Build Change Skoll Awardee Profile

Organization Overview

Key Info

Social Entrepreneur Elizabeth Hausler

Year Awarded 2017

Issue Area Addressed Economic Opportunity, Education, Environmental Sustainability, Sustainable Markets

Sub Issue Area Addressed Livelihoods, Living Conditions, Women's and Girls' Education, Youth Job Skills

Countries Served Colombia, Dominica, Guatemala, Haiti, Indonesia, Jamaica, Mexico, Nepal, Philippines, Puerto Rico, Saint Lucia

Website http://www.buildchange.org

Twitter handle BuildChange

Facebook https://www.facebook.com/BuildChange

Youtube https://www.youtube.com/user/BuildChange About the Organization

Earthquakes hit without warning, and because of climate change, hurricanes and typhoons are becoming stronger and more frequent. Yet, global housing indicators are sliding backwards.

Three billion people will be living in substandard housing by 2030. It's not the earthquake or windstorm that kills people, it's the collapse of a poorly built building. This is a man-made problem with a women-made solution. Build Change is a systems change catalyst driving transformational tech innovation, political will, and millions of dollars in infrastructure investment towards the urgent strengthening and improvement of homes. Build Change has operated in 24 countries, improving and strengthening buildings before and after disasters in Asia, Latin America, and the Caribbean.

Build Change's work is unique because they:

• Use homeowner-driven, conditional cash plus technical assistance instead of top-down, donor- driven, giveaway models. Build Change promotes decision equity, not sweat equity, and has influenced the post-disaster housing reconstruction industry across the globe.

• Leverage public and private sector partners to address all three barriers to adoption (money, technology, people). Some organizations train builders. Some provide financing. These elements are critical, but by themselves, incomplete.

• Use apps, VR, BIM products, and AI for scale.

Impact

Since 2004, Build Change has safeguarded over $1.5B in housing assets across Latin America, the Caribbean and Asia Pacific, spending only $40M, and improving the lives of over 330,000 people by building or retrofitting more than 60,000 safer buildings, at a cost of $120 per safer person. In 2018, Build Change co-launched the Global Program for Resilient Housing policy with the World Bank, which promotes strengthening existing housing. In addition to influencing the post-disaster housing reconstruction policies of Indonesia, China, Haiti, Nepal, Mexico, Dominica, and St. Maarten, Build Change convinced the government of Colombia to include structural upgrade of urban housing in the recently launched Casa Digna program, and has influenced the same in Guatemala's neighborhood improvement policy. Build Change's use of BIM tools, AI, VR, and apps to make the construction value chain more efficient have been awarded by IBM Call for Code and featured at Autodesk University mainstage.

Path to Scale Policy Change, Tech Innovation, Access to Finance, Capacity Building, and Independent Replication

Build Change invests in policy advocacy, access to finance, technology tools for scale, demonstration, capacity building. Independent replication by government, private sector, MFIs, NGOs.

Social Entrepreneur

Dr. Elizabeth Hausler is the Founder and CEO of Build Change and a global expert on resilient building and post-disaster reconstruction. Elizabeth’s strategic direction and leadership have grown Build Change from a few employees in 2004 to over 230 strong working on three continents in 2018. Her emphasis on rebuilding to withstand future disasters has profoundly influenced global development policy by making resilience a major consideration for reconstruction efforts.

Elizabeth’s training as a brick, block and stone mason and her extensive field experience in the developing world, including a Fulbright Scholarship in India, led Elizabeth to found Build Change in 2004 to ensure reconstruction efforts would be safe and sustainable. She is recipient of many honors, including the 2011 US Social Entrepreneur of the Year by the Schwab Foundation and, with Build Change, a 2017 Skoll Award for Social Entrepreneurship.

In 2018, she received the University of California, Berkeley’s Campanile Excellence in Achievement Award, and has been selected as the College of Engineering Commencement Speaker for 2019. Since 2014 she has been a member of the UC-Berkeley Civil and Environmental Engineering Department’s Academy of Distinguished Alumni. She holds a Ph.D. and M.S. from UC-Berkeley in Civil Engineering, as well as an M.S. degree from the University of Colorado and a B.S. from the University of Illinois. She has lectured on disaster resistant construction in venues around the world and she and Build Change’s work have been featured in some of the world’s leading media outlets, including The New York Times, BBC News, Elle Magazine, ABC News and Bloomberg Businessweek. She has written or co- authored technical resources and advocacy blogs and has served on the World Economic Forum (WEF) Global Agenda Council on Risk and Resilience and the Expert Advisory Group for the Centre for Disaster Protection.

Equilibrium Overview

Current Equilibrium

In the current equilibrium, natural disasters cause homes and schools to collapse. International aid agencies move into a region following a natural disaster and use foreign contractors to construct buildings that are not culturally appropriate, disaster resilient or affordable. As a result, low-income homeowners are often unable to pay for these costly homes, and the local construction industry cannot build or maintain them. In subsequent natural disasters, needless death, injury and economic loss result. In seismically-vulnerable countries, subsidies often exist for homeowners to prevent this damage via retrofitting, but communities are unaware and face red tape to access the financial incentives. Governments do not always appreciate that one dollar invested in prevention saves seven dollars in post-disaster-recovery efforts.

