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To document and learn from the challenges and successes of over twenty years of Shelter & Settlement humanitarian responses funded by USAID/BHA (then OFDA):

  • in Afghanistan from 2002 to 2021
  • after the 2013 Typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines
  • after the 2015 earthquakes in Nepal.

CARE and CENDEP USAID/BHA Shelter and Settlements Review

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To document and learn from the challenges and successes of over twenty years of Shelter & Settlement humanitarian responses funded by USAID/BHA (then OFDA):

  • in Afghanistan from 2002 to 2021
  • after the 2013 Typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines
  • after the 2015 earthquakes in Nepal.

CARE and CENDEP USAID/BHA Shelter and Settlements Review

Research objectives:

  1. To document, as far as possible, the extent and nature of Shelter and Settlements programming.

  1. To document the intended and actual outcomes and impact of Shelter and Settlements programming.

  1. To identify findings and recommendations to improve future Shelter and Settlements programming.

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CRS provided interim support for communities displaced and facing relocation through a ‘menu of options’:

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11 INGOs were funded to implement S&S programming in severely hit districts

Those on map plus BBC Media Action, IOM, NSET

Mostly emergency distributions in 6-month projects

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In the gap between emergency assistance and reconstruction, people lived in inadequate conditions in ‘long-term temporary’ shelters.

Issues of widespread debt, incomplete and inadequate houses suggest the need to consider transitional solutions and a longer-term and more holistic approach to humanitarian assistance which connects with development actors

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Afghanistan

Program trends:

Mixed initial emergency response (2002-2005)

Multi-sectoral integrated urban response (2006-2010)

Transitional shelter programs (2010-2019)

Preparedness, DRR and resilience programs (2013-18)

Later return to area-based programming

Context:

Ongoing conflict, political instability, returning refugees, high risk from natural hazards leading to widespread displacement and high shelter needs

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Importance of shelter assistance:

  • Responds to a basic housing and protection needs
  • Supports multiple non-shelter outcomes
  • Enhances people’s ability to recover and to look to their future development
  • Contributes to social stability, integration and increased resilience

Elements for effective and sustainable shelter assistance:

  • Level of engagement with communities and local authorities contributes to longer term governance
  • Access to land and engagement with housing, land and property rights is a key factor
  • Cash for shelter stimulates the local economy
  • Area-based approaches which build on what people have already started provide holistic support
  • Enhancing communities cohesion through improvement of public infrastructure
  • Adaptive and flexible programming supports locally driven initiatives
  • Longer term programming and funding recognises and responds to the humanitarian-development nexus

Greater attention should be paid to knowledge management and evaluation to support learning and improvement

Afghanistan Findings

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Emerging themes from the three country contexts

  • Importance and wider impacts of shelter
  • Area-based, /holistic approach
  • Community-centered programming/localization
  • HLP
  • Recovery and transition
  • Impact measurement

  • The significance of shelter: maximizing impact through shelter and settlements assistance
  • Making space: the potential for area-based approaches to maximize the impacts of humanitarian response
  • Going local: benefits and implications of community-centered programming in shelter and settlements assistance and outcomes
  • H(e)LP! Addressing security of tenure as a key barrier to impactful shelter and settlements programming
  • Relief or recovery: the both/and potential of shelter and settlements assistance
  • When will we learn? Reflections on investing in research to improve shelter and settlements programming

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