World Bank lists major challenges in quake-hit areas

The World Bank (WB) has said that maximising the judicious use of housing grants, reducing programme drop-outs, and increasing rate of seismic compliance, especially in problematic areas remain major challenges in earthquake-hit areas.
The long-term challenge of promoting and sustaining a culture of voluntary seismic compliance in housing construction in the earthquake affected districts is gradually being met, but requires a continued enabling environment, social mobilisation and sensitisation of disaster-susceptible communities, said WB report on Friday.
In the earthquake devastated northern region of Pakistan, constituting nine districts of the North West Frontier Province (NWFP) and the State of Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK), a culture of seismic-resistant construction is taking root.
Owner-driven reconstruction of nearly 300,000 of the approximately 575,000 houses destroyed/damaged in the earthquake-affected rural areas has begun and is at various stages of completion. This reconstruction is supported through housing reconstruction grants from the Pakistan government - a programme partly financed by the World Bank through the Emergency Recovery Project (ERP).
The current trend indicates that more than 80 percent of such beneficiaries are adhering to the seismic resistant construction standards developed by the Earthquake Reconstruction and Rehabilitation Authority. This is manifested by the fact that around 200,000 beneficiaries have or will very soon be passing the first floor-level inspections of their houses. More than 20,000 houses are nearing completion of their seismic-resistant construction standards.
Most of the beneficiaries are following the recommended seismic-resistant construction standards. Achieving this success has required reaching out to the affected communities to convince and train them to construct differently from the ways they knew earlier.
The WB's project leader, Raja Rehan Arshad said, "the real challenge is to successfully utilise the owner-driven reconstruction approach, not only to reconstruct houses to seismic resistant construction standards in the immediate run, but, in the longer term, to promote a culture of voluntary seismic compliance in an extremely high seismic risk zone".
The October 2005 earthquake in Pakistan destroyed or damaged around 575,000 rural houses, leaving more than 73,000 dead, and rendering over 3 million people without shelter. The consensus after the relief work was that poor quality of building construction killed more people than the earthquake itself-a natural hazard converted into a man-made disaster.
However, past experiences with disasters of this nature have shown that a housing reconstruction program executed in such a manner would have resulted in more problems over time. It would have provided for little beneficiary ownership and involvement in the reconstruction process.
More than half (300,000) of the rural housing programme beneficiaries have started to rebuild their homes. The number is an unprecedented 6-8 times higher than first year responses in other recent post-disaster housing programs. The Government, with financing from the World Bank and other sources, is executing the rural housing programme.