How community volunteers can help make disaster response sustainable

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Technology-based disaster response projects are only appropriate if they are built within the social, economic and institutional capacities of a disaster-hit community. Mobilising, training and monitoring community volunteers is the key, helping to ensure that aid-funded projects such as water wells and latrines do not fall into disrepair and disuse. Using case studies of water and sanitation projects carried out by UK charity Tearfund in post-civil war Sierra Leone, this paper shows how quick fixes can be converted into sustainable, long-term solutions when they are conceived, built and maintained by local volunteers.

  • Keywords: water supply; disaster engineering; developing countries
  • Document Type: Research Article
  • DOI: 10.1680/cien.2004.157.6.32
  • Affiliations: 1: Public health engineering consultant and is currently working with the University of Glamorgan on its MSc Civil Engineering for International Development award
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