An Evaluation of Housing Reconstruction Programme in 2009-10 Conflict Affected Areas of District Swat, Pakistan.

Abstract

Introduction This study was conducted on “An evaluation of housing reconstruction programme in 2009-10 conflict affected areas of district Swat, Pakistan”. The study area is situated in the sub range of Hindu Kush Mountains. It lies between 34⁰-34/ to 35⁰-55/ North Latitude and 72⁰-08/ to 72⁰-50/ East Longitude. The total area of the district is 5,337 Km2 and population of 2,309,570, living in 198,000 housing units. Due to Swat operation 23,492 housing units were damaged in five districts and two Agencies namely Swat Buner, Shangla, Dir Upper, Dir Lower, Mohmand Agency and Bajuar Agency. Out of these, 11,755 housing units were completely damaged. Swat district was affected the most with damaged share of 34.6% housing unit. More than 329,792 families left their homes from the conflict affected area, of which the share of district Swat was 141,582 (42.9%) families. Hence the district Swat was selected for this research. Goal The main goal of the study was to evaluate the housing reconstruction programme and the factors affecting the quality of reconstruction, the main flaws of post war housing, infrastructure reconstruction and the people‟s satisfaction with the reconstruction process including, coverage quality, supply and demand issues. Research question, hypothesis The central research question was to find out; why there is mismatch between supply and demand in the process of reconstruction of dwelling units and required infrastructure? What were the main factors responsible for the slow process of building houses, reconstruction of infrastructure and low level of people‟s satisfaction? The main assumption of the study was lack of stakeholders‟ participation and consultation for the assessment of housing and infrastructure, resulting in low level of people satisfaction from housing reconstruction programs; lack of stakeholders‟ participation for assessing housing demand, short supply of developed land, manpower and affordable construction material.