New Equilibrium

In the new equilibrium, no one dies or loses their assets in an earthquake or windstorm. Everyone lives in a house that will not collapse in an earthquake or typhoon, and meets basic standards for protection from wind, rain, heat, break-ins, and has adequate light, ventilation and sanitation. In the new equilibrium, the three barriers to adoption for resilient housing have been overcome: money, technology, and people/political will: Money: subsidies and/or finance products for disaster-resistant construction are universally accessible to homeowners. This access increases demand for ongoing and affordable disaster-resilient construction and minimizes corruption often found in donor-driven recovery efforts. Technology: homeowners, governments, and implementers have access to engineering, construction, and information technologies necessary to strengthen homes and reach scale. People/Political Will: Governments and institutions change policies and laws for safe housing, and homeowners invest in resilient housing. Local and national governments enforce building codes and safe- construction practices because they recognize their accountability in a disaster scenario and see economic value in investing in preventative measures. As a result, the local construction sector has incentives to learn and deliver safe construction practices. Communities are prepared and protected in advance of natural disasters.

Innovation

Build Change increases homeowner demand for safer homes, the capacity of local construction talent, and political will and financial incentives from governments. Build Change refers to their theory of change as “Money-Technology-People”. They believe that financial incentives, locally appropriate affordable technology, and people’s/political will must all be in place for change to happen at scale. The right building or retrofitting technology has to be locally available, culturally appropriate, affordable, and easy to implement using local skills and tools. If people do not have enough money to build safely, they won’t; financing or cash subsidies should be used as an incentive for compliance with building standards. Someone has to want the building to be disaster-resistant, either bottom-up demand driven by homeowners or top-down policy implementation. They currently work in Colombia, Guatemala, Haiti, Indonesia, Nepal, the Philippines, and the Caribbean, countries, and regions that are earthquake and hurricane-prone and vulnerable. Build Change’s model engages four primary groups of stakeholders. These include the following: Homeowners: Build Change focuses on local homeowners; putting the power and money to build safe, disaster-resistant homes into their hands. Build Change works with local community leaders to build awareness (e.g., via theater productions). They often first rebuild and retrofit schools and homes for community-selected families to demonstrate the affordability and ease of the process. The local construction sector: Based on Build Change's founder's experience training as a skilled brick mason, Build Change builds the capacity of local builders, engineers, and architects through on-the-job training, competency-based modules in training centers and certification. They also help local small businesses produce and market higher quality building materials (e.g., concrete blocks, fired bricks). Government and academic institutions: Build Change partners with government and academic institutions in charge of building code development to advocate for appropriate disaster-resistant building codes, retrofitting guidelines and adequate subsidies. Donors, NGOs, multi-laterals, development banks, and housing finance partners: the providers of housing grants and loans for stronger buildings. Build Change has spent over 14 years operating in the post-disaster housing and construction sector and are now applying this experience to the disaster prevention sector, and to replication efforts by NGO and government partners. Build Change looks to scale prevention programming initially in the Andean region, Central America and with partners like the World Bank. Their multi-step toolkit provides guidance and a spectrum of services for various stakeholders, including business cases for NGO and government partners and impact- monitoring dashboards. Additional components include tools to drive community awareness, competency frameworks for builders and engineers, design guidelines for safer and cheaper rebuilding and retrofitting that reference international and national standards, and design automation and virtual reality visualization tools. They support the key stakeholders through various activities and technical assistance: Support to homeowners: Build Change provides technical assistance to homeowners that (re)build their homes, through training, and supervision. Policy recommendations to governments and development banks: Build Change provides policy guidance to governments, and is considered a trusted advisor for both post- disaster and prevention housing programs. Competency frameworks for builders, material producers, and engineers: Build Change develops and conducts hands-on training on safe construction practices to the engineers and construction professionals, to ensure that the right skills are available on the local market. Design guidelines for safer and cheaper rebuilding and retrofitting that reference international and national standards: Build Change works with governments and develops technical resources, guides, and tools to increase the access of practices and standards to the construction professionals, engineers, and other stakeholders. Community awareness-driving tools: Build Change uses apps and virtual reality (VR) and organizes information sessions with the communities to spread the information of the importance to use good construction materials, as well as good construction professionals and practices, to protect their families in safe homes. Build Change’s work is differentiated from other actors working in the sector by: Promoting and implementing a homeowner-driven, conditional cash plus technical assistance model instead of top-down, donor-driven, giveaway models. Build Change promotes decision equity, not sweat equity. Build Change has influenced an entire global industry: post-disaster housing reconstruction. Promoting and implementing retrofitting (strengthening an existing building) as a viable solution for informally built homes, before and after earthquakes and windstorms. Build Change was the first organization to retrofit low-rise masonry buildings in post-earthquake Haiti, proving to skeptics that retrofitting can be done safely and cost-effectively in a difficult, resource-constrained environment. Build Change has since helped to convince the World Bank to put improvement of existing housing on their agenda.Using a complete model, addressing all three barriers to adoption (money, technology, people). There are organizations doing vocational training only. There are organizations offering financing only. These elements are critical, but by themselves, incomplete. Build Change creates change by working simultaneously from the bottom-up and the top-down.Operating before and after disasters. Build Change uses a systems change approach, working with public and private sector to retrofit/strengthen houses before the next earthquake. In Bogota, Medellin, and other cities, Build Change is partnering with city governments, which have subsidies available to strengthen homes, but have not been using them because of technical and administrative challenges. Build Change is providing key administrative, engineering, and construction inputs so that the government and private sector can cut through the red tape and retrofit buildings at scale.Using apps, VR, AR, and AI to create change and reach scale. Build Change was a top 3 finalist in the inaugural IBM Call for Code Competition in 2018, for using AI to rapidly assess and categorize neighborhoods for retrofitting. It’s not just about bricks and mortar anymore. Build Change is leading the industry in using tech tools to automate and make the entire construction sector supply chain more efficient.

Ambition for Change

No person dies in an earthquake or windstorm. All homeowners in seismic and climate risk zones have access to and awareness of incentives and subsidies for disaster-resistant construction. Governments value and enforce building codes and safe-construction practices. Communities are prepared and protected in advance of disasters.