Boxing Day 2004 tsunami review: Government, UN and NGOs' dismal housing effort in Aceh
Aid organisations blame land issuess, but other big reasons are revealed in AC's two years review for Engineers Australia magazine, December 2006 issue.
7 Dec 06 - Oxfam: More than 25,000 landless families still waiting in barracks
4 Dec 06 - Reuters: Aceh survivors need an estimated 128,000 homes, but only 43,400 built so far
18 Sep 06: Survivor, not supply orientation leads NGOs' main lessons from big tsunami spend: Customer, not supply orientation: Aid organisations are still talking about it - what businesses leant in the 1970s; what goverments sold their businesses for in the '80s and 90's to make happen. Highlighting the NGO association ACFID's report on lessons learnt from the Tsunami, in seminar 4 Aug 06 attended by 21 ACFID-member NGOs.
12 Sep 06: Lazy giving does not work! Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation pushes NGOs, in a confidence boost for disillusioned donors: Microsoft-type best practice being introduced in the aid industry could force NGOs to be more accountable in the way they compete for and use funds.
TEC recommends media to be targeted to explain what makes an effective donor - the TEC report said: "The media should be targeted for such education, to improve the quality of reporting on disasters and funding for disasters."
Inevitable that donors will be put off by poor reconstruction record in Aceh - 6 Aug 06 - New York Times reviews TEC report.
DRR (Disaster Risk Reduction): TEC's points for aid community action with host governments - Tsunami Evauation Coalition makes action points about DRR principles, "previously advocated by rarely adequately funded or supported".
TEC July 2006 Executive Summary with top links added to drill-down to key paragraphs - From July 2006 report of the Tsunami Evaluation Coalition, with Bill Clinton's forward, then the Executive Summary unedited, with source links at the bottom below Summary Recommendation.
TEC Report highlights from Agence France-Presse 13 Jul 06 - from a press report when Tsunami Evaluation Coalition issued the Synthesis Report.
7 Dec 06: Oxfam warns on Aceh's homeless - Source http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/6214666.stm
Over 25,000 poor and landless families in Aceh, Indonesia are missing out on the rebuilding programme and have yet to be re-housed nearly two years after the tsunami washed away their homes and destroyed their land, international aid agency Oxfam warned today.
Aceh is the largest reconstruction project in the developing world and a lot of work has been done already, thanks to the generous international response and prompt action by the Indonesian government. So far over a third of the 128,000 houses needed have been built.
But land rights are a major obstacle in re-housing the landless. Many landless people are still languishing in barracks: temporary buildings where many families live in cramped, often unhygienic conditions.
Today Oxfam issued a new report, "The Tsunami Two Years On: Land Rights in Aceh," and urged the Indonesian government to find a fair and just way of re-housing the landless.
"Aceh has made enormous strides towards recovering from the tsunami," said Jeremy Hobbs, director of Oxfam International. "But two years after the tsunami struck, the poorest Acehnese – squatters, renters and women – are still facing a crisis over when and where they will be resettled.
"The lack of a clear policy for landless people has led to a huge amount of uncertainty and delay. There's a risk these people will end up in the slums of the future, despite the huge amounts generously given after the tsunami."
Aceh, the northern province of the island of Sumatra, was the region worst affected by the tsunami of 26 Dec 2004. Around 169,000 people were killed, 600,000 made homeless and 141,000 houses destroyed.
Aceh is the largest reconstruction project in the developing world but Oxfam's new report highlights the difficulties that must be tackled:
- Most of the land titles in the province were destroyed or made illegible – 15 tonnes of records have been sent to Jakarta to be restored.
- Most people lost all their identification documents.
- Land was submerged – up to 15% of western Aceh's agricultural land could be permanently lost.
- There was a huge number of inheritance claims.
- The trees and paths which marked out plots of land were washed away.
"Rebuilding homes without knowing who owns the land could create problems in the future," said Hobbs. "But this can be a desperately difficult and slow process. Oxfam has been working with tens of villages in Aceh to help people decide how to reallocate land so everyone has somewhere to live."
Around 10,000 households who owned property before the tsunami now need resettling because their land became submerged or was ruined. The Indonesian government has bought 700 hectares of land for them but progress is slow – only 700 houses have been built and occupied.
Many poorer Acehnese rented their homes, or squatted on state-owned or private land. There are 15,000 households of renters and squatters who need new land to live on. They do not qualify for any new land or housing but are being given a cash grant. Oxfam fears this is not enough help for the people most in need. Given the slow pace of reconstruction their money will be eaten up by Aceh's high inflation before a new house is ready for them.
