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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):

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

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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):

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

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CARE and CENDEP USAID/BHA Shelter and Settlements Review

Research objectives:

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

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

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  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

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Those on map plus BBC Media Action, IOM, NSET

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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.

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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

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  • 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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