Background and objectives:

The earthquake that struck Pakistan on 8 October 2005 had a devastating impact, killing an estimated 80,000 people and making some three million people homeless. The earthquake destroyed or damaged an estimated 630,000 houses. UN-HABITAT’s major contribution has been to promote the innovative housing reconstruction policy. The two aspects that make this policy innovative are:

• Aa uniform application of low-cost standards ensuring equity and
• The application of an “owner-driven approach”, or supporting the people’s process of housing.

The goal of the project was to contribute to the earthquake-resistant reconstruction of private rural housing in the nine earthquake-affected districts in Kashmir and North West Frontier Province. The objective was to strengthen the capacity of the Government, civil society organisations and citizens to understand and apply earthquake-resistant housing reconstruction policies, principles and techniques.

Activities:
The main activities include:

• Strengthened Government strategy and policy-making capacity. UN-HABITAT provided support to develop and operationalise the Government’s commitment to an “owner-driven approach” in housing reconstruction.
• Strengthened the capacity of Federal and local Governments to coordinate and manage the housing reconstruction process. UN-HABITAT established eight Housing Reconstruction Centres (HRCs) that provide technical assistance and training services to reconstruction partners, engineers, architects, artisans and self-builders.
• Provided a set of standardised technical and training materials. As the Government has linked the payment of the reconstruction grant to improved earthquake resistance, uniform minimum standards of earthquake-resistant construction techniques for the various roof and wall systems in use in the affected area is necessary.
• Strengthened the capacity of Partner Organisations and Assistance and Inspection teams to train stakeholders in earthquake resistant housing reconstruction. This includes providing training of trainers (ToTs) to Partner Organisation Master Trainers who in turn will train their own Mobile Training Teams to deliver the training at the village level.
• Strengthened capacity, level of training and technical assistance in earthquake-resistant housing reconstruction at the union council level. Where no partner organisation was available, due to the de-induction of the Army, UN-HABITAT took responsibility for training and technical assistance activities at Union council and village level.
• Increased public awareness and/or technical understanding of earthquake-resistant construction principles and techniques. UN-HABITAT undertook large scale information and outreach campaigns to support technical advice and training.

Results:
The results achieved have been:

• Rural Housing Policy and Training strategy developed and published.
• Damage assessment of 600,000 houses conducted in three months.
• 14 Housing Reconstruction Centres established.
• Construction Guidelines and training curricula for different building techniques developed and released by ERRA.
• 26,078 engineers, sub-engineers, masons, carpenters and steel fixers  received technical training.
• 724,897  beneficiaries, out of which 156,091 are women, have received technical orientations and policy information.
• 4,000 village reconstruction committees have been create.
• 1,000,000 information products printed and disseminated.
• Ongoing radio programmes for public information.
• Out of 463,077 completely destroyed houses: 419,306 completed and compliant at plinth and 310,833 completed and compliant at lintel.