Together these groups form the bulk of those suffering in the barracks. Oxfam is calling for the Indonesian government to adopt and effectively implement a range of new policies which would offer more protection for the landless and renters and squatters.
The agency wants to see:
- A commitment by the Indonesian government and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) to find a long-term solution to the barracks problem.
- Better cooperation between the Indonesian government and NGOs in Aceh to create a range of options for renters and squatters.
- Where possible, a process of resettlement done on a village-by-village basis with the agreement of all members of the village.
- Rental agreements restored.
Contact
For more information, please contact:
Sean Kenny, +44 1865 472 359
Christelle Chapoy, +62 812 69 88 064
Notes to Editors
1. The damage to Aceh in the tsunami was estimated at over US$4.5bn (£2.3bn). A quarter of Aceh's population lost their jobs in the tsunami.
2. Over 150,000 hectares of agricultural land became unsuitable for growing crops after it was inundated with mud and salt water.
3. Oxfam has helped over 474,000 people. It has supplied over 40m liters of water and given jobs to over 100,000 people, built over 30 bridges and over 100km of roads. Up to Sept 2006 Oxfam had spent US$67m in Aceh and aims to spend US$104m over four years.
4. The Indonesian government is aiming to title 600,000 plots of land through the Reconstruction of Aceh's Land Administration System (RALAS) project. By mid-2006 RALAS had only issued 2,608 land certificates.
5. Up to November 2006, 48,000 houses had been built in Aceh. The target is 128,000.
6. There are 70,000 people living in around 150 barracks across Aceh.
Housing in Indonesia's Aceh needs 2007 resolution
04 Dec 2006 Source: Reuters http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/JAK266013.htm
By Jerry Norton
BANDA ACEH, Indonesia, Dec. 4 (Reuters) - Problems that keep thousands living in temporary shelters in Indonesia nearly two years after a tsunami wiped out their homes need to be resolved by the end of 2007, a top U.N. recovery official said on Monday.
Indonesia's Aceh province was hardest hit among areas in the region affected by the Dec. 26 Indian Ocean tsunami. The disaster left some 170,000 dead or missing in Aceh and displaced half a million people.
Of 128,000 permanent homes required for the displaced, only 43,400 have been built, according to U.N. figures. Aside from some 12,000 families still in barracks, thousands more are in transitional shelters or staying with other people.
"The housing issue, basic human shelter, has to be solved by the end of 2007," Eric Morris, U.N. recovery coordinator for Aceh, told Reuters in an interview.
"I think there are concerns that it may go over a bit, to 2008, but I think at this stage it's quite important ... let's try and make it by the end of 2007."
One barrier to getting people into permanent housing has been the difficulty in establishing land titles. The tsunami destroyed a large number of property records, and many people in Aceh, on Sumatra island's northern tip, lacked clear titles to start with.
Former U.S. President Bill Clinton, in his role as U.N. special tsunami envoy, stressed in a visit to Aceh on Saturday the need to "remove backlogs and speed up the land titling process, so that hundreds of thousands of Acehnese obtain the security of title that they so deserve."
Getting more people in permanent housing on their own land could help resolve other challenges of the recovery process like a lack of good jobs, Morris said.
By one estimate the tsunami wiped out 600,000 jobs, with fisheries, agriculture and small trade sectors among those most affected.
"I think that there's a relationship between provision of housing and land and creation of sustainable livelihoods. Once people have those assets they then move on to create new assets and to generate money," Morris said.
Ends
Highlighting the NGO association ACFID's report on lessons learnt from the Tsunami, in seminar 4 Aug 06 attended by
21 ACFID-member NGOs
AC’s 12 highlights
– click these to see context from report in italics:
2. A key
objective – need to apply the lessons this time, not just learn/unlearn as
before
3. Lesson
learned about shelter – better to engage the community in building on site
4. How
to turnaround survivor dissatisfaction
5. Lack
of coordination between NGOs including in procurement/warehousing, common
vouchers
6. Change
to survivor instead of supply-oriented approach
7. To
empower women in the aid-giving process
8. Coordination
so survivors’ expectations aren’t raised unrealistically
9. About
disappointing donor response to conflict disasters compared to tsunami disaster
10. Process-oriented
people are needed once the situation moves to reconstruction
11. NGOs’
negative affects on crisis communities
On Friday 4 August 2006 ACFID held a seminar in
Sydney for its members to discuss common challenges and lessons learnt from
their response to the humanitarian emergency caused by the Indian Ocean tsunami
of December 26th 2004. Thirty-nine participants from 21 member agencies, 2
non-member agencies and ACFID took part. The seminar comprised an introduction,
three sessions, each followed by a plenary, and a final general discussion
session drawing together the main themes, lessons and suggestions for action by
the sector, followed by an evaluation of the day. The three sessions covered
shelter projects, evaluation studies, and a range of projects with a focus on
gender, disability, children and the environment.
