Reconstruction management and post-disaster low-cost housing; the case for social reconstruction A report submitted to the Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research in partial fulfilment

While the number of deaths, injures and economic losses caused by disasters increases every year worldwide, reconstruction programs in the Third World continuously fail to recover poor communities from destruction. Research demonstrates that despite that enormous resources are devoted to post-disaster reconstruction, very few housing programs targeted to low-income families have drawn to sustainable development. Furthermore, increasing uncontrolled urbanisation, growing poverty in largely populated developing nations, and insufficient mitigation programs suggest that disasters as harmful as those occurred this year, are far to be coming to an end. Low-cost housing is one of the most important components of post-disaster reconstruction. It plays a major role in peopleÕs vulnerability to disasters and in the mitigation stage, effecting not only the number of deaths, injuries and suffering population, but also the future quality of life of the survivors. Based on the latest post-disaster theories, this report hypothesises that successful social reconstruction requires the co-ordination between Òphysical factorsÓ directly related to shelter provision, wit