods—this silence is particularly concerning. As such, there is a strong case to be made for a restrained and nuanced handling of such interventions in conflict‐affected settings.