Assessing the impact of household participation on satisfaction and safe design in humanitarian shelter projects

Abstract

Participation has long been considered important for post‐disaster recovery. Establishing what constitutes participation in post‐disaster shelter projects, however, has remained elusive, and the links between different types of participation and shelter programme outcomes are not well understood. Furthermore, recent case studies suggest that misguided participation strategies may be to blame for failures. This study analysed 19 shelter projects implemented in the Philippines following Typhoon Haiyan in November 2013 to identify the forms of participation employed. Using fuzzy‐set qualitative comparative analysis, it assessed how household participation in the planning, design, and construction phases of shelter reconstruction led to outcomes of household satisfaction and safe shelter design. Participation was operationalised via eight central project tasks, revealing that the involvement of households in the early planning stages of projects and in construction activities were important for satisfaction and design outcomes, whereas engagement during the design phase of projects had little impact on the selected outcomes.

Qualifying the Sustainability of Novel Designs and Existing Solutions for Post-Disaster and Post-Conflict Sheltering

“…Opdyke, Javernick-Will and Koschmann [23] found that early user involvement in PDPC shelter projects, support the resilience and the sustainability of the project outcome. The local input could empower the affected people, encourage the social connectivity and promote solidarity between the beneficiaries themselves [24]. Although it is not always easy to measure the success of a shelter project, but user satisfaction and shelter safety are major indications of that success [24], which could be evaluated through surveys and observations such as the shelter assessment that was done in Zaatari camp [25] and Azraq camp [26].…”

“…The local input could empower the affected people, encourage the social connectivity and promote solidarity between the beneficiaries themselves [24]. Although it is not always easy to measure the success of a shelter project, but user satisfaction and shelter safety are major indications of that success [24], which could be evaluated through surveys and observations such as the shelter assessment that was done in Zaatari camp [25] and Azraq camp [26]. However, sometimes the lack of users involvement leads to an obvious project failure when the assistance is not accepted by the people, such as the refusal of using the steel caravans in Gaza [27].…”

Pathways to Livable Relocation Settlements Following Disaster

“…Past scholars have indicated the most important decision in which to involve to-be-relocated households is selecting where the new relocation site should be developed [6]. Other critical decisions include house design, material selection, community layout, and procedures for implementing the transfer [55,56]. Despite the value of up-front participation in early decisions, participatory approaches are often limited to the inclusion of households in construction [23,57].…”

A Comparative Analysis of Coordination, Participation, and Training in Post-Disaster Shelter Projects

“…Previous research has analysed the influence of training on construction knowledge retention, based upon the principles of safer construction disseminated by the Shelter Cluster and found that retention of knowledge was achieved through a diversity of methods employed by formal training programs or observation of construction by the beneficiary [20] (Opdyke et al, 2018). Thus, we included two sub-conditions for training during construction that included diversity of methods and on-site observations.…”

“…Furthermore, a unified approach to shelter leverages common goals following a disaster [16], avoids duplication of resources [17], and connects short-term planning with long-term risk reduction [18]. Previous research has also emphasized the importance of household participation [13,19] in shelter projects, which has been shown to lead to higher satisfaction [20], improved social recovery [21], and, in some cases, has been found to counteract the negative influence of social vulnerability on recovery outcomes [22]. With a need for safer, more resilient shelter that continues to be maintained and used over time, training is also paramount in shelter projects.…”