My current research extends the scope and orientation of my doctoral scholarship. Described below are projects I am currently working on.
Project funded by National Science Foundation Rapid Grant ($45,000), 04/2010 to 03/2011
Research Collaborators:
- Principal Investigator: Dr. Emel Ganapati, Assistant Professor of Public Administration, Florida International University
- Co-Principal Investigator: Dr. Guitele Rahill, Assistant Professor of Social Work, Arkansas State University
- Senior Project Expert: Dr. Anuradha Mukherji, Assistant Professor of Urban and Regional Planning, East Carolina University
THE RESEARCH
Despite an emerging literature regarding social capital in disaster recovery, the actual impact of social capital on the speed and quality of early post-disaster housing recovery is little understood. The objective of this project is to enhance scientific knowledge concerning the role of social capital, an important component of resilience, in the early recovery process following the January 12, 2010 Haiti earthquake in the Port-au-Prince metropolitan area. The project has three specific aims: (1) Document the pre- and post-disaster social capital in three socio-economically diverse Port-au-Prince communities; (2) Document the housing recovery process in three selected Port-au-Prince communities; and (3) Assess the impact of pre- and post-disaster social capital on the speed and quality of housing recovery in these communities.
The study will involve two waves of data collection (a baseline and a follow up) spaced six months apart in Haiti. In each wave, the project team will conduct in-depth semi-structured interviews of policy makers/practitioners and community leaders, and facilitate focus groups with community residents. In addition, the team will employ participant observation in community and public meetings on post-disaster housing recovery. Lastly, the team will review secondary sources, including post-disaster housing recovery plans, newspapers, minutes of public meetings, laws and regulations, and other published documents.
The study will capture time-sensitive and perishable longitudinal data on the recent earthquake in Haiti, thereby contributing to knowledge on early post-disaster housing recovery, social capital, and resilience. It will enable policy makers to establish long-term recovery policies that take into account each community’s unique needs and capabilities rather than developing “one size fits all” policies to guide recovery interventions. Moreover, it will help identify the capabilities of selected Port-au-Prince communities.
Dr. Anuradha Mukherji, Assistant Professor of Urban and Regional Planning, East Carolina University
THE RESEARCH
Does World Bank’s emergency loan structure for urban housing reconstruction after disasters contribute to housing inequities in the recipient country? Research (Freeman, 2004) shows that World Bank loan monies allocated for housing recovery after disasters are mostly captured by middle and upper class homeowner groups, and options that are appropriate to the housing needs of low-income renters and squatters remain non-existent. The concentration of public funds for homeowner recovery comes at the cost of equitable housing recovery for all socio-economic groups and exacerbates inequalities that existed since prior to a disaster between low-income and wealthier communities (Mukherji, 2008; Oliver-Smith, 1990). Yet, it is unclear whether the current form and arrangement of the World Bank’s emergency loan program directly contributes to housing inequity during post-disaster recovery. Drawing on archival study of reconstruction project loan documents at the World Bank and in-depth interviews with key World Bank staff, my goal is to examine the structure, priority, and funding process of World Bank’s post-disaster emergency reconstruction loan (ERL) programs to understand how the existing arrangement of ERLs shapes the allocation of emergency loan monies for housing in the recipient country.
The Emergency Reconstruction Loan (ERL) is a lending mechanism, which allows quick disbursement of a World Bank loan to a recipient country after a disaster, often by restructuring existing World Bank loans to the country and reallocating loan monies from ongoing projects (World Bank, 2006). The Bank’s involvement in post-disaster housing has grown considerably in the last two decades. In 1984, funds allocated to disaster related projects made up 9.4 percent of all World Bank loan commitments, and by 2003, it had risen to 14 percent (World Bank, 2006). Whereas, one third of these projects had components specifically for housing in early 1980s, by 2003, 50 percent of the reconstruction loans were directed to housing recovery (Gilbert, 2001). This means that while disaster projects made up only 11 percent of the Bank’s total shelter lending between 1972 and 1986, they increased to 25 percent between 1987 and 2005 (Buckley & Kalarickal, 2006, p. 17). Moreover, my doctoral research shows that organizations, like the World Bank, impact housing policy and decisions in loan recipient countries through institutional practices such as the use of loan instruments like project schedules, loan expiration timelines, and review missions that evaluate ongoing projects and decide feasibility of future loans. Yet, in spite of the large dollar amounts spent through ERL on the housing sector and the impact these programs have on a large swath of population hit by disasters, ERL programs are not well understood and little studied by researchers and scholars, a gap this research project seeks to address. Moreover, despite a growing body of scholarship, among the various components of a disaster (pre-disaster mitigation, emergency preparedness, emergency response, and recovery), post-disaster recovery has received the lowest amount of attention (Berke and Beatley, 1997), and is least investigated and least understood component of post-disaster aid (Comerio, 1998). There is very limited research that has evaluated the effectiveness of programs designed to assist households and communities in rebuilding their homes and businesses (Comerio, 1998).
The significance of this project thus lies within its larger empirical scope. The study expects to contribute to future public policy debates on post-disaster housing recovery by providing a deeper understanding of the impact of external funding from organizations like World Bank on housing recovery outcomes. The study would also contribute to the debate on shelter lending policies. The World Bank’s emergency reconstruction loan (ERL) mechanism – which includes quick allocation of funds for urban housing reconstruction and recovery through public programs in loan recipient countries – contradicts the Bank’s own larger housing sector/shelter lending strategy – which is to re-structure and strengthen private market mechanisms and financing instruments. My research expects to offer greater insights into the implications of this contradiction on housing policies in general and post-disaster housing recovery in particular among loan recipient countries.
