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208Natural and human-made disastersBox 8.12 Improving low-income housing construction in Saint LuciaA substantial portion of the housing stock in the Eastern Caribbean is built through the informalsector and does not meet official building standards. Under the Organization of AmericanStates (OAS) Caribbean Disaster Mitigation Project, a National Development Foundation(NDF) was created in St Lucia.In July 1994, the St Lucian NDF established a revolving loan facility to financeretrofitting for St Lucian homeowners in the low-income sector. This was intended to betterenable homeowners, small entrepreneurs, contractors, artisans and non-professional builders toadopt appropriate and cost-effective disaster vulnerability reduction measures in the informalhousing sector. Loans were granted to a maximum of 15,000 Euros 53 per project for not morethan four years.Preparation for this programme required marketing in order to establish demand andtraining of builders to deliver the programme. Demand for the programme was identifiedthrough a household survey of two pilot communities at Gros Islet and Dennery. This wasfollowed by a more extensive market study that illustrated the extent and nature of demandand finance required for both hurricane retrofitting and household safety and improvementpurposes. Marketing strategies made use of community meetings, radio and television talkprogrammes, press releases and church notices. Tradespeople and artisans were trained inretrofitting techniques through the Sir Arthur Lewis Community College.The NDF was able to obtain Group Insurance at reasonable rates through a local insurancebroker on the condition that all properties are retrofitted. The project officers of thefoundation were trained in property evaluation by the insurer. Furthermore, the NDF agreed toloan money to meet the first year’s premium for any household that was unable to pay.Between 1996 and 2002, 345 house improvement loans had been distributed. Whilethe specific eligibility criteria applied in this case would exclude low-income households frompoorer nations, the approach has made a contribution to safety and points the way towards thepotential for productive relationships to be built with private-sector insurance companies forproactive risk reduction.Sources: OAS, 2001, 2003; UNDP, 2004…costs of saferbuildingconstruction areoften relatively highing control. There is limited international and governmentalaction to address this, although some innovative responseshave come from non-governmental and research organizations(see Box 8.12).A number of international initiatives have begun tobuild frameworks for information exchange and learning intechnical aspects of safe construction. This is most developedamong the earthquake engineering community. Aninternet-based encyclopaedia of housing construction isbeing prepared by the Earthquake Engineering ResearchInstitute in the US 54 and by the International Association ofEarthquake Engineering in Japan. 55 The World Seismic SafetyInitiative, 56 a coalition of academic and professionalengineers, has sought to extend public awareness andgovernment commitment to earthquake safety throughworking in partnership with national associations such asNepal’s National Society for Earthquake Technology andUganda’s Seismic Safety Association. GHI has applied aGlobal Earthquake Safety Initiative to 21 urban areas, includingregional as well as capital centres and megacities. 57Megacities are the urban centres that have receivedmost coordinated attention at the international level.Prominent is the Earthquakes and Megacities Initiative, 58linked to the World Seismic Safety Initiative. This was initiatedin 1997 to promote comprehensive city-wide disastermanagement systems in large cities exposed to seismichazard. The project is noteworthy in advocating for policy onland-use planning and recovery, as well as structural mitigationthrough construction standards and engineering-basedinitiatives. City-to-city learning is facilitated through theCluster Cities Project and a Training and EducationProgramme directed at professional groups. The holism ofthis approach can be seen in the Americas Cluster ProjectWorkshop held in Ecuador in 2001, where key areas forcollaboration included community-based vulnerability reduction,population needs and healthcare delivery in disasters,and promoting a culture of prevention. 59Disaster events often provide an opportunity for trainingthose working in the construction industry in safeconstruction techniques. This can contribute towardsaddressing the great gap between construction standardsand their implementation if local artisans have the skills andknowledge to build safely. Where the additional costs areminimal, safer building might become more achievable. Yet,costs of safer building construction are often relatively high.There is much to learn from vernacular buildingdesign and practices. Work on vernacular housing, includingthe training of local builders, has been reported by the ISDRfrom Bangladesh, China, Colombia, India and Peru. 60 Reportsfrom earthquakes in the Himalayas, in Srinagar, HimachalPradesh and the Garhwal Highlands, have shown vernacularhousing to be the most resistant to earthquake damage. 61PLANNING TO PROTECTCRITICAL INFRA-STRUCTURE AND SERVICESChapter 7 noted how the impacts of a disaster can be magnifiedthrough the domino effects of secondary and indirectlosses caused when critical infrastructure or services aredamaged by disaster. This is, of course, precisely why acts ofterror and war are targeted at critical systems. The damagecaused by Storm Lothar, which hit France in December1999, was greatly magnified by the indirect impacts on the 3million people whose electricity supply was cut. 62Critical infrastructure includes:• electricity (generation, transmission and distributioninfrastructure);• natural gas and liquid fuels (storage, transportation anddistribution infrastructure);• potable water and sanitation (collection, treatment,storage, transportation and distribution infrastructure);• telecommunications (broadcasting, cable transmissionand cellular telephone infrastructure);• transportation (road systems, mass public transport, andair and sea transport systems).Critical services include:• hospitals and access to healthcare;• police and maintaining the rule of law;• banks and stability in financial services.