II. Introductory
session
In preparing for the seminar presenters had
been asked to be analytical and reflective. To put this agency analysis in
context, this short session reflected on the enormous scale of the disaster and
the response, and the difficulties/constraints encountered:
o pre-existing
vulnerabilities in affected communities e.g. poverty, gender inequalities,
civil war, etc.
o sometimes
confusing, bureaucratic, centralised policies, distrust or corruption
o the
enormous scale of the response from the international community; and,
o what
was achieved in relief operations, especially the prevention of epidemics.
Participants were asked to keep in mind
throughout the day some of the key themes/findings outlined in the report of
the Tsunami Evaluation Coalition (TEC) :
o Coordination
o Needs
assessment: supply driven
o Impact
of the international response on local and national capacities
o Provision
of information to affected communities
o Links
amongst disaster preparedness relief-recovery-longer term development efforts
o Funding
response
The current international appeals system
delivers variable amounts of funding bearing little correlation with real needs
on a global level .
There are two other areas of work in which
ACFID is engaged that relate to issues
arising in the tsunami response. One is the constraint of human resources in
the sector and the other is the ongoing work on defining and ensuring
development effectiveness.
In recent years ACFID members have been
increasingly faced with difficulties in recruiting and retaining quality
program staff. To address these issues in a systematic way an ACFID Human
Resources Task Group has recently formed. Human resource constraints within our
members and the wider international community were apparent in the tsunami response.
Development/program effectiveness: the question
still needs to be asked from whose perspective? As NGOs who have signed on to
the NGO Effectiveness Framework one of our important areas of focus in our
programs should be on empowerment of beneficiaries and local-national
ownership.
Most importantly, we need to do something with
the lessons, which we seem to learn/unlearn time and again. As
Turning principles into practice.
III. Session
One: Shelter
All presenters noted that their agencies faced
the challenge of trying to achieve a balance between the expectations of a
number of stakeholders:
• Being
responsive to beneficiary needs and encouraging a participatory approach to the
reconstruction efforts
• Working
together with foreign governments
• Meeting
donor expectations
• Mobilising
building materials and expertise of adequate quality across large geographical
areas including remote locations cost
implications
• Meeting
all requirements including technical and planning standards across different
countries
Other key points: on site construction is
almost always preferable. It is better to allow people to stay in their own
communities and rebuild, than be off-site in temporary shelter, and dependent
on aid. Lead by example – e.g. only accepting quality building materials and
avoiding competition between agencies, which drives up prices. This is easier
said than done.
Various models were used even within the one
agency, e.g. community-driven contracting housing model and contractor-built
participatory housing model. There is no one right model for a specific context
and community. Obviously community consultation is paramount. There is a
growing body of literature concerning the advantages and risks of different
approaches .
An important dilemma is the development of new
inequities between those whose houses were destroyed and those whose were not
in the same communities.
There was a strong interest in ongoing dialogue
amongst ACFID members and others working in the shelter sector.
IV. Session
Two: Evaluation studies
What is Accountability?
ACFID: involve beneficiary groups to the maximum
extent possible in the design, implementation and evaluation of projects and
programs
HAP-I Principles commit signatories to fully
account for their actions (to all stakeholders), involve beneficiaries in the
project cycle, establish mechanisms for complaint and redress, inform
beneficiaries about, and work to, transparent standards (e.g. Sphere and the
Code of Conduct), demonstrating compliance through monitoring and reporting.
What are evaluations saying?
Fritz Institute: Beneficiary satisfaction with response
is decreasing.
TEC: There is a need to develop an aid
principle based on the right to seek, receive and impart information.
