A/HRC/16/42 recovery strategy that best meets their needs. And they should be the ultimate judges of a recovery effort’s success or failure40”. 41. With the correct approach and support from the national government and outside agencies, the people directly affected by disasters and conflicts ought to remain directly involved despite the enormity of the challenges they face. This is particularly important in the areas of resettlement and reconstruction. The individuals, families and communities affected possess vital local knowledge and experience, and when working together can be an invaluable partner in designing and implementing creative solutions. Community-based reconstruction, linked to planning and reconstruction processes developed at the municipal and national levels, should be promoted wherever possible. The IASC guidelines accordingly advise agencies “In the planning and rehabilitation of housing and human settlements, [to] devise community-based strategies to maximize the participation of all sectors of affected communities (e.g. community housing teams). Local communities should be involved in decision-making regarding the location, design and infrastructure of housing and settlements to ensure that they are safe, habitable, accessible and culturally appropriate 41.” 42. Studies have demonstrated the potential negative effects of failing to follow this approach. One example is research done in Gujarat, India, in the aftermath of the 2001 earthquake which left 1.2 million people homeless and damaged 1.7 million properties including 15,000 schools, affecting a total of 490 towns and 8,000 villages42. This was met with a comprehensive, generally successful and internationally acclaimed relief and rehabilitation effort managed by the Gujarat State Disaster Management Authority. The response was coordinated through a system of “village adoption”, whereby NGOs and other entities took on responsibility for the reconstruction of the villages. Most affected households were offered two options: owner-driven reconstruction and donor-driven reconstruction. In the process different approaches were followed, allowing for flexibility, with varying success. A number of the lessons drawn from the study emphasized the importance of the involvement and active agency of the affected people, as well as the influence of location on the lives of affected communities. In one case, a new township constructed three kilometres from the original village that had been destroyed was found six years after the earthquake to be empty but for one or two houses occupied by migrant workers renting the properties from the intended owners. The intended inhabitants of this settlement, who had initially accepted the offer of houses built for them, had returned to the original village and built their own: “[The villagers said] that they did not want to leave their village, ‘…it is the home of our ancestors’. When asked who built the village, the proud response is that they did it themselves 43 ”. In another village, while people had occupied the houses that had been built for them, they described their new settlement in “wholly negative” terms such as: “It is dead”; “We are bored”; “There are no shops 44 ”. 43. The Gujarat study points to some of the dangers of resorting to rushed, donor-driven programming, which can neglect the social capital of the affected residents, and to contractor-driven reconstruction projects, which are rarely developmental in nature. The authors conclude that “The drive to rebuild quickly inevitably leads early on to the decision to hire commercial contractors. At this point projects such as these usually cease to be 40 41 42 43 44 14 W. J. Clinton, Lessons Learned from Tsunami Recovery: Key Propositions for Building Back Better. United Nations, Office of the UN Secretary-General’s Special Envoy for Tsunami Recovery (2006) p.4. IASC, Human Rights and Natural Disasters: Operational Guidelines and Field Manual, p. 47. D. Sanderson and A. Sharma, “Winners and losers from the 2001 Gujarat earthquake”, in Environment and Urbanization, Vol. 20, No.1 (April 2008) pp. 177-186 Ibid. p. 181. Ibid., p. 181.