- Executive Summary
This review was commissioned by the Shelter Unit of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies(IFRC) Secretariat to report on progress in its shelter early recovery programme two years into the operation and to identify challenges and successes that can be used to inform the next stages of the Haiti operation as well as inform IFRC shelter programmes globally. The review is limited to the shelter early recovery operation directly implemented by the IFRC Secretariat and is not a review of the Federation-wide shelter operation in Haiti.
There was a critical need to find shelter solutions following the January 2010 earthquake in Haiti, with an estimated one and a half million people displaced and an estimated 250,000 houses damaged or destroyed. The majority of the affected population was living in formal and informal camps for the internally displaced, mostly in the national capital of Port au Prince. The emergency shelters in the camps were either tents or basic structures made from tarpaulins or plastic and were not appropriate for the longer term and would provide only limited protection from rain and flooding as well as being exposed to the threat of seasonal hurricanes.
The IFRC responded quickly to the disaster with emergency and recovery assessment teams, emergency response units for relief, mass sanitation, water and sanitation, logistics, telecommunications, basic health care and base camps. Over sixty Red Cross Red Crescent national societies sent emergency response personnel to support the relief operation while the collective membership of the IFRC raised over one billion Swiss francs for Haiti.
The IFRC in Port au Prince established a shelter unit to manage the shelter response in the recovery phase of the shelter programme and set up a movement coordination function to work with participating national societies involved in shelter recovery.
The IFRC shelter unit constructed wood-framed transitional shelters for over seven hundred families in two large camps for the internally displaced and, as a major part of the shelter response, provided over three thousand transitional shelter kits for the French, Norwegian and Canadian Red Cross recovery shelter programmes. The shelter unit introduced alternative shelter solutions as part of a camp decongestion programme providing rental solutions in Port au Prince and in the outlying provinces as well as constructing individual transitional shelters. Household and livelihoods grants were linked to the shelter solutions and a vocational training programme was also established.
This evaluation began in December 2010 and concluded in February 2012. The evaluation started with a review of documents, including strategic, operational and technical papers and followed with site visits to internally displaced camps, individual transitional shelter plots, areas where participating national societies were constructing transitional shelters, areas planned for future programming and a visit to the main IFRC construction warehouse in Port au Prince. Over thirty interviews were held with the Haitian Red Cross Society (HRCS), IFRC management and technical staff from the Haiti country office, the zone office in Panama and the secretariat headquarters in Geneva, and with partner Red Cross societies in the shelter recovery programme. One hundred and eighty beneficiaries and local staff were involved in a participartory project review to gain insight into beneficiary attitudes regarding the quality of the shelter recovery programme.
The evaluation came to a number of conclusions, as follows:
The IFRC took on the exceptional challenge of providing early recovery solutions in the shelter sector with courage, imagination and flexibility. The operational context in Haiti is not for the faint-hearted, presenting risks in nearly all programme areas. Through the maze of programme options the IFRC undertook its own multilateral programming with confidence and a flexibility that allowed for continual adaptations as the programme progressed.
The development of a shelter recovery strategy has been somewhat iterative over the last two years and made complex in regard to sustainability with no clear government direction on permanent housing solutions. The original concept of basic short-term transitional shelter developed over time as it became increasing clear that there were no plans beyond a transitional shelter solution that would lead to something more durable, thus the original designs for transitional shelters were upgraded over the course of the programme. Programme options for the repair of partially damaged houses and the reconstruction of destroyed houses were complicated by the presence of rubble, difficulties in regard to land ownership and the absence of construction guidelines and urban planning regulations. A critical development of the shelter programme was the introduction of rental solutions as camps for the internally displaced were closed. The IFRC took a lead role in finding rental solutions for displaced families.
The key recommendations in regard to the current programme are to review the future of the camp populations living in transitional shelters in La Piste and Annexe de la Marie and to consider permanent shelter solutions for these beneficiaries or a maintenance programme to extend the lifetime of the transitional shelters and to review the impact of the rental programme and make adjustments as required. The vocational training programme needs to be more closely aligned to employment outcomes.
In regard to future shelter programming it is recommended to be clearer regarding the need for an overall strategy for shelter, especially if not working in permanent shelter and to have a clear record of decision making in this regard, while leaving space for adaptation and flexibility throughout the programme that should be informed through a continuous monitoring process. Emergency shelter is part of a shelter strategy and needs to be included in the conceptual framework of the initial emergency response. The concept of sheltering needs to be understood in its broadest context and assessment and programming efforts need to take into account aspects such as cooking and nutrition, power and lighting, health and protection and water and sanitation. The organizational structure needs to support this more integrated approach to shelter. While shelter targets are usually based on early assessments and budget allocations, there needs to be a clearer strategic understanding of beneficiary needs and operational capacity based on field assessments, which should be reviewed throughout the duration of the programme. Time should be spent on reviewing how support services such as human resources, finance and procurement can be better aligned to support large-scale shelter operations.
Future shelter programmes can benefit from some of the best practices identified in the Haiti early recovery shelter programme, including the provision of household and livelihoods grants which allowed shelter beneficiaries to make personal adaptations and improvements to their shelters. The creative partnerships between the IFRC and PNS partners in the Haiti operation maximized the capacity of the International Federation to provide shelter solutions to beneficiaries and provided useful models for future consideration.The Haiti shelter rental programme provided an interesting approach to shelter solutions and should be fully documented for future learning as should the approach to post-earthquake rubble management and the conversion of rubble into building materials. The approaches to beneficiary communications in the Haiti shelter programme provided a number of unique experiences that significantly contributed to the success of the shelter programme: these approaches to beneficiary communications need to be well documented for future learning.