A ripple in development? - Channel Research

Sri Lanka’s mainstream programme targeted at conflict-affected communities
was being run parallel to its tsunami recovery programme.
While the average cost of a house for the former programme ranged
from US$ 2,500–3,000 maximum, the average cost of a tsunami house
was more than twice that at US$ 7,000–8,000.
4.5 Effect of reconstruction on social exclusion
International interventions have made an effort to relate to the context
as shown in the preceding section on community conflict, but the result
is uneven, while in some cases positive in unforeseen ways. For example,
although in Sri Lanka the housing policy clearly states that non-titled
people should become beneficiaries (including ‘encroachers’, ‘tenants’
and ‘sub-families’), international agency targeting has mainly favoured
those with prior land tenure and house ownership, on the grounds that
it was easier and less controversial.
A major problem for many beneficiaries in Sri Lanka is that a great
majority has not received land tenure for their relocation plots 68 , leaving
them vulnerable to predatory practices in the future, such as land seizures
by elites. None of the reconstruction agencies have been informed of the
reasons for the delay. Some agencies (such as IFRC and Action Aid) even
made it a condition to reconstruct houses only where tenure was granted
in advance of the works, but this has excluded the poorest tsunami victims
who tended not to have tenure eligibility because they did not have
it in their previous dwellings (they are called the ‘encroachers’).
In the Maldives there have also been delays in registering houses
because the law states that this can only be done once a boundary wall
has been constructed. Moves are underway to make a temporary exception
to the law to give time to new owners to build their boundary walls.
Conversely, housing recovery has in many respects benefited the
poor and been less munificent to the wealthy. In all three countries poor
people who used to live in sub-standard housing (shacks, lean-to’s and
unsafe shelters made up of bits and pieces of assorted materials) are
now the proud owners of solid, safe houses ‘that they could only dream
of ’, in the words of one community member, and with which they are
extremely pleased. Former elites who owned large houses and land plots
have manifestly lost out since their replacement entitlements were no
greater than anyone else’ s in terms of plot and house size. There is
considerable qualitative and quantitative evidence of a levelling effect
on society, particularly in Indonesia (although no measurement of that
can be found in social indicators in relation to the sole influence of aid).
The Indonesians overwhelmingly see a “Hikmah” (blessing in disguise)
in the tsunami assistance, even in economic terms (64%, surpassed only
by peace at 90%).
68
People’s Report, 2007
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