What did we learn? The shelter response and housing recovery in the first two years after the 2010 Haiti earthquake

This report is a synthesis of the experiences, observations, and recommendations of a large group of experienced post-disaster shelter and recovery experts gathered from interviews, surveys, and direct discussions, and information derived from a desk review of the wide variety of available evaluations and reports, regarding the recovery process after the 2010 Haiti earthquake.

The lessons learned on disaster risk reduction in recovery are the following (p. xvi-xvii):

• The earthquake created a renewed awareness of the need to strengthen disaster risk management (DRM).
• The building safety assessment process was successful and provided data that were used in unanticipated ways.
• There were significant efforts to improve construction methods, but the related knowledge didn’t reach important target groups.
• Assistance to the government did not sufficiently strengthen its regulatory capacity.
• Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) standards should have been more widely communicated and self-enforcement promoted.
• Post-disaster DRR policy needed to have been established in advance.

The key points proposed, are the following (p. xx-xxi):

• recover resiliently;
• recover strategically;
• recover equitably;
• recover safely;
• recover (cost) effectively.