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Successes and Failures of the Post-Tsunami Housing Reconstruction Program in Tamil Nadu, India

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Successes and Failures of the Post-Tsunami Housing Reconstruction Program in Tamil Nadu, India Construction Research Congress 2014 ©ASCE 2014 1199 Successes and Failures of the Post-Tsunami Housing Reconstruction Program in Tamil Nadu, India Elizabeth Jordan1 and Amy Javernick-Will2 1 WASH Benefits Project Implementation Manager, Innovations for Poverty Action Kenya, +254 0704-268-504, [email protected] 2 Assistant Professor, Dept. of Civil, Environmental, and Architectural Engineering, University of Colorado at Boulder, 720-220-7220, [email protected] ABSTRACT In recent years, recovery efforts following major disasters such as the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami have highlighted the need to better understand what factors lead to the long-term recovery of communities. Previous studies have found wide variation in outcomes of reconstruction programs, and, while there have been increasing numbers of individual and small-n case studies of disaster recovery in recent years, there have been few broad comparative studies that explain long-term recovery outcomes. In this paper, we focus specifically on how strategic interventions following the tsunami, including community participation, construction oversight, recovery agency presence and embeddedness in the community, and recovery funds affected the success of housing recovery programs. To answer the question, “What post-disaster actions can aid community recovery following a disaster?”, we employed fuzzy-set Qualitative Comparative Analysis (fsQCA), to determine what recovery strategies led to successful post-tsunami housing recovery in communities Tamil Nadu, India. Data were collected through observations, interviews and documentation on recovery outcomes and suspected conditions that affected recovery in 15 villages. Based upon the analysis, the recovery agency’s embeddedness in communities, community participation during the recovery process, and agency oversight during reconstruction are necessary for successful housing reconstruction. INTRODUCTION The Indian Ocean Tsunami was the result of an earthquake measuring 9.0 on the Richter scale, which occurred off the northern coast of Sumatra, Indonesia on December 26, 2004. The tsunami waves hit the southern and eastern coastal areas of India and penetrated inland up to 3 km, causing extensive damage on the Andaman & Nicobar Islands, and in the coastal districts of Andhra Pradesh, Kerala, Tamil Nadu and the union territory of Pondicherry. Over 150,000 houses were destroyed in India. Rebuilding these houses is an essential part of any recovery program and has been found to be the top priority of affected populations (Alam and Collins 2010). Housing reconstruction is also one of the most commonly used indicators of recovery (Jordan and Javernick-Will 2013), and it is linked to both the social and economic recovery of communities (Tierney and Oliver-Smith 2012). Unfortunately, while recovery should improve a community’s resilience (Berke et al. 1993), it is clear that past post-disaster reconstruction projects have had differing levels of success (e.g. Finch et al. 2010). However, why communities recover differently from the same disaster is less well known and is compounded by a Construction Research Congress 2014 ©ASCE 2014 1200 dearth of long-term recovery studies (Rubin 2009). As a result, this study examines the long-term outcomes of the housing reconstruction projects in the Nagapattinam and Villipuram districts of Tamil Nadu and the post-disaster interventions that were associated with successful outcomes. POINTS OF DEPARTURE There were wide variations in the recovery efforts throughout the tsunami- affected region of India. Journal articles and reports by recovery practitioners often emphasize how features of the recovery process influence outcomes; however, there has been little systematic analysis of what post-disaster strategies are effective, meaning that past mistakes are repeated (World Bank 2004). Therefore, in this study, we systematically consider five post-disaster conditions that are hypothesized to influence housing recovery: community participation, construction oversight, NGO presence, recovery agency embeddedness, and funds. We emphasize post-disaster actions because these can be altered during the post-disaster planning phase, unlike pre-disaster conditions. These were selected both based on their importance in the disaster literature and emergent themes during the interviews. Community Participation There has been increasing attention to community participation in disaster recovery programs, with many now acknowledging that it is critical for sustainability of the reconstruction projects (Berke et al. 1993; Olshansky 2005). Practitioner agencies have