Tsunami Recovery: Snapshots of the Road to Reconstruction in Sri Lanka

These snapshots of lives along Sri Lanka's tsunami-struck coast are a measure of the complexity of the reconstruction process on this island.

	Norman Mahamarakkalage Patabendi and his wife, Malini Sovis, stand in front of their temporary accommodation.

June 2, 2005 — Norman and Malini Mahamarakkalage Patabendi pose for photographs. First they are outside their temporary wooden shelter with its sign at the door saying "Save the Fishermen." Later their smiles are broad, as they stand in the unfinished doorway of their brand new home. The roof is on. Soon it will be plastered, painted and ready. It's not a moment too soon, as the early south west monsoon rains are already darkening the sky.

The couple lost their original home in the massive walls of water from the tsunami last December. They were lucky. They'd been away at the time visiting Norman's mother.

Since last December, the family has had assistance in the form of two World Bank supported grants of Rs5, 000 (about US$50) for living expenses. And it was a housing grant - worth more than Rs50, 000 (about US$500) which led to the construction of their new home.

Just a few paces down the road towards the sea, in this small beachfront community of Kalutara, about 40 kilometers south of Colombo, Don Noel Palliyaguruge and his wife Mercy also smile for the camera.

But it is a very different scene. Behind them is the blackened oven of the family's bakery. It was the only item to withstand the force of the tsunami. Noel and Mercy have received two World Bank-supported grants of Rs5, 000 (about US$50) to live on, but no housing support. Their small home and business was fatefully inside the buffer zone - the no-go area for rebuilding. The Government of Sri Lanka declared the zone off-limits to any new structures in order to protect citizens from future disasters and to protect the coastal zone.

All that was left standing of Don Noel Palliyaguruge's bakery was his oven.

Noel wants to remain in this fishing community, whose business sustained his bakery. He complains the fate of those within the zone is not being addressed. He wants to rebuild his business in the location he knows - his community, his market.

Further down the road again and over a railway line even closer to the sea, fisherman Mervyn Jayasuriya stands in the rubble of his home. A temporary shower has been attached to a surviving water line. His toothbrush is tied to the vertical pipe - a heartbreaking symbol of a life now lived in the open. Mervyn is also inside the no-go buffer zone. He wants to move further from the sea but has had no news of when or where he will be moved. Mervyn hopes it will not be too far from the sea. There is no protective harbor, so the fishermen have to beach their boats and drag their engines home for safekeeping overnight.

It is this well intentioned and possibly sound judgment on the buffer zone which is creating much of the anxiety and uncertainty among the many Sri Lankans who lost so much, if not everything, last December.

The people are eager to rebuild their lives, and there seems no shortage of global funding. They are also increasingly miserable as monsoon rains turn camps into muddy pools, so they express their frustration vocally. Non-government organizations ( NGOs) working in the communities say there is much suspicion the vacated buffer zone will turn into profit for someone else as prime beachfront property for hotels. Other experienced NGOs fear an eventual slum along the beaches as the most marginalized - those who were renting or have no lands rights - filter back creating makeshift shelters while the original landowners are moved inland. Others still look ahead and see a nice strip of rebuilt houses 100 to 200 meters from the waves, a mushrooming slum on the beach and inland, particularly in the north eastern areas of the country affected by two decades of conflict.

	World Bank Vice-President of the South Asia region, Praful Patel and Bank Country Director in Sri Lanka, Peter Harrold, met local officials in the Kalutara District.

"Most of the deaths occurred within the immediate coastal area, so the idea of a buffer zone is appropriate," says Peter Harrold, World Bank Country Director in Sri Lanka. "However, there are areas, such as the far north and parts of the east coast, where land is very scarce indeed, and suggestions have been made that in these areas the buffer zone rule could be applied flexibly."

"It is immensely complex," says Praful Patel, Vice President of the South Asia region of the World Bank, who has just visited some of the communities in Kalutara. "I think we all need to recognize the extraordinary initial responses of both the government and humanitarian and NGO communities. No one starved, there was no mass outbreak of disease, people received medical attention. Now we move from the emergency relief period into full recovery and it is really just as complex and challenging as any development intervention."

Expectations are of course enormous, he says, especially as the outpouring of generosity across the globe placed unprecedented amounts of money into the system.

"It's a simple fact right now that expectations exceed the capacity to deliver. Add to this the complications of working in areas stressed by conflict, as in Sri Lanka, where equity needs to be ensured not just between tsunami-affected people but across entire communities and between ethnic groups."

Patel describes too the new stresses in communities which have suddenly become magnets for hundreds of those who would be helpful. "We heard from the mainstream NGOs who have been working in Sri Lanka for decades that over a hundred NGOs they had never heard of flooded into the communities, competing for staff and space."

This is made even more challenging, he says, by the need to ensure accountability and transparency in the use of resources.

"At the end of the day all our efforts are about helping someone like Noel the baker, literally the bread of his community, get back to baking," Patel says. "And for that to happen the fishermen have to be back fishing. In all this too there will be the poorest person who also lived on the beach, crewed on one of the boats perhaps, with no land title. In this global rebuilding effort, we have an opportunity to help rebuild communities without losing sight of the marginalized. This deepens the challenge."

The World Bank has made about $150 million available to Sri Lanka for reconstruction. So far, about $35 million has been disbursed. Most of the money has gone to the first installment of the housing grants of Rs50, 000 a time and for livelihood cash grants. About 140,000 families are benefiting from the livelihood grant scheme which provides Rs5, 000 a month for four months. So far, two months' worth has been handed out by government. The distribution is being audited for both financial management and to ensure money is reaching genuine tsunami victims. The Bank expects to extend this program for a further two months before it is phased out.

This cash grant money, both for housing and livelihoods, should begin helping small local communities tick over in time and rebuild, bake and fish.

"The whole process of reconstruction will take considerable time," cautions Patel, "but we are in it for the long haul."

For more information on the World Bank and tsunami recovery, visit
http://www.worldbank.org/tsunami