Oxfam’s experience:
o These
processes have been useful: use of notice boards, community meetings to discuss
program and financial information, local media and complaints boxes
o Cannot
rely always on partners’ mechanisms to provide adequate information to
beneficiaries and to hear complaints
o In
trying to mainstream “HAP-I” through a Program Quality Unit, there have been
mixed results with implementers sometimes feeling there was yet another layer
to deal with
o Dilemma
of how to be accountable to the non-tsunami affected who may have become more
marginalized by the relief effort
The main findings of a joint evaluation
conducted by World Vision, Care, Oxfam and CRS included:
1. Affirmed
that improved coordination and outcomes for beneficiaries and donors expected
if there were joint assessments at the outset of a response
2. The
lack of institutional knowledge and communication between key agencies
3. Ensure
that senior management takes responsibility for coordination and that it is not
delegated to junior staff
4. Recognise
the value of locally engaged staff and the expertise they bring
5. Look
at outcomes and impacts rather than outputs
6. Greater
community participation/ownership leads to more effective outcomes - time
trade-off
7. Procurement
and warehousing would benefit from better coordination
8. Introducing
vouchers can revitalise an economy
At the international level discussions are
taking place through the IWG funded by Gates foundation on how best to conduct
joint assessments.
The Tsunami Evaluation Coalition (TEC)
This coalition began in February 2005 to
improve quality and accountability to both donors and beneficiaries, and to
test a model for future evaluations of humanitarian responses. A key underlying
question is how do we get our systems to function and deliver when so much
money is raised?
TEC has made a number of recommendations. Those
of most resonance to participants at this seminar were:
1. The
international humanitarian community needs to change from being suppliers of
aid to facilitators of communities’ own relief and recovery priorities.
2. Increase
the linkages and coherence between different components of the disaster
response system, i.e. joint assessments, effective co-ordination, better
information sharing.
3. International
donors and agencies should treat recovery activities as development
interventions rather than as extensions to relief operations.
4. Aid
agencies need to significantly increase their accountability and transparency
to both aid recipients and the donor public.
5. The
international relief system should establish an accreditation system to
distinguish between agencies that work to a professional standard in a
particular sector from those that do not or have not done so.
6. All
actors need to make the current funding system more efficient, flexible,
transparent and in line with principles of good donor-ship.
Clinton-NGO Impact Initiative is related to but
separate from TEC. Papers are available for agencies interested in providing
feed-back to this initiative via ACFID on issues raised in these papers. This
needs to be done before October when
V. Session
Three: Inclusion
Women, children and people with disabilities
are often marginalized in development programs, and are perhaps even more
vulnerable in emergency response situations. Women should be empowered not
dis-empowered by processes used during relief and transitional phases, and
there are usually protection issues to consider.
Disability is not just about physical
disabilities, but also what is disabling - infrastructure and attitudes. People
with disabilities are often excluded from community consultations and as a
result, their special needs are not considered.
Apart from reunification with parents and
protection, children have special needs such as safe play areas, education and
health services. Agencies, which focus on women, disability and children, have
approaches and tools which will be of assistance in ensuring inclusion by other
agencies.
VI. What
would we do differently? What do we take forward?
1.
Even if it means a delay in doing assessments,
the advantages in this type of coordination amongst NGOs are many:
a. less
false raising of expectations amongst affected communities
b. reduction
in territoriality by agencies
c. drawing on and building local and
national capacity
d. more
efficient use of donor funds
This will require agencies to have agreed in
principle on this in advance of an emergency and would be most effective if the
teams were able to meet before deployment.
2.
Ensuring adequate effective information flows to affected communities
Beneficiaries have a right to information and
need it if they are to be in genuine partnership with agencies, so that we
empower not dis-empower local and national organisations and provide effective
assistance.
3.
Managing the expectations of beneficiaries, of local staff, of
volunteers and of donors at all stages of response and this will require
ongoing implementation of effective communication strategies.
4.
Review our fund-raising/appeals systems in order not to exceed our own
absorptive capacity and to spread funds more equitably globally to humanitarian
emergencies, particularly as natural disasters raise more funds than conflict
situations.
For consideration:
i. Individual
NGOs deciding at the out-set of an appeal what their cut-off point is for
closing the appeal
ii. Educating
the public to understand that:
a. Funds are needed beyond the relief phase
into longer-term development phases for
affected communities; and that
b. There may be marginalized people in
proximity to disaster/ conflict affected communities and they may become more
marginalized if development programs are not extended to them as well
iii. More agencies using tick boxes on donation
forms so people can allow their funding to be used for other relief and
development projects elsewhere if/when it is expected that excess funds will be
raised for a particular emergency.