REFERENCES
Berke, Philip R. & Beatley, Timothy. 1997. After the Hurricane: Linking recovery to sustainable development in the Caribbean. Baltimore, MD; London: John Hopkins University Press
Blaikie, Piers, Cannon, Terry, Davis, Ian, & Wisner, Ben. 1994. At Risk: Natural hazards, people’s vulnerability, and disasters. London; New York: Routledge
Buckley, R. M., & Kalarickal, J. 2006. Thirty Years of World Bank Shelter Lending: What have we learned? Washington, DC: The World Bank.
Comerio, Mary C. 1998. Disaster Hits Home: New policy for urban housing recovery. Berkeley; Los Angeles: University of California Press
Davis, Ian. 1982. Shelter after Disaster: Guidelines for assistance. New York: United Nations
Drabek, Thomas E. 2002. “Following some dreams: Recognizing opportunities, posing interesting questions, and implementing alternative methods” in Robert A. Stallings (ed.), Methods of Disaster Research. Xlibris Publishing
Freeman, Paul K. 2004. “Allocation of post-disaster reconstruction financing to housing” in Building Research & Information, vol. 32, no. 5, September/October 2004, p. 427-437
Ganapati, Emel N. 2005. “Rising from the Rubble: Disaster victims, social capital, and public policy – Case of Golcuk, Turkey”, Doctoral Dissertation, University of Southern California, December 2005
Gilbert, R. 2001. Doing More for Those Made Homeless by Natural Disasters, Disaster Risk Management Series No. 1. Washington, DC: World Bank
Mukherji, Anuradha. 2008. “Negotiating housing recovery: Why some communities recovered while others struggled to rebuild in post-earthquake urban Kutch, India”, Doctoral Dissertation, University of California at Berkeley, December 2008
Oliver-Smith, Anthony. 1990. “Post-disaster housing reconstruction and social inequality: A challenge to policy and practice” in Disasters, vol. 14, no. 1, p. 7-19
Ward, Peter & Macoloo, G. Chris. 1992. “Articulation theory and self-help housing practice in the 1990s” in Urban Studies, vol. 16, no. 1, p. 60-80
World Bank Independent Evaluation Group. 2006. Hazards of nature, risks to development: An IEG evaluation of World Bank assistance for natural disasters. Washington, DC: The World Bank (Digital copy available at http://www.worldbank.org/ieg), Accessed February 15, 2008
Dr. Anuradha Mukherji, Assistant Professor of Urban and Regional Planning, East Carolina University
THE RESEARCH
How can land use planning and hazard mitigation strategies help communities achieve sustainability? Current scholarship (Berke & Campanella, 2006) argues that land use management for flood mitigation is critical for communities to achieve sustainability, both environmentally and economically. Regional land use planning and mitigation policy can affect economic activity and stability within communities by regulating development activities on hazardous flood plains or hurricane prone coastal areas, and in turn reducing recurring property loss, damage, and lost revenues from multiple occurring hazards. Mitigation strategies also impacts environmental sustainability by protecting fragile areas such as wetlands, coastal sand dunes, and floodplains. Nevertheless, while growing population concentrations in hazardous areas have increased exposure to hazard risks, contributed to the continuing rise in loss and damage from the intensity and increase in floods and hurricanes, and stretched federal dollars and post-disaster assistance programs to capacity, yet, short-term economic development goals often compete with and take precedence over mitigation policies and long-term economic stability within local communities. Indeed, except for Florida, no other state requires their local or regional governments to include flood mitigation into their comprehensive plans in the United States. Drawing upon archival research of planning and policy documents and in-depth interviews with federal, regional, and local level officials and agencies, my goal is to understand the perception and use of current federal inventive programs for mitigation by local and regional institutions, and to examine the effectiveness of federal programs in inducing local communities to include land-use planning mechanisms for growth management and flood mitigation in their comprehensive plans.
REFERENCES
Berke, Philip R., Song Y., and Stevens M. 2009. "Integrating hazard mitigation into new urban and conventional developments" in Journal of Planning Education and Research, vol. 28, no. 4, June 2009, pp. 441-455
Berke, Philip R. & Campanella, Thomas J. 2006. “Planning for post-disaster resiliency” in The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, vol. 604, March 2006, pp. 192-207
Brody, Samuel D. 2003. "Are we learning to make better plans? A longitudinal analysis of plan quality associated with natural hazards" in Journal of Planning Education and Research, vol. 23, no. 2, Winter 2003, pp. 191-201
Burby, Raymond J. 2006. “Hurricane Katrina and the paradoxes of government disaster policy: Bringing about wise governmental decisions for hazardous areas” in The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, vol. 604, March 2006, pp. 171-191
Comerio, Mary. 2004. “Public policy for reducing earthquake risks: a US perspective” in Building Research and Information, vol. 32, no. 5, Sep-Oct 2004, pp. 403-413
Deyle, Robert E., Chapin, Timothy S., and Baker, Earl J. 2008. "The proof of the planning Is in the platting: An evaluation of Florida’s hurricane exposure mitigation planning mandate" in Journal of the American Planning Association, vol. 74, no. 3, Summer 2008, pp. 349-370
Godschalk, David R., et.al. 2003. “Public participation in natural hazard mitigation policy formation: Challenges for comprehensive planning” in Journal of Environmental Planning and Management, vol. 46, no. 5, pp. 733-754
Godschalk, David R., et.al. 1999. Natural Hazard Mitigation: Recasting disaster policy and planning. Washington, DC: Island Press
Schwab, Jim, et.al. 1998. Planning for post-disaster recovery and reconstruction. Chicago, IL: American Planning Association