Policy Recommendations on Post-Earthquake Housing
Reconstruction in Jogyakarta and Central Java

Ministry of Housing in cooperation with UN-HABITAT

On 29 August 2006, the Ministry of Housing, together with the Provincial Government of D.I. Jogyakarta, UGM[1], JJAR[2] and UN-HABITAT[3] organized a seminar in Jogyakarta on lessons-learned from Aceh and Nias, under the title:

“Mendampingi Masyarakat Korban Bencana untuk Membangun Kembali Rumah yang Lebih Baik. Belajar dari Aceh dan Nias.” [4]

Program managers, district managers of housing programs and facilitators of Re-Kompak (PU and World Bank/MDF), UPLINK, Habitat for Humanity, Universitas Syiah Kuala, Muslim Aid and UN-HABITAT presented their experiences in working with communities and contractors and in preparing, facilitating, monitoring and evaluating aid programs.

Lessons-learned from Aceh and Nias.
So far about 30,000 houses could be completed and another 20,000 are under construction. The houses are mostly of modest (but not bad) quality and in many cases, the surrounding infrastructure is still incomplete. Beneficiaries are still unsure about the future, but are reasonably satisfied with the new houses and the processes which delivered them. Considering the fact that over 50 active organisations have been providing the majority of housing through community-based approaches, the participants of the seminar agreed upon the following lessons-learned :

Community-based housing reconstruction works well, because…

• it responds quickly to urgent needs and thus achieves relief at an early stage
• it mobilizes solidarity among the members of a community and therefore creates social capital
• it allows women to be a part of the reconstruction process
• it strengthens local institutions
• it can achieve good planning and does not exclude high quality results
• it can limit disaster vulnerability
• it can be done with good monitoring and it can achieve adequate accountability

Wholesome recovery of housing and livelihoods must be encouraged and communities must be allowed to set their own priorities within the rebuilding process.

Often expectations on time, quality and involvement are set unrealistically. Communities must be able to set their own priorities and define their own timing. This may imply that at first safe rooms or core houses are built or that damaged houses which can be shared are repaired.

Good management is crucial.
Shortcomings in the management which can obstruct the implementation process include: slow management; insufficient information for the public; issuance of technical standards which lack in clarity and simple usefulness; lack of adequate construction materials; areas of operation are geographically scattered.

Facilitators and laborers need continuous training.
The work of facilitators is crucial, but it risks failing, if the training of laborers is insufficient. Facilitators, supervisors and monitors should also continuously be trained and certified on their knowledge of technical standards.

Good governance through transparency
Community based reconstruction also requires work on governance issues at village level. It should be encouraged to report fraud to the authorities. Furthermore agencies should commit themselves to accept and process complaints.
Open information to communities is crucial.
Broad scale support to the involved communities is required continuously and should include the dissemination of standards and the information concerning rights and access to support.

Coordination is best done locally.
Coordination is best to be decentralized to apropriate lower institutional levels.
The Government’s role as a regulator needs to be strong.
The prime role of government is to regulate and to integrate for longer term recovery, as lots of immediate reconstruction turns out to be piecemeal. In this respect clear technical standards and the guaranteeing of their broad acceptance is a crucial point. In addition to that the reliable support on logistics and material availability is a key factor.
Housing organizations must strengthen networking and organize outreach.
Governmental and non-governmental organizations need to set up sustainable network organizations, which are capable to institutionalize disaster relief action in the field of housing on a local level. These networks can also increase multi-stakeholder preparedness for natural disasters and establish resource centers that organize the outreach to local communities.

Recommendations for Jogyakarta and Central Java Reconstruction.

Large-scale community-based reconstruction of housing needs facilitation. In Aceh and Nias, facilitation has been most often organized by non-governmental and multilateral organisations. In Yogyakarta and Central Java, these organisations will not have sufficient funding to provide sufficient facilitation. Based on experience in Aceh and Nias, the following recommendations are therefore made with regard to the provision of adequate facilitation for community-based reconstruction in Yogyakarta and Central Java.

Facilitation is a Government service.
The concept of facilitation should not be limited to hiring facilitators, or worse, to paying construction supervisors. Facilitation is a support system set up and maintained during reconstruction and kept ready for new post-disaster response by the Government. In the implementation process the Government can cooperate with partner stakeholder organizations like NGOs, or CBOs. In order to communicate to stakeholder what role they are expected to take, local government must setup a guideline. This guideline includes: coordination mechanism, resource mobilization, monitoring and evaluation.

Facilitation starts with training large numbers of workers.
If the construction workers are not well trained in earthquake safe construction, communities and facilitators/supervisors cannot achieve earthquake safe rebuilding. Training needs to involve communities, professional organizations and educational institutions. It must be consistent and continuous.

Facilitation is also providing all communities with readily accessible resources.
Communities need to be given easy access to information on rights and choices, financing resources, technical standards and training-on-demand. Local housing resource centers need to provide information and aggregate feedback on needs, performance and satisfaction.

Facilitation requires clear implementation policies and oversight agencies.
The government needs to have a one-door institution on standards, monitoring and quality assurance, whilst coordination and standards enforcement can be decentralized.

Facilitation by volunteers should be encouraged by the Government.
Not all facilitation must necessarily be professionally organized, as the resources are always limited. The government needs to encourage community facilitation on a volunteer basis. It could also reward non-governmental organizations that offer facilitation on a fully or partially volunteering basis. Universities must introduce standard policies of engaging students and rewarding them for their field engagement.
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[1] Universitas Gajah Mada, Faculty of Engineering
[2] Jogya-Jateng Archquick Response
[3] UN-HABITAT’s Aceh Nias Settlement Support Programme, funded by UNDP
[4] Facilitating Disaster Affected Communities to Rebuild Better Housing. Learning from Aceh and Nias.

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