Adapting traditional shelter for disaster mitigation and reconstruction: Experiences with community-based approaches

Natural disasters are on the increase, not so much because natural hazards are growing in number, but because poor people are becoming more vulnerable. Vulnerability is as important a cause of disasters as the physical events that trigger them. Poor people's vulnerability is often increased when development goes wrong. Thus, development is a contributing factor in the occurrence and scale of disasters. At the same time, disasters, when they happen, cause serious setbacks to development. To get out of the vicious circle, more attention will have to be paid to mitigation and tackling the causes of vulnerability. Formal approaches to mitigation, initiated mainly by the public sector, have often been inefficient and at times have left people more vulnerable. A successful alternative approach, community-based disaster mitigation, can reduce vulnerability by engaging popular approaches, local knowledge and social capital, whilst addressing their weaknesses. Some examples of community-based mitigation are derived as lessons: learn from the past, build relations with communities, encourage participation, involve local builders and artisans, build local capacity, document and share lessons, and influence formal education.