Building back housing in post-disaster situations: basic engineering principles for development professionals

This Primer covers the basic steps in the process of selecting a model for planning and executing post-disaster housing reconstruction projects funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). It is intended to provide USAID officers and Host Country officials with the steps, principles, and best practices that need to be taken to carry out housing construction and reconstruction properly in a post-disaster situation. This document provides a roadmap for developing a project through planning, design, and implementation. 

Post-disaster housing reconstruction presents an opportunity to not only rebuild safe housing for the affected population, but also to change construction practice permanently so that local builders, engineers, and homeowners build safe houses in the future. This report presents and discussions those objectives.

A project’s success over the longer term requires knowledge, skills, and abilities on the part of those implementing and managing it. However, many professionals in the developing world have not yet internalized the core competencies that those in more advanced economies take for granted. For this reason, USAID incorporates capacity building activities into many of its engineering projects. This is an integral part of homeowner-driven reconstruction for post-disaster housing.