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Housing & Hazards

Why are traditional house forms no longer adequate?

Vulnerability to natural hazards is increasing in rural Bangladesh for a number of reasons. Pressure of population and the need to put more good land to agriculture also means that ever more people can only live on riverbanks or in coastal areas leaving them more exposed.

In order to become self-sufficient almost all of low-lying Bangladesh is now under rice cultivation. However, this reduces the availability of bamboo (and other natural materials) driving up the price of these resources. This pressure also means that the bamboo is cropped younger and so does not have the strength of the bamboo that used to be obtained.

A generation ago, people used to be able to freely find these materials locally in the forests.

Choices and aid

Determining how best to provide support is not always straightforward. Many organisations provide help and the local people know that there is help at hand. However, lack of local involvement and poor communication can often result in aid being used inefficiently.

In one of our early visits to Bangladesh we met a fisherman and his family who had lost everything in the 1991 cyclone. They borrowed $125 (six months' earnings) at 10% interest per month from a money lender. They spent one third of this money on food and replacing household assets and the rest on repairs to their boat - their most valuable asset and means to earn a living.

Later, a non-governmental organisation (NGO) donated 16 sheets of iron plus $12 to help repair the house. Unfortunately the money was not enough to complete the house and so it was still vulnerable to future winds. However, the man had his boat and his house and said that he was satisfied when later surveyed by the NGO. Of course he could not be persuaded to admit that his boat was actually more important to him than the house and that relief from the crippling debt was more desirable than the roof sheets (which had a similar value).

Housing and Hazards was set up to provide people with real appropriate choices and involvement in their survival strategies.

Technologies and communication

Over 80% of Bangladesh's houses are in rural areas and three quarters of those are of either non-masonry or temporary construction. Simple strengthening improvements to these houses can cost cost just 5% of the total construction cost. However, many rural homes are self-built which makes the process of disseminating information much more complex. Virtually every family in the country would need to be reached.

Even when these technologies can be communicated to the local people, they are not necessarily embraced for a variety of reasons:

• a hand-to-mouth existence means that earning a wage is the priority for most people

• they do not always own the land and could be evicted at any time

• there are so many hazards that the benefits derived from the extra expense seem too marginal

• the extra cost is too great

• even when information does reach the local people it is misunderstood due to a lack of local context or illiteracy

The Housing and Hazards group is addressing these issues by investigating means of improving communication at the grass roots level and researching affordable technologies that can be implemented by the local people.

In Bangladesh