In the wake of the January 12, 2010 earthquake in Haiti, the objective of this RAPID proposal is to test the hypothesis that infrastructure rehabilitation priorities based on local knowledge elicited through stakeholder driven processes will differ fundamentally from those developed by technical experts based outside the impacted area. In the recent literature, Easterly (2007), for example, contrasts the "planner's" approach to development aid with that of the "searcher." While "planners" make decisions about how to apply development aid assuming that they already know the answers, "searchers" admit not knowing the answer up front, and exert much effort to seek innovative solutions based on a detailed assessment of local opportunities and constraints based on close interaction with local population. To test the hypothesis, the research will focus on water and sanitation issues in Leogane, a town of approximately 40,000 people located about 30 km to the west of the capital and very near the quake's epicenter. The findings are anticipated to have implications on many imminent decisions regarding Haitian reconstruction efforts as well as for the development of new multifunctional infrastructure strategies throughout the world. The co-PIs include a social scientist who is an expert in Haitian culture, politics, and history. The other three PI/co-PIs are engineers who are expert in water infrastructure. All have international experience in developing countries, and all have French language skills. Two consultants on the team are Haitian nationals and Leogane natives with intimate knowledge of the City and fluency in Kreyol. The effort integrates education and outreach into the research plan, and will contribute critical information to the Haitian reconstruction effort. Participants in a local Leogane Stakeholder Committee will partake in cross-cutting discussions about key infrastructure issues, which will enable them to more actively participate in local infrastructure decision making. Two Drexel graduate students will incorporate the results of the field findings and elicitation exercises into their thesis work. The results of the research will be disseminated at an upcoming special NSF sponsored workshop on Haiti, and will be presented at conferences and submitted for publication in peer reviewed journals. In addition, arrangements have been made for liaison with USAID and CDC. Results will be used to create new Engineers Without Borders (EWB) projects.
This award is urgent because of the rapid pace at which decisions about how to invest hundreds of millions of dollars of post quake development Haiti aid are being made. IRB review and approval has been received for this award. The proposing team has made specific arrangements for transportation, housing, food, and water in Haiti.
This award is co-funded by NSF's Office of International Science and Engineering, Americas Program.
Bruce Hamilton 3/11/10
In the aftermath of the January 2010 Haiti earthquake, the goal of this research was to inform decision-making processes concerning water and sanitation by piloting a replicable participatory process in Léogâne, a town located at the quake's epicenter. We sought to 1) characterize the differing perspectives of local stakeholders regarding how reconstruction funds could most efficiently and effectively improve water and sanitation conditions in Léogâne; 2) demonstrate a process by which the perspectives of a wide range of stakeholders could be elicited rapidly in order to inform post-disaster reconstruction. A multi-pronged research plan included discreet activities designed to survey post-earthquake physical conditions and gather perspectives of a wide range of stakeholders. The research team included four Drexel professors (three engineers and one social scientist), three community planners from Léogâne, six trained Haitian enumerators, five trained Haitian workshop facilitators, and a base team of Drexel staff and researchers. The methods included a physical survey of water, sanitation, and drainage conditions (95 features), a paper survey implemented by Kreyòl-speaking enumerators (171), a series of interviews (19 semi-structured, 6 open-ended) and participant observation at WASH cluster meetings. The field research culminated with a full-day participatory workshop attended by 76 local community leaders. Field work was conducted over a five month period during two, one-week trips to Haiti. Summary of Findings: The interviewees and workshop participants demonstrated a holistic understanding of the complexity of local water and sanitation problem. Indeed, workshop participants identified a much wider array of potential water and sanitation initiatives than did government or NGO interviewees. The diversity of ideas introduced by the participants during the workshop was more extensive than even those included on the structured survey or semi-structured interview questions produced by the research team. As became evident local stakeholders intimately understand the relationship between environmental protection, education, and centralized and decentralized infrastructure strategies. Local participants suggested multiple solutions customized to the needs of the urban, peripheral, and outlying zones of the city. They recognized the need to address protection of source waters and the environment in general, irrigation, water treatment, public and private drinking and sanitation facilities. They also emphasized that people are willing to pay for and co-manage services, while underscoring the need for a national legal framework. While recognizing the potential value of international organizations in funding and/or providing technical assistance, local stakeholders also expressed that these NGOs should work collaboratively with the community and local government. The workshop participants indicated a strong desire to participate substantively in the reconstruction decision-making process themselves, with many willing to continue the dialogue. The comprehensive dialogue fostered in the workshop carries great potential for informing more sustainable water and sanitation practices in Léogâne. In a post-workshop evaluation survey many participants expressed appreciation of the opportunity to discuss their ideas with others and a desire to continue to find ways for their ideas to be heard and potentially implemented. We conclude that despite the upheavals of the earthquake: There is clearly a constituency at the local level who would be willing to participate in the conceptualization, implementation, and potential operation and maintenance of future water and sanitation systems in Léogâne. This local constituency demonstrated a deep understanding of the complex nature of the water and sanitation challenges in Léogâne, and had specific ideas about how to custom tailor solutions to address unique local conditions. Our research identified critical gaps in communication between national planners, international NGO’s, and local citizens, civil society organizations, and government officials. These gaps reinforce divergent visions of what needs to be done and how the recovery and reconstruction effort should proceed. General recommendations that emerge from this research are that: Local stakeholders have knowledge, ideas and energy that can be leveraged in efforts to plan and implement reconstruction strategies in Léogâne and infrastructure planning in general. The participatory workshop we implemented demonstrated one way that local knowledge can be mobilized, but much more work is needed to refine the methods, and the interactional settings in which such activities take place. Participatory processes – including local stakeholders as well as foreign and local experts– should be augmented and strengthened during post-disaster emergency response periods, rather than replaced by foreign NGOs or government dictate in an effort at quick fixes. If undertaken systematically, the engagement of stakeholders in government or donor financed development efforts can contribute to the long-term sustainability of such efforts. We conclude that greater attention by both engineers and social scientists to multi-stakeholder arenas, interactions amongst actors, and unfolding decision-making processes, can contribute to better post-disaster engineering. Local participation in post-disaster engineering projects can provide better and more comprehensive solutions to complex problems that cut across human and natural systems, can help to build in local capacity, and ultimately can shore up the sustainability of the entire infrastructure system and thereby reduce social vulnerability.
