Managing stakeholder needs and expectations in a post-disaster housing reconstruction scenario

The 2004 Boxing Day tsunami, which was a result of the fifth largest earthquake of the last century, caused great devastation in Sri Lanka, making more than 1,000,000 people homeless. The task of reconstruction after the 2004 tsunami was an onerous challenge to a developing country like Sri Lanka, which required the deliberate and coordinated efforts of all stakeholders for effective and efficient recovery of the affected community. This resulted in a large number of post-disaster housing reconstruction projects. A wide array of stakeholders came together on such projects to execute the final outcome. In the aftermath of early reconstruction efforts, dissatisfaction was expressed by some stakeholders. The areas of criticism included time, cost, quality, coordination with infrastructure and linkage to livelihoods. Nevertheless, the reconstruction provided an opportunity for the development of Sri Lanka. Thus, the industry sector of Gross National Product before and after the 2004 tsunami stood at 5.4 and 8.0 respectively. This was mainly due to the growth of housing output. Moreover, several legislations stipulate that housing is one of the three basic requirements necessary for a standard of living and personal security. Accordingly, the aim of this research is to explore and investigate how to identify, classify, capture and address the needs of stakeholders and manage their expectations from reconstruction projects, in order to deliver effective Post-Disaster Housing Reconstruction (PDHR) in Sri Lanka. In order to achieve the aim, data was collected in two phases. Expert interviews formed the preliminary phase of data collection which was directed towards identification, classification and exploring the relationships between the stakeholders. Stakeholder Circle ™ (Version 5) software aided the data analysis of expert interviews. Case studies, the secondary phase of data collection, were used to identify the strategies required to manage the needs and expectations of stakeholders in PDHR projects in Sri Lanka. NVivo (Version 8) was used to analyse case study data. This study contributes to knowledge by identifying, classifying and exploring relationships between stakeholders of PDHR projects in Sri Lanka. In addition it identifies strategies to manage their needs and expectations. Accordingly, key success and failure factors of PDHR are identified based on the phases of the Disaster Management (DM) cycle under four main headings. They are factors attached to the house; institutional and legal arrangements, knowledge and capacity factors, and factors pertaining to tsunami victims. Furthermore, the conceptual framework that emerged from the literature review, and which was refined using data gathered in the expert interviews, evolved into a 'theoretical framework' once the theory developed in the case study phase of data collection was applied. This forms a tool to the effective identification, classification, exploration of relationships and management of expectations of the stakeholders of PDHR projects in Sri Lanka. Gaps in the practical application of the proposed strategies were allied to the areas of sustainable urban development; township planning and declaration of the buffer zone; moving from land administration to land management; enactment of the Disaster Management Act and empowering Local Authorities; enforcing an incremental development programme; intervention planning; lack of guidelines and complexity of the language; mainstreaming disaster risk reduction into PDHR; learning from the past; coordination, communication, consultation and participatory approaches.