also begun advocating for a community engagement approach (GFDRR 2010). However, many NGOs still have limited knowledge about how to incorporate community participation into post-disaster programs, and centrally planned, contractor-built housing is still widely applied (Davidson et al. 2007). In addition, there are wide gradations of community participation. Therefore, it is important to understand the extent to which the community participated and whether the community actually had control of the project or whether they were merely informed about existing plans (Arnstein 1969). Construction Oversight There is a lack of research on the effect of oversight of post-disaster reconstruction; however, agencies such as the World Bank have found that the construction industry is particularly prone to mis-use of recovery funds (Wolfgang et al. 2005). And scholars have noted that when recovery efforts are performed by the private sector, there are opportunities for corruption at the expense of the affected population (Tierney and Oliver-Smith 2012). Therefore, in this study we include a metric for oversight by the reconstruction agency. NGO Presence Post-disaster NGO presence is a controversial factor. On one hand, disaster scholars argue that the presence of an NGO provides important recovery resources and can help build capacity in socially vulnerable communities (Wachtendorf et al. 2006). On the other hand, some disaster scholars argue that NGOs create a culture of dependency that may actually impede recovery (Rubin 1991). This side also argues Construction Research Congress 2014 ©ASCE 2014 1201 that the NGO focus on spending money quickly and visibly to satisfy donor requirements may not make the best use of resources (Boano 2009). Because it is not known whether the presence of an NGO facilitates or hinders recovery, we include this factor in our analysis. Embeddedness Previous research on in the field of construction management has shown that projects conducted outside an organization’s home country face challenges due to differences in regulations, culture and social norms (Javernick-Will and Scott 2010). In a post-disaster setting, this ‘liability of foreignness’ is likely to be larger because there is pressure to complete projects quickly. Past research has found that a recovery agency’s local knowledge influences recovery strategies. For example, in a study of the 1993 earthquake in Maharashtra, Barenstein and Iyengar (2010) found that Indian NGOs were likely to take a participatory approach, while large international NGOs did not. Recovery Funds Following the tsunami, both Indian and national donors provided large amounts of funds for both relief and recovery. While some scholars have shown that aid has a positive influence on recovery (Bolin 1993), others note that dependence on external aid can lead to negative long-term consequences (Olshansky 2005). In addition, large amounts of aid may have unintended effects. Overall, findings on the influence of funds on economic recovery have been mixed. RESEARCH METHOD To determine which post-disaster interventions, combined or in isolation, lead to successful housing recovery we employed qualitative comparative analysis (QCA). We selected QCA because we wanted to gain in-depth knowledge about recovery processes in a limited number of communities in this study. It can be very difficult to measure recovery through purely quantitative data, yet generalization of results from such studies is difficult. As a result, we used fuzzy-set QCA, which provides a middle ground between case studies and statistical analysis through set theory and fuzzy logic. QCA first involves identifying a specific outcome of interest, in this case, housing recovery, along with conditions that are posited to affect that outcome, in this case the post-disaster interventions discussed above. Then, researchers purposefully select cases that vary across these dimensions and collect data. These data are then calibrated and summarized in a truth table. Patterns in this resulting data array are identified to highlight combinations of conditions that lead to a given outcome (Jordan et al. 2011). Data Collection We collected data through observations, interviews and documentation in 15 rural, coastal villages affected by the 2004 tsunami in Tamil Nadu, India, shown in Table 2 below. Over a period of five months, we conducted 106 semi-structured interviews with village leaders and community members about the recovery process and their current housing. We ensured that multiple respondents representing Construction Research Congress 2014 ©ASCE 2014 1202 different genders, age ranges and community roles were interviewed in each site. An independent translator was used to conduct all interviews in the local language, Tamil. Interviews were recorded and transcribed unless the respondent had an objection, in which case we took extensive
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