Communicating Humanitarian Shelter

Q: Does IOM monitor and evaluate procedures from the perspectives of the people that inhabit the shelter? How do you balance external international organizations’ ways of measuring adequate shelter versus residents’ own definition of what is adequate?

A: The fundamental point is people themselves are not usually passive in finding their shelters. Our role as international organizations is how do we enable that, but also how do we enable it with incredibly limited resources. I think we’re probably often talking about, on average a $200-$300 dollars budget per household for a crisis response. The majority of crisis responses are non-food items, basic distribution of items or basic distribution of provisions, and a minimum amount of cash or vouchers. We’re often struck with the dilemma of do we do a high level of assistance and good quality impactful assistance for a small number of people, or we do more minimal forms of assistance for a larger number of people? There are many ways of getting feedback, including discussing with people in the community, individual groups, doing surveys, and then designing programs that are flexible enough to provide different levels of assistance for people is the difference between a good program and a bad program. In terms of self-identification, a lot of research has been done, but we need to do more. Unfortunately, we have differing standards around the world of what we’re able to provide or what the expectations are, partly because of people’s perceptions that are based on the experiences they have, but also because we know that budgets are not consistent between countries and responses. The dilemma is, do you provide a high level of assistance for a few people or less assistance for more people?

Q: What makes a shelter not just a roof but a home thinking of the International Federation of Red Cross video called Shelter Effect?

A: When you think of a house and what makes a shelter is having access to all those minimum services, either because of proximity or because they are in the house that a family can carry on. We used to say that a house without, for example, access to sanitation or a bathroom is not a house, it’s a warehouse. That video of the shelter effect (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lf2z38u2djA) is also very focused on disaster risk reduction and how the house provides safety from the elements. As a result of multiple issues, including climate change, a lot of the different hazards are impacting the house, which are recurring. In this case, it was flooding, and by designing a shelter that can be above the flooding level, people can then reinvest the money that they were using to repair it every year to invest in their livelihoods. It’s this concept that shelter is the platform for every other area of your life to thrive. If you don’t have that basic shelter or a home, it’s very difficult to thrive.

Q: Do you ever take into account the actual resources available after the disaster occurs? For example, locations have warehouses that are probably housed with building materials, housed with ready to go materials for the rebuilding effort. Having limited resources when a disaster occurs, there is no guarantee these places are not going to be hit by the disaster. So, going in with the mindset of rebuilding, the resources available on the ground versus bringing in resources. I’m just trying to get a feel of the assessment.

A: The first line of defense is the people themselves, and they are going to be looking into their local materials. There are a lot of organizations that focus on trying to get what is local. That’s why cash distributions have started to be one of the preferred ways of support. Those use the materials available in-country, and what we normally do with those kinds of programs is try to support the value chain for the materials that may not be available that easily. For example, in the Philippines, we know that when a typhoon happens, it’s very easy for the corrugated iron sheet to sell out in the market. So, that is why, in some cases, you might be bringing what may not be that easily available, and you do a market assessment before making a decision on whether or not you’re providing cash or you are providing materials. When the level of devastation is so huge that markets are not working, you begin shipping things into the country. This was very clear, for example, in Haiti, being an island after the earthquake in 2010, and with most of the infrastructure damaged by the earthquake, it was hard for even some of the local staff to operate. The local markets were not necessarily working, and then shipping things in was even more complicated. Each crisis is unique, and you do need to investigate those assessments to see what’s available and how you can complement it in your response.

Q: With material distribution, is local material ever prioritized when sourcing?

A: There’s usually a combination, so you do prioritize, and you do try to make sure that people can rebuild with local materials. To highlight the Domes photo I showed, which was a 1970s experiment, every time there’s a big crisis, we see loads of inventions, often with imported materials, which don’t work because they don’t consider not only how people build, particularly in rural environments or in low-income environments, build incrementally over time. They also build with materials that are more familiar to them at a very low cost or low cost over time. So often, bringing in imported materials, and imported structures, comes with a very high cost. If you’re spending $2,000 for a shelter, plus the air freight, that’s fewer people you can assist. We often try to tie response to the use of local materials to be able to deliver at scale and with materials that people know how to build with and maintain.

Q: Are there any assessments made about zones, like safe zones for relocation safety for these individuals ahead of time. When a disaster does hit, is there a contingency that there are areas people could safely be relocated to in a more expeditious manner because you already studied that location?

A: Emergency evacuation for temporary disasters happens a lot, and if you go to places where there have been tsunamis, you’ll hopefully see planned evacuation routes. In Bangladesh, they’ll have cyclone shelters, for example, where people can go, which are schools during the normal season and are short-term evacuation planning. Relocation happens often, but it is also important to consider why people would want to relocate away from land that they may have lived on for generations and the actual advantages and disadvantages of sites, particularly as they affect people in informal settlements. Particularly, poorer people often live in very vulnerable locations quite often, and they live there for reasons. Often, it’s informal land that has access to jobs, livelihoods, agriculture, fishing, etc. For example, there are lots of urban areas that are located where rivers meet on earth seismic zones and alluvial plains. There are various historical reasons people have settled there, so when you start relocations, it can come with the risk of them not being to places where people want to live. Relocations can also move people away from valuable land that developers are trying to move them far away from. There are often plans for new towns or new settlements on very low-value land or land with political background objectives as to why people in power want people moved, which may or may not be to the advantage of already vulnerable people. Whenever you’re getting involved in any kind of post-crisis relocation or even planned relocation, you have to think through whether it’s going to be to the advantage of the people living there or the most vulnerable people. The actual risk calculation is that people who are displaced worry about work, access to jobs, livelihoods, schools, and other services. Those types of studies are the responsibility of the sovereign government of each country, and at times, it’s at the municipal level. When a humanitarian organization comes in to support, this tends to be when things at the local level are not necessarily able to respond. Understanding local policy and government policies and how they have been done in the past is part of what we try to do as humanitarian organizations in humanitarian shelter.

Q: What kind of design sample is expected?

A: Ideally, it would be something from your portfolio. At this point, we’re not looking for you to design something specifically for the interest submission. We’re looking more at your level of interest, your background, and what you might already have in your knowledge base and in your design skills that would be beneficial to be able to be an exhibition designer. We’re looking for problem-solving skills that would show some of those techniques that you might have learned through some of your more formative years in architecture education that would help to relay that you have some of that knowledge. In tandem with the 250-word statement, the imagery is going to be an assistance because this is a design problem. Your interest submission should express your knowledge, research, and design.