5. The quality and mix of our human resources
must be improved
This is an ongoing issue for the Australian NGO
sector across the whole emergency-development continuum. As a generalisation,
emergency personnel are more task orientated, while development personnel are
more process orientated. We recognise that relief, moves into recovery, which
moves into development, when we need expatriate personnel who are more process
and participation-orientated. At the beginning of a response it is important to
have in the team personnel with experience in long-term community development
in order that transitions can be made.
Having the right personnel at each phase is an
important component of accountability to both beneficiaries and donors. Hence
accreditation of personnel could contribute to accountability. ACFID’s newly
formed Human Resources Task Group is in the early stages of developing a
concept paper on this topic for the sector. HAP-I is examining an international
accreditation system and work has been done by European NGOs in the Bioforce
project. All of these initiatives need to be considered in taking this issue
forward. Several participants cautioned against going down the accreditation
track. Some felt that peer reviews of personnel and agencies by in-country
partners offered a useful alternative, which could ensure quality of personnel
being engaged.
6. Encouraging the use of inclusive approaches
by all agencies
From the very beginning of the response the
special needs of children and people with disabilities need to be considered
and women’s views and needs included in all aspects of planning. Agencies with
expertise in inclusive approaches and tools can be drawn upon to mainstream
inclusiveness.
7.
Minimising the negative impacts of our presence
NGOs in collaboration with other international
organisations could map out expected negative impacts of their involvement on
communities and local land national organisations e.g. due to their lifestyle,
the contribution of their projects to inflation, etc., monitor and take action
to minimise these. A representative of FHF offered to develop a concept paper
on this for review by ACFID’s Humanitarian Reference Group and by participants.
8. Drawing on the collective experience to use
the most appropriate approach in specific contexts. For example, in shelter
work there are a number of approaches the strengths and weaknesses of which
have been well documented in the literature, and at this seminar.
VII. Feed-back
from participants
At the end of the day participants were invited
to provide feed-back. There was a high degree of satisfaction with the format
and content of the day and desire for ongoing dialogue and cooperation to
progress the issues summarised above. What was of interest to many and which
did not come out sufficiently in discussions was what agencies have learnt
about themselves and how if at all they have changed their processes as a
result of this learning. Many also felt that in future such meetings Human
Resource managers need to be encouraged to participate.
The secretariat noted that the intention had been to have presentations from human resource managers and communication and fund-raising areas but no papers had been received. Given that many of the issues to take forward involved these personnel, ACFID plans to hold another seminar for these personnel, addressing communication and fund-raising issues before the end of 2006.
• States should also set targets for national funding of DRR: If appealing for disaster response funding, they should design appeals to include funding for long-term DRR strategies and not just short- or medium-term relief and recovery.
The Executive Summary of TEC's July 2006 Synthesis Report is given in full, with key paragraphs linked to make this top overview.
Click these links to see these overviewed paragraphs in the context of the report Executive Summary and Bill Clinton's forward.
Foreword by the United Nations Secretary-General's
Special Envoy for Tsunami Recovery (Bill Clinton)
TEC
Synthesis Report [issued Jul 06]:
This report
synthesises the five Tsunami Evaluation Coalition (TEC) thematic evaluation reports,
2 Constraints and
achievements
3 Accountability,
ownership and recovery
5 INTERNATIONAL
RELIEF CAPACITY AND QUALITY
‘Poaching’ of
staff from national or local organisations can have mixed results:
Nonetheless, the
TEC reports show numerous examples of poor coordination.
Humanitarian
agencies have much to learn from the successful approach adopted by the IFIs:
The
recommendations [including a system of accreditation and certification] are:
In the immediate weeks following the
Therefore, I was greatly encouraged to see, in the early months of 2005,
an historic, collaborative process to evaluate key elements of the relief
and recovery effort. The TEC represents an extraordinary effort at reflection,
self-criticism and transparency. The studies it has sponsored, and this
Synthesis Report, provide an invaluable, independent account of how the tsunami
response has proceeded so far.
As reflected in the pages that follow, our efforts to respond to the tsunami
have placed in sharp relief both strengths and weaknesses in the way we
organize ourselves when faced with such massive challenges. Indeed, the report
includes both praise and uncomfortable reading, but the honesty of the analysis
does us all a great service.
This report and the companion thematic studies identify important lessons and
an agenda for reform that deserve careful analysis and an appropriate response.
They help us to see how we can and must do better in responding to ongoing and
future disaster relief and recovery challenges.
To my mind, the overriding messages of this report are three-fold:
First, we must do better at utilizing and working alongside local structures. With nothing but good intentions, the international community descends into crisis situations in enormous numbers and its activities too often leave the very communities we are there to help on the sidelines.