Understanding the dilemmas of integrating post-disaster and post-conflict reconstruction initiatives: Evidence from Nepal, Sri Lanka and Indonesia

This paper investigates the extent of links between the processes of post-disaster reconstruction and post-conflict reconstruction in three places - Nepal, Sri Lanka and Indonesia - which have all experienced both processes within a relatively short period of time. Drawing on extensive interviews with policy makers and practitioners it explores the dilemmas of attempting to link post-disaster and post-conflict reconstruction activities (PDR and PCR), and the key factors in decision making by those stakeholders who support this approach, and those who oppose it. The paper finds that whilst there is an appetite among many practitioners and stakeholders to link the two processes, there is also a concern that this will be difficult to achieve in a context that is already highly challenging. It demonstrates that in practice the two processes have largely been understood and practiced as separate, though there are some important instances of overlap between the two. Where this overlap has occurred, it has produced very different effects in the different cases. Finally, the paper identifies a number of factors that appear to either prevent or enable links being made between post-conflict and post-disaster programming. These factors include politics and coordination, the nature of the conflict settlement, the difficulty of maintaining institutional memory, and the importance of sustaining the pace of the processes.